ASP Trip 2026 Blog

Saturday, June 6, 2026 - Day 1

My First Welcome to the daily ASP blog! I’ll post once each day about our experiences during the day.

We started at First United Methodist Church, Glen Ellyn at 8:00 am. It’s a bit like playing Tetris to get the vans packed up, but we were able to do so and depart by about 9:30. The drive to Covington, KY was the best kind; uneventful. I will say, though, that their choice of music, and mine are a bit different. I learned about a group called My Chemical Romance. It’s not my first choice, but then, my music was not my parents’ first choice either. It was a good trip down. The picture is from our lunch stop on the way down

We are spending the night in the basement youth room of Trinity Episcopal Church. Check out the photos of this place. It’s everything you would want for a youth room.

We had dinner at our favorite pizza place, and then crossed the Ohio River to spend a little time in Cincinnati. After a little ice cream, we’ll play some games and then it’s bed time. 

Tomorrow we head out to our assigned ASP center. 

Sunday, June 7, 2026 - Day 2

It’s Sunday morning. The kids are all asleep, but I’m on my normal body clock and so I take a walk early in the morning. I walked over the Roebling Bridge to Cincinnati and watched the sun rise over the Ohio River.  I’ll go to my newly discovered coffee shop shop, get a drink and the newspaper, and enjoy the one hour of quiet that I’ll have today. 

Monday, June 8, 2026 - Day 3

Today is Monday, which means it was our first work day. We have three crews working at three different sites. One crew is replacing an existing porch. Today that involved removing the porch that was there. It’s a neat family that lives at the home. There are two little ones and an infant. Sometimes on an ASP trip a couple of volunteers spend time with the kids in the family. This is positive all around because the toddlers get to play with someone new, but they also tend to stay away from the work areas. It’s much safer for everyone involved.

Another crew is working on installing a new kitchen floor, but this project is a good example of how working on an old house is like peeling an onion. Once the subfloor was removed, they found rotten floor joists. That needs to be remedied before proceeding.

My crew is replacing flooring. We removed a couple of layers of vinyl and some wood floor in order to expose the subfloor, which is basically sound. 

It’s hot here, but not as hot as we have experienced in the past. My crew is very fortunate in that we are working indoors.

Today’s highlight happened this morning. Each morning before breakfast we have morning devotional, known as “ devo.” Two of our crew volunteered to lead it today. Kai and Nola prepared a devo that focused on meeting new people and loving our neighbors. I cry pretty easily in church, and this was no exception. It’s a beautiful thing to see youth talking about their faith and how to lead their lives as a result of what they believe.

Tuesday, June 9, 2026 - Day 4

It’s Tuesday on our ASP trip, and I thought I would provide what a typical day looks like.

7:00 am is wake up time, although I usually wake up much earlier, around 5:00. It’s just a body clock thing for me, but I enjoy the quiet time alone doing some yoga stretching. I would like to get a short run in, but the weather has not cooperated, and the hill we are on is intimidating, to say the least. Irma wakes early also and spends her alone time taking a walk.

7:15 is morning devotional. One volunteer, often one of the youth leads us in a short reflection on why we are here and how we can grow in the process.

7:30 is breakfast. It’s a hot breakfast, nothing like you would get at a restaurant, but filling and nutritious. I supplement with a nice selection of hot sauces and homemade plum and apricot jams.

8:00-9:00 we dress for the worksite and gather tools and construction materials and make our lunches.

9:00 we depart for our worksites. It may take as little as 5 minutes or as much as an hour to get to our homes. This year, our drive is about 20 minutes. It can be a harrowing ride. These country roads follow stream beds and twist and turn quite a bit.

We work until about 4:00, depending on if we reach a good stopping point or not. We take lots of water breaks, particularly if we are working outside. Lunch is at our worksite.

4:30-6:00 we check in with the ASP staff and discuss how the work went. We plan the next days tasks, and then hit the long awaited showers.

6:00 is dinner, a hot, filling, and nutritious meal.

7:15 is Evening Gathering on most days. That’s a time when we sing and participate in an ASP staff led activity that may focus on spiritual development, local culture and economy, or some other topic of interest. 

