1959 Mission Project in Kentucky

Back in the mid-fifties, good friends of my parents, Jerry and Hessie Pierce, answered the Lord's call to serve a camp in Emalena, Kentucky. After serving  several years, they were sharing with our church about their ministry and showed a photo of the cabin they were living in. They said that it was so cold in winter that water would freeze in the kitchen two feet from their hot pot belly stove.

My father was a builder who specialized in church construction in Southern New Jersey. He suggested that our church sponsor a mission trip to Kentucky to build the Pierce family a better house. He offered to provide a truck and trailer loaded with tools, windows, doors and other materials. Members of Elmer Baptist Church pitched in and donated money and other materials. My father, three of his sons, Ralph, David and John, a future son-in-law and pastor, Craig, plus two men from the church volunteered to go. Jerry found helpers in Kentucky to lay the foundation before our arrival.

Loaded to the axle!


Prayer


Brother Dave drove his Beetle down








That is my father and I. My most vivid memory was of those horrible sweat bees!






If you want a toilet, you need water!












Jerry sent the next photo after the house was finished