River Rat Ramble

Youth Group is in full swing once again, with 20 kids hanging out with us on our first night back from the Christmas break. We have had a lot of new youth show up. Some are friends of the kids that normally attend and some are new to the church. Also, the group from Sebastian keeps getting bigger and bigger. If this keeps up, the Esleboughs are going to need a tour bus. The Wednesday night dinner helps get kids to attend. All of this good Christian fellowship is helping to strengthen our youth group and our congregation.

River Rat looks to be huge for us again this year. We expect this to be another record setting year. Typically, River Rat is the highlight of the year. However, this year we are working on something additional for our high school youth. We are working on developing spiritual maturity and leadership. We are in the planning stages of taking them on a mission trip.

We will be heading to West Virginia this summer. Instead of the typical high school camp we opted to do a mission trip. Our high school kids are ready; the years of doing Youth in Action have certainly helped prepare them. The family we will be helping out is the Muncy family. Bill Muncy is an out of work coal miner. After having triple bypass surgery a few years ago and now battling cancer in the kidney, he is unable to return to work. He will have it removed prior to our trip. He has a daughter Sasha, who is in the 8th grade. He has been married to Ruthie, well, for as long as I can remember. The Muncy’s home survived the flood a few years ago. When organizations came in after the flood, he deferred their help to other folks in the hollow. The porch needs to be replaced and preferably a less steep set of stairs. The siding is falling off and missing in some places. The bottom floor still needs to be dug out again. He is still a little reluctant to take some help. One of the reasons he is willing to is because of his wife and daughter. He wants to get some stuff done in case the surgery doesn’t get the cancer. The other reason is because he knows what it will mean for our kids.

Times are hard. Some say they are the hardest we’ve been through in two or three generations. There are people we sit next to who are losing their homes and/or jobs. I learned how to deal with hard times up in “the hollow”. We were poor—we just didn’t know we were. Faith and family were priorities. Exercising our faith in action together as a team and meeting people like the Muncy family will be a wonderful experience. While there is a great value to be in a place worshiping with thousands of Christians like Rock the Universe, going back in “the hollow” and God with their hands will be an experience that these youth cannot get anywhere else.

In addition, this will bring hope to the hollow. But hope is not a good word for the folks I know up there. Hope doesn’t require action, as in: “I hope I win the Lottery” or “I hope I beat this cancer.” That’s different than “I pray God helps me through this, but either way I know He’s in control”. Maybe we can bring our faith in action— encouragement from seeing some kids from a church 900 miles away, responding to the love of Jesus, reminding them of what it means to be the church.

4 Given,
Jimmy Smith