GATHER LEADER GUIDE Session 2 | Doing good in the community Explore how letters have been and can be used to further the work of doing good in the world. Be challenged to think deeply about what doing good in the world and fighting injustice look like in their everyday lives. (75 minutes)

Logistics & other considerations partner with ASP to serve Appalachian families. • Review Session 2 outline Please be present, too, in our conversations during this gathering, as we learn more about • Plan your space and logistics, including ourselves, each other, and how you’re at work projection and sound for large group as well in the world around us, and especially in Central as computer/tablets for each small group Appalachia. Amen. discussion station • Plan an ice breaker for your group Ice breaker (5 minutes) • Be ready to share details about your planned We suggest you include an ice breaker in each fundraising activities and service project session. Ice breakers help get people moving, encourage meeting new people, introduce Access resources from special ASP@Home elements of teamwork, and help arrange your webpage (https://asphome.org/asp-at-home/ group into smaller teams for other activities. qr-session2/) • Galatians chapter 6, verses Introduction to Galatians & how it applies in 1-10 video today’s world (10 minutes) • Printed copies of excerpts ASP’s theme is ‘Onward’, and the focus verse is from “The Telling Takes Galatians 6:9 – Let’s not get tired of doing good, Us Home” for small group because in time we’ll have a harvest if we don’t discussion station 1 give up. (Common English Bible) • We Climb video Have someone provide your group with this • Printed copies of excerpts from Tex Evans’ context about who wrote this letter, and to writing for small group discussion station 3 whom it was addressed. or watch brief Tex Evans Excerpts video • In the Bible, the Book of Galatians is a • “Tex” Message sheet(s) for each participant letter. It was written by the Apostle Paul to a group of people in a place called Galatia Welcome & opening prayer (5 minutes) in the mid first century. The people were Prayer trying to be faithful to God but had different interpretations of what that meant because Dear God, thank you for this community and the they came from different faith backgrounds. opportunity to gather together in this place. As In his letter to this community, Paul is we continue this ASP@Home journey together, reminding them that God welcomes all of us we celebrate the things that make us laugh and and our faith is defined by our relationship the new relationships that we’re forming. We with Jesus. Our lives today might look ask that you continue to guide us as we work pretty different, but Paul wrote this letter to together to serve our local community and encourage people to keep doing God’s work in the world. Play the video “Galatians Chapter 6, verses 1-10” • Discuss how the stories we tell about or ask someone to read it, so your participants one another, especially those told by the have the larger context of this verse. powerful, contribute to injustice. • Encourage your group to envision the letter Have someone (or several people) read aloud Paul wrote to the Galatians as an invitation the excerpt ”Voices of Economically Vulnerable to work for good and to hold each other up Communities” from “The Telling Takes Us when we are growing weary. Home.” Small group discussion stations (15 minutes • Invite your small group to discuss which at each station—45 minutes total) voices in this letter are new to them or resonate strongly with them, and why. Break into small groups to spend time journeying through three stations to explore the • Discuss how these voices make them think use of letters and God’s call for us to do good in differently about the work of doing good the world. in the world, in Central Appalachia, and particularly in their home community. Station 1 | The Telling Takes Us Home: Taking Our Place in the Stories that Shape Us, A People’s Station 2 | “The Hill We Climb: An Inaugural Pastoral from the Catholic Committee of Poem for the Country”, by Appalachia Watch Amanda Gorman read her poem, “The >> A pastoral letter is an open letter Hill We Climb: An Inaugural Poem for the addressed by a bishop to Catholic clergy, Country.” laity, and all people of good will. Pastorals • Gorman refers to love becoming our legacy. generally contain instruction, consolation, What would your life look like if your legacy or directions for behavior in particular was to have loved well? circumstances. CCA [Catholic Committee of Appalachia] is known for its planning, As Gorman ends her poem, she says “For there writing, and promulgation of two pastoral is always light, if only we’re brave enough to see letters from the Appalachian bishops and it, if only we’re brave enough to be it.” one “people’s pastoral.”† << • What does “being light” look like? >> To celebrate the 40th anniversary • Why does “being light” require bravery? of “This Land is Home to Me” and the >> Amanda Gorman was born and raised 20th anniversary of “At Home in Web in Los Angeles, . She graduated of Life,” the Catholic Committee of from Harvard University in 2020. Appalachia (CCA) intended to publish a third Appalachian pastoral letter. As the She is the author of the The Hill We Climb: pastoral priorities of the regions bishops An Inaugural Poem for the Country (Viking had shifted away from social justice Books for Young Readers, March 2021), concerns, CCA opted to write a “people’s the poetry collection The Hill We Climb pastoral” without the direct involvement (Viking, September 2021) and The One for of the bishops. The people’s pastoral was Whom Food Is Not Enough (Penmanship published in 2015.