Nashville Mission Trip

Members of Ozark Presbyterian Church and Community Presbyterian Church joined together in a mission trip to Nashville in June of 2011. The group was making repairs to houses that were affected by flooding in May of 2010. The Community Presbyterian team consisted of Pastor Dennis, Ralph Taylor, Cindy Werner, Reed Click, and Ken Bavuso.

Some reflections on the trip from Pastor Dennis:

“We had an uneventful drive to Nashville, unless you count the longer route one of our “Garmin’s”
lead us on. Took us out of our way, but kept us mostly on interstate highways. Got to Westminster
Presbyterian, Nashville around 8 pm in the evening and were able to bed down for a good
night’s rest in beds constructed for the mission teams. A group of adults and youth from Albuquerque,
NM joined us.

Monday morning we sat down for our orientation meeting and to see what lie ahead of us, and
then set out to work in four teams on four different houses. At one it was mowing and cleaning up
a yard that had been neglected for over a year. At the others it was doing home repairs of
damage done to the homes during the flood of May 2010. From Monday through Thursday we
worked on these homes. Then on Friday, two teams continued the work they had begun and were
able to finish it and the other two teams moved on to work on two more houses and then help
demolish a structure that had to come down. Most of the teams had 4 or 5 people on them; one
team was made up of just two.

What this mission trip and the mission trip of last year showed me is how Presbyterian Disaster
Assistance is great at helping people recover from a disaster over the long term. Other groups are
great at helping right after the disaster occurs, we excel at helping families do the long term
repairs to their homes and get back into their homes.

We completed the work needed on two homes and the others we helped get work done in
preparation for others to follow us and help the families get on down the road of getting their
home repaired.

Another important aspect of the mission trip was our evening devotional times. Phyllis and I
shared in leading these devotions. The devotions helped keep us focused upon why we had come
and who we were serving.

I give thanks for all who went and for God watching over us in our comings and goings and in our
serving Him.”