Mr. and Mrs. Harper have six children — four boys and two girls.  They were able to purchase a house two years ago, and not long afterwards the roof began to leak.  Heavy rains poured inside, ruining the ceilings and insulation.  One door was broken, leaving only one entrance to the house — a fire hazard! 

Mr. Harper has Multiple Sclerosis, compounded by injuries from an automobile accident a few years ago.  They have not been able to do necessary repairs for safety or comfort in their house.

College students help insulate the Harpers' home.

Three teams went into the house and swarmed on the great need there.  As the sheetrock was replaced, the insulation helped to keep in warmth and kept down the constant dust from open ceilings with blown insulation leaking in.  Then Mrs. Harper’s whole attitude began to change.  Where she had been too overwhelmed to even try to clean, she was then throwing things away and motivated to make the house more of a home.

The first group of students from Cabrini College in Pennsylvania brought the Harpers back to the church on their final night to share pizza, play games with the children and show pictures of the week projected on a screen.  It was their gift of hospitality for the family.

The second week, Emeline came on the mission with her two teenage grandsons — in part as a chaperone and in part because she had never been on mission before.  She kept saying over and over that she couldn’t do anything.  She certainly didn’t need to learn any thing new to be one of the most valuable members of the team.  She worked side by side with Mrs. Harper helping her to clean, organize and arrange.  Her gift of presence was as valuable in this mission as every sheetrock nail driven into the ceiling.

The students from the University of Wisconsin who came the third week worked tirelessly to finish the housing project, yet they never forgot that the most important aspect of the mission was in relationship.  They spent time with the family and got to know the children well.  At the end of their week they discovered that they had funds left over, so on the last day they took all of the children to Wal-Mart and bought them clothing and games, and they gave the parents a gift certificate from Lowes to put toward floor covering — that is, after arranging a 10 percent discount for them with the manager! Their gift to the family was generosity.

The selfless giving of these groups changed the lives of the family they served.  They saw God’s grace and, through tears, were thankful for the relationships they built with them.  In return for the weeks of work, the children made a ceramic plaque for the site supervisor that had a prayer on it, and Mrs. Harper wrote a poem of thanks.  Mrs. Harper said that the volunteers were truly God’s hands, and the family would never be the same.

The volunteers would not be the same either.  In other missions some said that they did not have the opportunity to get to know the family for whom they had worked.  When I asked what they had perhaps learned about themselves, some said, “I learned not to judge people so quickly.”  “I learned that sometimes if you take the time to know someone you can understand.”  “I learned that even though we seem different, we are all very much alike.”