BY PRISCILLA GREEAR

Staff Writer

ALPHARETTA--Teens from St. Thomas Aquinas Church lived the Gospel of service June 20-28 as they renovated five homes for the poor in the Appalachian mountains of West Virginia.

Carmen Lerma, St. Thomas Aquinas Life Teen director, led 23 teens to the small coal mining town of Whitesville on the group’s annual mission trip and its third to Appalachia. The group was accompanied by Deacon Bill Keeling, building contractor Billy Carman and Don Hoffman, who served as building supervisors, a kitchen crew of three and four other core members and parish volunteers.

The workers were assigned by the Helping Hands organization of West Virginia to renovate a 100-year-old home and other homes for a single mother of five, a family of five without bathroom facilities and other families.

The group broke into crews at 8 a.m. each morning. They purchased lumber and other building supplies and, assisted by building supervisors, painted and did carpentry and plumbing work until 4 p.m. in 100 degree temperatures. Renovations included installing sinks, cabinets and ceilings, providing electricity and running water, building a laundry room, porch and a shelter for a homeless man and rebuilding roofs and walls. Ceiling fans were installed in all homes.

Lerma said the teens slept in a community center, ate meals at St. Joseph the Worker Church and bathed at the facilities of a local swimming pool. The teens developed a spirit of community and sense of humor, she said, as they worked in the homes, some of which had towels hung for closets, holes in the floors and seven sleeping mats in a room.

While some initially joined the trip to socialize, the youth director said the group worked hard and followed the team creed to live the Gospel message.

“This is hard work and if you can’t live the team creed then you can take your money and go home,” she told the youth. “Every single one of them signed that creed and lived it the entire time...There’s something about the hard work...It brought the message of living the Gospel home.”

Recreation included a rafting trip, line dancing, pingpong and card playing. Participants were assigned to lead the team in morning and evening prayer for group members and for those they were serving.

Parish bookkeeper Dot Gallagher, who has been on six mission trips, said, “It seems so natural to pray for what you’re working for because you don’t have all the answers. It doesn’t all make sense...The Appalachian people still haven’t come through the Depression.”

Gallagher said she was encouraged by the growth of the teens, who began to overcome judgmental attitudes as they worked on the homes and realized they could make a difference.

Thomas Matia, 16, said the most challenging part was “just seeing all the people there in their state of living and really how much more you have...You kind of felt sorry for them. Everything was real dirty.”

“When you think of the very poor people you think of people sitting on sidewalks and you don’t think of the people that live in very junkie houses. This is the great America...(yet) there are some very needy people.”

“At first I was going for a fun trip, but when I went there and saw the motivation of the people it changed. I wanted to help out. A lot of them were very into the project, “ he said.

The Life Teen group raised $7,000 for the trip through car washes, fund-raisers and pledges. Lerma hopes other youth groups will participate in similar mission projects or join the St. Thomas Aquinas mission trip next summer.

“Teens are very up for the hard work,” she said.