Doing Love
by Ken Weinkauf, Samaritan Projects Coordinator

"By this shall all men know that you are my disciples,
if you have love one toward another." (John 13:35)

     Samaritan Projects is all about serving the folks in our neighborhood who cannot help themselves with home improvement and maintenance. We commonly serve seniors, disabled and poverty stricken individuals in our area by building wheelchair ramps, replacing broken water lines, repairing plumbing, electrical and various other construction projects. In the file drawer next to my desk are over two hundred individuals we have assisted since Samaritan Projects began in 1999. One such individual is Opal Young, who lives right around the corner from the Timothy House, our shelter for the homeless.
     Opal came to Athens in 1934 with her husband Denver. They moved into this house in 1937, where Opal lives with her son Bob. Opal and Denver worked together in the community fixing roofs and doing other repair work for people in the neighborhood, sometimes for pay, and other times just to help out. They worked together, sometimes with their children and sometimes without, until 1985. Denver thought at that time that he would stop and open up a plumbing store in town, but he fell ill and passed away in 1987.
     It is ironic then, that we came to her house to fix the roof, because only a few years ago, she and Denver would have done it themselves. Opal is now 90 years old and cannot see anything but shadows due to a failed cataract surgery. Nevertheless, she keeps in good spirits. She is a Christian woman, and still attends church in Vore Ridge (a community just northwest of Athens) when she can. Sometimes her son Bob takes her and sometimes members of the church come to take her.
     When she was quite a bit younger, she and Denver would host many of the local children on their property. Opal says it is because they could smell the homemade bread she always made. She said on more than one occasion she would bake 15 loaves of bread on Saturday, and they would all be gone by Monday! She told me of one family who lived in what she called ‘a shanty down the road’ and would leave their children alone during the day. The kids would come up to stay with the Youngs until the parents came home, sometimes after dark. She said they were good, respectful kids and she could never understand why their parents left them alone like that.
     But Opal always had a soft spot in her heart for the poor kids in the neighborhood. Sometimes, in order to get some peace and quiet, she would shoo them out of the yard, only to have them come creeping back little by little until they were all back again, playing and carrying on. She laughed at that memory. They seemingly had nowhere else to go and they always felt welcome and loved, and then there was the promise of that homemade bread!
     So I, several members of the 1st Baptist Church of Owego, New York, Patrice Cole (a Week of Service Intern), Terrez Thomas and Mark Pickens (both Summer Service Interns) all went to Opal’s place to replace the shingles on the front of her home. The front part of her house used to be a screened in porch, but was renovated about 20 years ago to extend her living room. This is where Opal spends most of her waking hours. She sits and talks with Bob or entertains the occasional guest. And today she has lots of guests. Mark, Patrice and Terrez hang out with Opal while I and the members of the church work on the roof. It is about 6 ft wide and 15 ft on either side. It is a pitched roof, at an angle of about 30º. We have some tools that the church brought with them, especially a couple of shingle removal shovels that were essential in completing the work. Some folks stayed on the ground, cleaning up the debris, while I and two others went up on the roof to remove the shingles and consequently, created the debris our comrades were collecting below. Meanwhile, Mark, a young minister who suffers from a loss of eyesight, Patrice and Terrez were inside, keeping Opal company.
     It took two days of hard work to repair the roof. Opal provided all the materials we needed, including some sheathing we needed to repair some holes that were hidden by the two layers of shingles we removed. All the folks who helped from the church were novices to roof repair, but after a small amount of training from yours truly, we did a superb job. Bob gave us some hints from his vantage point on the ground—he is unable to climb a ladder—which helped us with some areas of which I was less informed.
     Afterward, we all went inside and shared a couple 7-Ups with Opal and Bob and we prayed together. It was a wonderful time which left a lasting impression on Bob and Opal and resulted in keeping the rain out of Opal’s living room, a gift that will truly keep on giving long after that afternoon has passed out of our memory.