† << Books, 2015). In 2017, Gorman was named the first-ever National Youth †Direct quotes from CCA website, https:// Poet Laureate of the United States. She ccappal.org. previously served as the youth poet Have someone read aloud the excerpts from the laureate of Los Angeles, and she is the Introduction to “The Telling Takes Us Home.” founder and executive director of One Pen One Page, an organization providing free • Discuss how stories help us “to make sense creative writing programs for underserved of our lives, and to create meaning within youth. them.” Gorman was selected by President Biden projects for low-income families in to read her original poem “The Hill We Appalachia is another way to fight injustice. Climb” for his Inauguration on January • Have each person write a “Tex message” to 20, 2021, making her the youngest poet one or more people. Ask them to consider to have served in this role. She also is the writing a message to someone who first poet commissioned to write a poem inspired them to do good in some way. Or to to be read at the Super Bowl. Her poem someone in the group who did something honors three individuals for their essential good for someone else. They might also work during the COVID-19 pandemic.‡ << consider writing a note of encouragement to ‡Direct quote from https://poets.org/ someone who might be feeling weary. poet/amanda-gorman >> In 1969, Rev. Glenn “Tex” Evans — a >> If we merge mercy with might, United Methodist minister — became one and might with right, of the first people to connect the energy then love becomes our legacy of youth with the deep needs of the poor. and change our children’s birthright During Tex’s 13 years as director at So let us leave behind a country Henderson Settlement in Frakes, better than the one we were left with Kentucky, he witnessed the great need for For there is always light, home repair assistance. So as part of his if only we’re brave enough to see it already-thriving outreach to the people If only we’re brave enough to be it << of Appalachia, he recruited 50 teens and adult volunteers to repair homes in Selected excerpts from The Hill We Climb: Barbourville, Kentucky. They worked on- An Inaugural Poem for the Country (Viking site during the day and worshiped in the Books for Young Readers, March 2021) evenings. By summer’s end, four families had safe, warm homes for the winter, fifty Station 3 | Selected writings of Tex Evans, ASP young lives had been changed forever — Founder and a longstanding legacy was born. Have someone read excerpts from Tex Evans’ But Tex was more than a leader; he writings, or watch the short video “Tex Evans was a born motivator. A true student Excerpts” to hear him speak. Tex believed in the of Appalachian culture and a legendary power of gathering together for positive change, storyteller, he set the tone for what ASP is and particularly in harnessing the energy and today: an extended family where laughter passion of young people to tackle injustice is king. Where relationships matter. And wherever they found it. where changing the lives of families and Ask your group to think about the service volunteers alike is the highest priority of projects they’re completing in your local all. << community and how the funds they are raising Spotlight on community leader in Appalachia for ASP will be used to address housing (5 minutes) injustice in Central Appalachia. • Invite your small group to discuss how Bring your group back together to watch the they can channel their passion and energy brief video “Spotlight on Teresa Brown-Johnson” into fighting injustice through the service to hear about how she works for good in her projects they complete in your local community on the West Side of Charleston, community. How else can they fight injustice West Virginia. in their everyday lives? • Ask your group to discuss how partnering with ASP to fund critical home repair >>Community Leader in Appalachia Final thoughts & closing prayer (5 minutes) Teresa Brown-Johnson is the “community Encourage your group to reflect on our theme mom” in the area on the West Side of verse—“Let’s not get tired of doing good, Charleston, West Virginia. She works because in time we’ll have a harvest if we don’t at a local school community center give up” (Galatians 6:9). While our lives today where she runs the main operations with may look very different than they did for the volunteers and takes care of the children. Galatians in biblical times, Paul’s message On any given day, the kids will pop over to applies to us too: we are invited to work for Teresa’s house where she will make sure good and to hold each other up when we grow they are fed and loved. Often she will take tired or weary. these children on field trips throughout the state so that they get to experience Prayer and learn about places they might not Dear God, we thank you for this time to be otherwise have the opportunity to visit. together as your people. Help us to use what Teresa cares deeply about her neighbors we have to serve you by serving others in the and seeks to make a difference in her best way possible. Help us to hear your call to community every day. do good in the world and give us the strength to In 2018 and 2019, ASP volunteers listen for what that might look like, both in this provided critical repairs to Teresa’s home ASP@Home experience, and beyond in our daily to make it warm, safe, and dry. Teresa lives. Amen. touched the lives of the volunteers and staff that came to know and love her. People often describe Teresa as a woman who does everything she can for others before she does anything for herself. << Preparing for other aspects of ASP@Home (5 minutes) Partner Share details about your fundraising activities for ASP@Home. What is your fundraising goal? How much progress has your group made on your goal so far? Share details about how to fundraise and how ASP will utilize those funds. Serve Share details about the service project you have planned. Who will you be serving? Where? When? What do people need to bring to serve? Is there a dress code? Emphasizing the importance of relationship building and accepting people “right where they are, just the way they are” helps set the tone and build excitement about the service experience. station 1 THE TELLING TAKES US HOME Selected excerpts. The full text can be found at https://www.ccappal.org/pastoral-letters

