2018 marked the 6th year of my girls going on the ASP (Appalachia Service Project) mission trip.  For almost one full year, a dedicated and generous group of teens and adults meets a couple of times a month to prepare and train to spend ten days during the summer in the Appalachian mountains to serve people in need.  This year, Bella’s ASP GOLD group traveled to North Carolina in early July, a first time visit to “The Tar Heel” State.  Every year is different.  Different people participating, different homeowners, different states, but they always come back with the same feeling of gratitude.

Every year, ASP has a presentation for the families of those teens that go on this amazing trip.  This presentation is usually held a couple of weeks after the teens and adults have recovered from their hard labor and every year I look forward to hearing the stories the teens share.  They are all very unique and moving, but there is always one story that stands out for me.  This time, it was the story of “the butter knife”.

One of the teens that went on this trip stood at the podium to share her story just like everyone else.  She told us that on a particular day, their team had forgotten to make their peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch before they left to go to the construction site.  They figured it would be no big deal and they could ask their homeowner to borrow one of her butter knifes to spread the peanut butter.  Just before lunch time they gathered all their lunch supplies and they went inside the house to ask the homeowner if they could borrow one of her butter knifes.  To their surprise she told them that she once used to own a butter knife but something happened to it and she no longer had a butter knife.  Tears immediately started flowing down my face at that reality.  The ASP teen sharing this particular story continued to say that she could’ve never imagined before going on this mission trip that someone just didn’t own a butter knife.  She said “when I open the flatware drawer in the kitchen at my house, I don’t only find ONE butter knife, but MANY butter knives.  We take so much for granted!”.  And that we do, most times without noticing.

I grew up surrounded by love and support, but my family could never afford luxuries.  We had a roof over our heads, food on our table but anything extra was a bonus.  Every day when I turn on my air conditioning or heat at home, when I get in my car to go anywhere I want to go and I buy the food I feel like eating any particular day, I give thanks to God for the many gifts I have been blessed with.  We have so much more than most people in this world and we take so much for granted.  May this butter knife story remind us of the many blessings we have in our lives; and why not next time we spread some peanut butter on our bread, say a prayer for the million of people going hungry every day, give a donation to an organization that advocates for people living in poverty or sign up to volunteer at a soup kitchen.  Even a drop in the ocean counts when done with love.

“We accept people right where they are, just the way they are.”

Rev. Glenn “Tex” Evans, ASP founder