8:30-10:30 is social time. We might go out for ice cream, run to Walmart, or play games in the common area.

10:30 is lights out and bed time, if you made it that long awake. 

It all starts again the next day. Here’s a few pics from today.

Wednesday, June 10, 2026 - Day 5

It’s Wednesday at ASP. 

I didn’t tell this story yesterday because I didn’t know how it ended at the time. Now I do.

One of the things we bring with us im a Leader Binder is a packet of medical consent forms. We pack them away and pray that we never need them, then shred them when we get home. Yesterday we needed one. This story ends well; well maybe not “well” but better than in could have ended.

On my site we are installing a new floor. We removed the existing floor and had repaired the subfloor where necessary. The next step in the process is the installation of  3/4 inch OSB in 4x8 foot sheets. These are very heavy. One sheet weighs about 80 pounds. While moving sheets into the house, one of our youth lost his footing and the sheet landed on his little finger.
Once I saw the injury, it was clear that we needed to get to an ER, and fortunately there is a hospital within about 100 yards of where we are staying. ASP has plans for these situations. It’s pretty simple. We stop what we are doing, and all of the crew gets in the van to leave.

The care we received at the ER was wonderful. However, we were told to see an orthopedic doctor the next day. The nearest orthopedic doctor is 90 miles away. Remember, we’re in eastern Kentucky.

The visit went better than I expected. There is no need for surgery, just daily dressing changes and medications, along with a home doctor’s appointment within the week. It could have been far worse.

Thursday, June 13, 2026 - Day 6

It’s Thursday! The week is nearly finished. It sure got hot here in a hurry. Yesterday was brutal and today was the same. One of our crews is working outside, while the other two are indoors. We heard that there have been severe storms back home and hope that all are well.

Today is our picnic. We take off work a little early to be able to shower and prepare to go to the park where we grill burgers and hot dogs. It’s a lot of fun because we invite the families whose homes we are working on to join us at the picnic. Most come, and it’s a nice way to meet some of the other families.

While we’re in the grocery store on our way to the worksite, a local woman asked me if I was with ASP. (We stand out like sore thumbs. The gigantic white vans and our accents are dead giveaways.) She asked because she needed help for her son’s home. We are trained with how to respond because this type of interaction happens quite often. I explained that she needed to go to the ASP website for the application. That by itself is problematic here. The cell service is terrible, and home internet service is an expense that many cannot afford. It’s a true digital divide. The lady needed me to write the url address down so that she could try later, but she said that she would need help from a relative in figuring out how to reach the website.

So, you add the lack of economic opportunities here to the poor connectivity, and you have a real downward spiral. Some counties are pouring money into internet access infrastructure so that more of the younger generation will find ways to work from home, thus injecting a little more cash into the local economy.

Friday, June 12, 2026 - Day 7

It’s Friday! That makes it the last work day for us. My day started with an invitation to help the staff here with what’s known as the hardware run. It’s a trip to the nearest Lowe’s, which is 35miles away. It was interesting to see the incredible variety of materials we were buying; everything from star drill bits, to joist holders, to J channel for siding, to the plumbing needed for a shower. We departed at 5:30 am and didn’t get back until 8:00 am.

The last work day can be exhilarating or frustrating. It’s exhilarating when you are able to finish your assigned task, but frustrating when you simply cannot. The important thing to remember is that another crew from another church will pick up where you left off. There are over 10,000 volunteers here this summer, scattered across the Appalachian Mountains. A lot gets accomplished by those volunteers in one summer.

My crew was able to finish our assigned task. We removed wood and vinyl flooring along with some carpeting. We repaired the subfloor where needed and laid down an OSB subfloor which will support the new vinyl flooring to be installed later.

Our last night always includes what we call a cross ceremony. We meet in our work crews and have an affirmation circle. It’s a very moving experience.

Tomorrow morning we depart early and drive all day to get home on Saturday evening.

We can’t thank you enough for all of your support for this trip. The youth and adults had a wonderful experience which can best be described as transformative.