INTRODUCTION

Here in Appalachia, we are people of stories. These mountains have heard the stories we tell, and have told, across time and space. The mountains hold our stories, and they have stories of their own ...

Today, the Catholic Committee of Appalachia (CCA) offers this third pastoral letter as a prophetic word spoken for new realities among us. We recommit to reading the signs of the times, listening to the stories of the places and people who hurt most, to create new paths forward toward greater justice, peace, and wholeness for our communities and for creation.

In this statement, we recognize a deepening ecological crisis and new pressures on our struggling communities. But we also offer a statement of hope, lifting up communities, organizations, and movements that are pointing us toward a better way, a message for and from youth about the future they desire, and a statement which calls churches to reconnect with local, regional, and global movements for We have faith that a new world is possible justice... because we feel that yearning for a new world across time and among diverse peoples. We But when common people retrieve the power have faith in this new world, too, through our to tell their own stories, profound liberation can belief in Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus told stories occur. People find liberation in telling stories of of struggle and of hope, parables rooted in struggle, because these stories show us that the images and stories of his people, and he things are not as they should be. And people confirmed our hope in a new world through his find liberation, too, in telling stories of creativity, death and resurrection. Jesus’ life reveals to us community, and justice, because in them we the source of his hope, the parental love of God catch glimpses of a new world.5 which makes all things possible. THE VOICES OF ECONOMICALLY VULNERABLE COMMUNITIES

