Stories in Kentucky

I love meeting people with very different backgrounds from myself. I value hearing other peoples’ stories so much. I believe there is so much to learn from them and that we should always want to listen to what people have to say and always be open and ready to learn from them. There were so many stories I heard from people while serving with Samaritan’s Purse in Kentucky. Some of them disturbed me. Some of them encouraged me. Some of them gave hope, and some were very sad and dark. Through every story I gained understanding for the people and for how these things in their past have shaped them into who they are today. Now I want to warn you as I share a few of the stories I heard, some are quite sad and talk about death.

One story I heard was from a lady in a valley that was hit very hard by the flood. (The flood was why we were there helping out to strip down houses) This lady was saying that while she was climbing to a high place to get away from the rushing water, she looked back and saw her niece get swept away by the current. This story was obviously very sad and helped us to understand better the hurt that the communities we had been helping are truly going through. This death hurt the entire community because everyone there is very tight knit. 

One man we were helping was just full of stories. He loved telling as many stories as we would listen to, and I loved it because they were so fun to listen to and to be able to learn about this man’s life. He told stories about fishing, and about how he catches more catfish than anyone east of the Mississippi. He will go twelve miles down a river in a day noodling in every catfish hole along the way. When the catches a really big fish he hangs it up over the bridge by his house for some reason. He also has never been beaten in a fight supposedly. The stories went on and on, and they were so much fun to listen to. 

Another man’s stories were quite disturbing to many of us who listened. This man had a vary dark past and loved to talk about it. His mother was a gunslinger, which I am told in the context he was talking in was a killer for hire, and his father was a preacher. This man was also a gunslinger when he was younger. He told many stories about this time in his life and about the people he killed. One story he told, which is very dark just to warn those of you who might not want to read something like that, was a time when he was playing a game with his brother. In this game they would peg each other with a ball. I’m not sure what any other parts of the game were like, but he said he pegged his brother too hard one time and his brother was waiting for him around a corner and knocked him out. He said after he woke up he went and got his gun and shot his brother dead. I won’t tell a bunch of stories of him killing people here but he had many other stories like that and some that were extremely gruesome. After hearing these stories from this man I was really confused because he had told us he started following Christ quite a few years ago and he didn’t seem to have any remorse when talking about the things he did. I talked to my team leader about this and he was thinking the same until he just had to take in the fact that the culture this man grew up in was completely different. The valley we were in was once the most dangerous place in the United States. People would kill each other all of the time. He grew up seeing so many people die and knowing that there were killings in his community constantly. Now obviously murdering another person is a horrible sin, but I think while this is an extreme example it is very real. This man does not think of this sin like we do. It was normal in the culture he grew up in to kill a man who wronged you, and I think it is a good challenge for all of us to look in our own lives and in our own communities to see the sin that hurts us and affects constantly. Because I think we would realize very quickly that we have sins just like this man that we need to eradicate from our lives and our communities. These sins are tricky because they’re often right in front of our face and a big part of our lives. They can be painful to get rid of, and therefore all the more glorifying to God. So I challenge all of you reading to find one sin like this.

Now I want to apologize for taking so long to come out with this post. I hope y’all can give me some grace as the last week has been very hectic and I no longer have internet connection where I am staying. I also would like to ask y’all to look out for a post that should be coming soon to direct y’all to my new blog as we are changing to a new blog platform.

Thank you so much for reading!