By D.C. Veale

From October 14 to 19, Glen Mar sent 11 volunteers to Windsor, NC, to work at the Carolina Rebuilding Ministries (CRM) housing site. CRM is the organization Glen Mar has used as our last two summer mission trip hosts. This summer, we had 57 youth and adult volunteers staying in Windsor and helping to repair homes of low-income families. CRM is closely aligned with the North Carolina Annual Conference of the UMC. The Conference has provided the beds for the housing site in Windsor, with the caveat that when (not if) a hurricane damages parts of North Carolina, that the Conference could take beds from Windsor and relocate them to a storm recovery center. Our Glen Mar mission team had such a positive experience this summer and was so impressed with the CRM vision to improve their housing site to better serve families in their three-county area, that we decided to help leverage their efforts by building beds at the Windsor location.

Over the course of 4 days our ten volunteers built 60 beds that will be used by volunteers that come to the Windsor site to help CRM. We were fed extremely well by the ministrations of chef George Dohner. The funds donated to support the trip from the Glen Mar Mission Board, the Tuesday Morning Men’s Bible Study group, participant costs and general donations from Glen Mar members, was enough to pay for the lumber, hardware, and mattresses for all 60 beds.

On our last day of construction on-site, we heard that the NC Conference had reached out to CRM and said that they would be removing 30 of their beds from the Windsor location and relocating them to a recovery site for Hurricane Helene victims in the western part of the state. This convinced our team that our efforts to provide new beds was a God-ordained ministry.