Fear of losing or not finding work is worsening which produces vast amounts of cheap but in many parts of Appalachia. It is not difficult, unhealthy food and isolates people from for example, to find the stories of the loss of knowledge of food production, this is not simply coal mining jobs. A drive through the once inconvenient, but deadly. In such communities, bustling towns of “coal country” will tell those where income is scarce, transportation options stories. Coal jobs have been on the decline for are few, and some families lack refrigeration decades and continue to plummet.31 and stoves, many people rely on low-nutrition, packaged foods from convenience stores, while This loss of livelihood, without anything to rates of obesity, diabetes, and other health replace it, is an old story in Appalachia which problems skyrocket. The widespread presence has only worsened with time. Even amid the of food insecurity is an ironic reversal for a boom and bust cycles the coal industry has region that was once populated by subsistence experienced over time, other industries such farms and where family gardens were once as steel provided well-paying jobs well into the popular.35 1980s in some parts of the region. The U.S. free trade policies of the 1990s encouraged Entire towns, even whole counties, appear manufacturing jobs to move to the global South, vacated, like ghost towns, throughout leaving far less opportunity for people to make a Appalachia.36 Some communities, such as living and provide for their families.32 Economic Lindytown, West Virginia, have even been development has largely focused on attracting bought out by coal companies who raze what outside industries to save the region through is left to the ground, erasing them entirely.37 job creation. Many of these industries, such as A Jesuit priest in McDowell County, West for-profi t prisons and military technology often Virginia gestured toward a street of abandoned bring with them their own injustices.33 buildings as well as a coal processing plant towering over the town, comparing the trauma The most widespread jobs in many areas of experienced there to “being at a wake for a Appalachia are minimum wage service jobs loved one.” which are inadequate for making ends meet. Job security is low, and companies continually We know communities in the region where weaken the ability of workers to organize a lack of jobs and opportunity makes people and secure their rights. Unemployment and feel like “nobodies,” and where people lose underemployment levels are still higher in the faith in the possibility of change for the region than national averages.34 Without work, better. And when despair dominates families some families are forced to rely on welfare and communities, they can come under the payments and make the understandable choice influence of alcohol and drug addiction. Indeed, to “live off the system” to feed their children, addiction to painkillers such as OxyContin, while many young Appalachians feel they nicknamed “hillbilly heroin,” have become must leave the region to pursue opportunities widespread in areas where people suffer from elsewhere. chronic pain induced by work-related injuries. Heroin addiction is also on the rise. We have In the poorest parts of rural Appalachia, the heard stories of elderly persons supplementing poverty rate can approach 25%. High poverty their income by selling their prescriptions, of rates combined with population decline and elementary school children who already have the closing of businesses can result in the experience taking pain killers, and even of a creation of “food deserts,” places where people West Virginia mayor who was murdered by a live further than ten or twenty miles from the relative in order to obtain money for drugs. nearest grocery store. In a global food system Although some people are accustomed to look programs that are in place find themselves upon drug addicts in Appalachia with disdain, overburdened with the number of addicts we should not reduce addiction to a personal or who need treatment. Drug companies and cultural vice. Addiction is often closely related unscrupulous persons in the medical field are to poverty and includes the spiritual dimension also part of this story, as they stand to benefit of despair. Drug rehabilitation programs financially when they push particular pain are relatively scarce in Appalachia, and the medications in vulnerable communities.38

