funstuff

these are the stories of ASP as told by me or other people who have encountered, in some way, this amazing journy.

    I didn't know what to expect of this trip. I don't quite know how I got into it...but I knew I wasn't going to get out. All I knew was that I was going to some place, somehow, to help someone to have a better life.
    Well it turned out that my center was as far south in West Virginia as we could possably get. We took one wrong turn and ended up in kentucky. The whole trip down, I was enchanted with the mountains and the beauty. I didn't want to go home.
    Once we got to Mingo County, Matewan, WV, we followed the ML group to find the school. I still had no idea what was to come. I couldn't even belive that I was laredy here after a year of preperations.
    Once we got there, the other group opened up right away. They were so friendly. and that night, we encountered our first EG (evening gathering). The staff was awsome, I wil never forget them.
    On monday morning we started our first work day. It figured that my work group was doing roofing. That was the one thing I didn't want to do. I didn't think I could do it. But we got there, and we all worked out butts off. We sweat and we hit our hands with our hammers...but we managed.
    To my surprise, the work wasn't the hard part...
    At our site lived a 20 year old girl named Mary and her 19 year old boyfriend, Perry. They had a two month old named Roger. Well, Mary had the mental capacity of maybe an 8 year old. Think of an 8 year old now...think of how they would treat a puppy. They would want it really badly, and love it to death, but they wouldn't want to take care of it. They wouldn't want to share either...that means puppy doesn't get taken care of to the full potential.
    Well, that's how it was with Roger, he was like a toy to her. To feed him she would just lie him on the matress and put the bottle on his chest...but he was only two months old...he can't feed himself. Perry would try to feed him the right way and Mary would yell at him. Roger was so skinny...it was hard to look at him sometimes...but it got harder.
    Georgia (a woman working with us) was holding baby Roger when a man came over to ask for an application, he too needed help. Georgia had me hold Roger...but a couple minutes later, Roger stopped breathing in my arms. I looked at his face...his little eyes closed hard, his mouth wide open...then I felt his finger nails digging into my skin and I knew he was in pain.
    Well, I'm a lover of children and can't stand to see one in pain...so that became too much for me...I broke down crying and georgia took him back.
    There was nothing we could do about it.
    All in all, the week gave me a lot. Looking back on it I did everything I didn't think I could do...I became friends with people I didn't know (and a lot of them), became friends with people I knew but were in different cliques, helped to build a roof, made a lot of friends, and came home alive. Realizing that I could do everything I told myself I couldn't do, and looking back on my oast, I realize there's someone or something there helping me along. I don't know in what exactly, but I have faith in something...and that really means a lot to me.