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June 29, 2009

Footsteps of The Carpenter

Ohio missionaries restore Woodbine home

By Carl Keith Greene / Staff Writer

Fourteen young people and eight adults from Ohio followed the footsteps of The Carpenter this week and repaired a Kentucky widow’s home.

Thirteen months ago, Joyce Hughes’ husband died, leaving her with little income, a home with a leaking roof, a rotting sunroom and lots of trash to be removed.

A while back she mentioned her plight to a friend, who got in touch with Harold Romines, a deacon at Woodbine Christian Church.

And the miracle began to form.

Romines contacted his nephew, Mike Stewart, pastor of the First Christian Church at Urbana, Ohio.

And for the third time in the past four years, Stewart brought a team to Woodbine on a mission.

The team arrived Monday to repair Hughes’ home and by Wednesday had nearly completed its task.

On Wednesday afternoon, a new back deck was nearing completion after the sunroom had been removed and new vinyl siding placed on the outside wall of the home.

The roof over the bathroom had been removed and replaced with a new one.

A huge bonfire was destroying accumulated trash and the team was working hard together.

The amateur carpenters were, Stewart said, using skills they have learned in previous trips similar to this one.

They even reset the air conditioner unit and moved some wiring in the process of getting rid of the Florida room and building a new deck.

Romines’ calls aren’t the only reasons Stewart makes his pilgrimages to Woodbine.

“This is my mother’s home church,” he said as he sat on the steps connecting the basement of the church with the ground floor.

“We’ve been coming down here for several years. Harold has jobs for us to do,” he added.

Nick Bishop, 17, a high school senior and member of the Urbana Church, said this is his second mission trip. He takes the trips, “to be able to help. Because it’s the right thing to do and I should be doing it.”

Last year the group came to a Barton Mill Road home and painted the trim, put on a roof, installed a screen door and built new steps to the front door, Bishop said.

He said the mountains are a nice change from the flatland of Ohio. “It’s kind of nice to see the landscape and experience the mountains.”

He plans after graduation to study X-ray technology at Kettering College of Medical Arts.

He is one of the young people who do annual fundraising for the summer events.

Stewart said they work all year to get the funds so they are not a burden on the host church.

“We bring the money for supplies and materials with us and we do all the work,” he said.

“That way there is no cost to the people in the community where they work.”

“Well, they do feed us,” he added of the Woodbine church, “it does cost them that.”

The workers spend the night at homes of church members.

This is the seventh mission trip the group has made and all but five of this year’s group have been on more than one, Stewart said.

As the seventh mission of the adults and young people of the First Christian Church at Urbana was coming to an end, the workers were looking forward to a trip to the water park on Friday before heading home on Saturday.

And standing in her back yard watching a small deck and steps to the back door taking shape, Hughes said, “It took people I’d never seen before. People I never knew,” to fix her house.

“It was a blessing of God.”

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