Footnotes 5 Patrick Reinsborough and Doyle Canning, Re:Imagining Change: How to a large stockpile of aging chemical weapons, the disposal of which has to Use Story-Based Strategy to Win Campaigns, Build Movements, been under discussion by the Pentagon, Congress, and local organiza- and Change the World (Oakland, CA: PM Press, 2010); David C. Korten, tions (Dan Radmacher, “Disposing of a Chemical Past,” Appalachian Voic- Change the Story, Change the Future: A Living Economy for a Living Earth es Blog [August 6, 2015], available at http://appvoices.org/2015/08/06/ (Oakland, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc., 2015). disposing-of-a-chemical-past-kentucky-chemical-weapons-stockpile-slat- 31 In West Virginia, industry statistics show a decrease in mining jobs ed-for-destruction-by-2023. from 130,457 in 1940 to 19,427 in 2013 (West Virginia Coal Association 34 West Virginia Center on Budget & Policy, “The State of Working West statistics cited in Dennis Sadowski “Despite Long Mining History, Poverty Virginia 2014.” Straps Many in West Virginia,” National Catholic Reporter/Catholic News 35 The experience of families living in “food deserts” informs the work of Service [Nov. 4, 2014], available at http://ncronline.org/blogs/eco-cath- groups like Grow Ohio Valley in Wheeling, West Virginia and the Alderson olic/despite-long-mining-history-poverty-straps-many-west-virginia). Food Hub in Alderson, West Virginia, as well as Grow Appalachia which Between 2011 and early 2014 alone, 5,000 coal jobs were cut in the state works throughout the region. See the website of Grow Appalachia at (West Virginia Center on Budget & Policy, “The State of Working West http://growappalachia.berea.edu/history-goals. Virginia 2014: Economic Recovery and Transition in the Mountain State: 36 The following two paragraphs are drawn from listening sessions with State’s Energy Economy Shifts North,” available at https://www.afsc.org/ rural parishes and community members in Preston and McDowell coun- sites/afsc.civicactions.net/fi les/documents/Report-state-working-west- ties in West Virginia. va-2014.pdf). In Kentucky, the story is the same. Thirty years ago, coal 37 Dan Barry, “As the Mountaintops Fall, a Coal Town Vanishes,”New York employed about 48,000 in the state. Today, the industry employs about Times (April 12, 2011), available at http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/13/ 10,000 (“Report: Kentucky Lost More Than 1 in 10 Coal Jobs During First us/13lindytown.html. Three Months of 2015,” Lexington Herald-Leader [April 30,2015], available 38 Sue Ella Kobak, “OxyContin Flood in the Coalfi elds: ‘Searching for at http://www.kentucky.com/news/business/article44597049.html). Higher Ground,” in Transforming Places: Lessons from Appalachia, edited 32 Eve S. Weinbaum, To Move a Mountain: Fighting theGlobal Economy in by Stephen L. Fisher and Barbara Ellen Smith (Urbana: University of Appalachia (New York: The Free Press, 2004). Illinois Press, 2012), 198-209. See also Mike Mariani, “Poison Pill: How the 33 West Virginia has seen an increase in the number of federal prisons American Opiate Epidemic was Started by One Pharmaceutical Com- in recent years. See Tracy Huling, “Building a Prison Economy in Rural pany,” Pacifi c Standard (Feb. 23, 2015), available at http://www.psmag. America” in Invisible Punishment: The Collateral Consequences of Mass com/health-and-behavior/how-the-american-opiate-epidemic-was-start- Imprisonment, Marc Mauer and Meda Chesney-Lind, eds. (New York: The ed-by-one-pharmaceutical-company; Olga Khazan, “The New Heroin New Press, 2002). Communities like Oak Ridge, Tennessee are centers Epidemic,” (Oct. 30, 2014), available at http://www.theatlantic. for weapons research and manufacturing. Richmond, Kentucky is home com/health/archive/2014/10/the-new-heroin-epidemic/382020/.

Discussion Questions

Have someone read aloud selected excerpts from the Introduction to “The Telling Takes Us Home.” » Discuss how stories help us “to make sense of our lives, and to create meaning within them.” » Discuss how the stories we tell about one another, especially those told by the powerful, contribute to injustice.

Have someone (or several people) read aloud the excerpt ”Voices of Economically Vulnerable Communities” from “The Telling Takes Us Home.” » Invite your small group to discuss which voices in this letter are new to them or resonate strongly with them, and why. » Discuss how these voices make them think differently about the work of doing good in the world, in Central Appalachia, and particularly in their home community. station 3 A LONGER WELL ROPE By Rev. Glenn “Tex” Evans

