Opinion : Kentucky Mission, Day 1: Long, winding road

The twisting road that took us to our mission destination, as seen on our GPS screen.

Dean, they said you gotta take a picture of this.

It was the first time anyone had ever asked me to take a picture of a screen.

We were just about to our destination -- Eagle School Road near Parkers Lake, Kentucky.

The last few miles took us along a winding two-lane road -- a beautiful place with trees forming tall walls along either side of us.

Except that "winding" is an understatement. It seems as though the little car representing our 15-passenger van made 25 direction changes as we made our way up and down, left and right, back and forth to Eagle School Road, and ultimately to Eagle School.

It's a very beautiful place.

It's also no place you should plan to get to in a hurry.

We are not in a hurry.

It's 7:12 a.m. here; 6:12 Vinton time. We are getting ready and eating breakfast in the Eagle School (why else would they call it Eagle School Road?) which is now the home of the Christian Appalachian Project Community Center.

The dozen of us -- seven ladies, five guys from Blessed Hope Church -- slept in former classrooms, on air mattresses.

Most of us will soon make the drive back down that beautiful, twisted road, heading to a house where an elderly lady lives alone. We will spend the week replacing a roof, siding and some floors in her house. A couple of the ladies will work at the CAP center, helping do a variety of jobs.

Outside the old Eagle Elementary School is a beautiful playground with a very nice volleyball area and basketball court. The baseball field, however, has not been used for that purpose for way too long. I hope the used items I brought will inspire a change in that among the kids who live in this very rural community. The center volunteers said they recently had to discard some of their athletic equipment and believe the balls, gloves and bats will soon be put to good use.