Reaching Out to Others and Receiving Much in Return
as "Service Retreat-ers"
As shared by Mary Bodde, SC
Hill Connections is happy to share Mary's moving story about a life-changing experience which she shared with college students and people in Eastern Kentucky. In reaching out to others, their lives were in turn deeply touched by the experience.
This inspirational story is different in two ways: a group, instead of an individual, is featured, and names and pictures are not included, as requested by Mary.
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Every year, or every other year, when we could find five days between the Winter Semester and Spring Term, five university students and I did a "service retreat" in the mountain region of Eastern Kentucky. We roofed, painted or made other repairs on family homes -- whatever inexperienced young people could manage. A Sister, who knew many of the mountain folks from their visits to her clothing and pantry mission, always located the sites and took us up the "hollers" to the families. Our volunteer experiences were often life-changing for participants -- and sometimes for the recipients, as in the following account. |
A few days after Christmas a postcard greeting reached me, their campus minister, asking me to send to five university students Marie's love and her wish to "see you all soon." (Four years ago we had spent only three days working on her house.) What was so remarkable about that message? We would learn that in renewing her home in the coal mining area of far-eastern Kentucky, we had renewed Marie, too, in the bargain!
The students remember meeting Marie as a lethargic, depressed housewife, who didn't have the energy to empty and wash the food-caked pans on her stove or the dishes piled in her sink and on its drain boards.
During those three days, the students transformed her kitchen: made and hung curtains; built a cabinet for her dishes and set up wallboards for her skillets and cooking utensils; scrubbed floors and furniture; and found carpets to cover the broken linoleum. (Marie couldn't believe that university students would give up almost a week to travel to her home two states away and do all that work for nothing!)
Gradually each day, she seemed to regain a little more sense of well being. The first afternoon while we worked, she cleaned her bedroom and took out two huge bags of trash for pick up. When we arrived the next day, she was sweeping her porch, and on the third, wet mopping it, and changing the water in a large aquarium that she had dragged out from her living room. (How she managed that last, none could imagine!) And each day she responded a bit more.
Just before leaving on their third afternoon, when the students had arranged a party for her older son's 18th birthday, Marie was laughing and hugging everyone, exchanging addresses and begging all to come back soon.
By Christmas that same year, the Sister who managed the clothing and food pantry in the town, and who had taken the 'service retreat-ers' into the 'holler' where Marie lived, wrote to me: "I don't know what you folks did but Marie is like a new person!"
These students hadn't built the shelves that she had wanted -- no wall space was available in the bedroom for her four children's clothing -- but they had put a new face on her kitchen and laughter in her voice.
Following the advice of the pastor, who had offered living space in his rectory while we were in the area, one of the students continued to send cards and write to Marie. That personal touch must have made all the difference, and continued for many years.
The students are in careers around the world -- working as a physician assistant, in the Peace Corps, for a state Dept. of Natural Resources, or completing advanced degrees at other universities. Mary Bodde, SC, retiring in 1999 after 14 years of service as campus minister, has many other inspirational memories recorded in her heart and mind.