Some folk have a such a hard time, from the time they are born, until the time they die, it is difficult to imagine. I know a family, honorable, industrious, faithful to one another, and firm believers in the good Lord! Nevertheless, they are always in need—never having quite enough to eat, never having quite sufficient clothing, never having sufficient funds for proper medical care. I have known of this family for years and have, in fact, done a few things for them. One day a mutual friend said it me, “Preacher, you have to go up and do something about Estil Martin’s family. They are in a terrible fix for drinkin’ water.” Estil Martin’s house was the very last house in the hollow. I could still take you right to the house and let you meet this fine growing I thought for a minute about the other wells in family—should such a trip be necessary. The the area and I replied, “Why, Estil, you ought to road to the house is rough. At certain places, have all the water in the world if your well is 150 where small bridges are needed, there are no feet deep.” bridges. One just has to be skilled about driving over such roads, and must not be too fond of Replied Estil, “Well, Preacher, there is plenty of the car! water in the well, but I dropped a well bucket in the well and it’s kinda canti-waumpus down At any rate, we went to the house and talked there in the well, and I can’t get on past it to get with Estil Martin about the water situation with no more than three buckets of water!” his family. The conversation went something like this: “Well, Brother Estil,” I said, “I hear you You want to bear in mind that the well is only are having a little problem getting enough about six inches in diameter, even though drinking water! What seems to be the trouble?” it is 150 feet deep. I asked him, “Estil, how come there is a bucket lodged in your well?” Replied Brother Estil, “Well, Preacher, we only Understand, too, that such water buckets are get three buckets of water a day!” about four inches in diameter and some 35 Then I inquired, “Estil, how deep is your well?” inches deep! To this he replied, “My well is about 150 feet Brother Estil replied, “Well, I just dropped it down deep.” in there and it lodged, and I can’t get it out. Ever- day the water raises up above that water bucket drive that old bucket to the bottom to open it up just so fer. You can draw three buckets full of to all the crystal depths of water. The well driller water. Then you have to wait til the next day, and charged me $50 which I gladly furnished. then you can draw three more buckets full. But you can’t get past that bucket to draw no more Several weeks later I stopped at another site water!” where I had the driller drill an entirely new well, just to make inquiry on how the family was I asked him, “Estil, have you ever tried to get the getting along and how they liked their new well. bucket out of the well?” They explained that they had the best water in the community, and then added that their “Yes, I have,” he declared. “I can hook a fish neighbor, Estil Martin, “still hauls water from hook on it, but I can’t pull it out. I just lose my here once in a while.” fishhook and my fishline, so I just quit trying!” When I asked how it was that Estil Martin still Then I asked him another question. “Estil, when hauled water from their well, when he had a did you drop that well bucket in the well?” well 150 feet deep, they explained, “Well, he has He looked up at his wife who was standing to wait until he can get enough money to get a nearby, and still talking to me, said, “Well, I longer well rope.” dropped that well bucket in there when Jody Now isn’t that something! It’s hard to believe was a baby.” Directing this question to his wife, that the family could be so impoverished that he said, “How old is Jody?” they could not go to a nearby store and get She replied, “She’s eight years old.” a new rope. Had I known about it, had I just thought of the need, I would, of course, have I could hardly believe what I heard! For eight found a longer rope for them. years the people had been getting three buckets of water a day out of that well! There was plenty At least, I am glad that the good Lord put all of water in the well, but there was no way to the water down there below the ground, and I reach the water—just because that well bucket am thankful that we had the fun of opening up was canti-waumpus across the well! the well. And I am glad that Estil Martin’s family does now, for a fact, have a longer well rope. I sent a well driller in there to clean out the well— And aren’t you glad, too? that is, to send a simple tool down in the well to

Discussion Questions

Have someone read aloud “A Longer Well Rope” by ASP’s Founder, “Tex” Evans. » Invite your small group to discuss how they can channel their passion and energy into fighting injustice through the service projects they complete in your local community. How else can they fight injustice in their everyday lives? » Ask your group to discuss how partnering with ASP to fund critical home repair projects for low- income families in Appalachia is another way to fight injustice. Have each person write a “Tex message” to one or more people. » Ask them to consider writing a message to someone who inspired them to do good in some way. Or to someone in the group who did something good for someone else. They might also consider writing a note of encouragement to someone who might be feeling weary. “Tex” Message “Tex” Message