War, West Virginia. Before coming to Hope Force International, that was not a place that was even remotely on my radar. The closest I came was an historical fascination with the Hatfield and McCoy feud during the years of 1863-1891 along the West Virginia and Kentucky border. What a fascinating chapter in American History!
Our First Deployment to Caretta Hollow, West Virginia
I joined Hope Force in June of 2026. My husband and I were fortunate to be able to go on a scheduled deployment in July to Caretta Hollow, West Virginia, which ends where the Hatfield McCoy Trails begin. It is a remote place, wild and beautiful. Sunsets speak of the divine and sunrises cast promising light across fog-covered mountain peaks. It is simply one of the most beautiful places I have ever been.
The Hope Force Staff House sits in the middle of the street. It is a hub of activity, with neighbors stopping by coming and going to catch up with Brian Wagner, Director of Hope Force Seminole, Appalachia, and the Midwest. His easy demeanor and the jovial laughter shared between him and the residents speaks of long friendships and full trust. From day one, we knew that we were in for a week rich with Appalachian culture and meaningful service.
Aaron Stetson was the staff lead for the bulk of the week, and his wife Elizabeth treated cooking incredible meals for the team as though it held the importance of a UN summit. She, Aaron, and their daughter Emily modeled true hospitality for each of us. And let’s be honest, food matters.
Life Along a Coal Road in Appalachia
The homes in Caretta Hollow are modest, with trucks hauling coal traveling the length of the small road, passing each home, at a steady clip all day. Back and forth. Dust flies. And a fine layer of coal dust settles over, well, everything.
Interestingly, the residents of those homes seem not to notice as they pass by, close to 200 times in a single day. We were to help repair homes for a couple of widows during the course of the week. We were excited at the thought of making a difference in a small way.
But what actually unfolded that week was not what we expected. There were several people in our group who were, like us, first-time Reservists. It was a blessing to learn the ropes together.
Will came by way of Hope Force’s new partnership with the Knoxville YMCA. Louis and Phyllis had signed up online. Maddie had been on the HFI marketing team for a couple of years, but had never been able to make a deployment work with her schedule.
On the other end of the spectrum, Scott was celebrating his tenth HFI deployment in three years. Dan had also been deploying for many years. He was affectionately known as Dan the Man because there simply wasn’t a tool we needed that he didn’t have in his well-stocked van. We tried. We really did try to need a tool he didn’t have, but that just didn’t happen. Dan the Man with a Van made sure the week went smoothly.
HFI operates under an Incident Command structure, meaning that there is a single person who evaluates the job sites and plans the workflow for each day. George was that person for our WV deployment week. It was an amazing gift for me because he has been volunteering with Hope Force since the organization was founded, over 23 years earlier. Hearing his recollections, his thoughts, hopes, and dreams for Hope Force was an unanticipated bonus of the week. He loves Jesus, the organization, and the people we serve.
Mrs. Irene’s Story: A Flood, a Failed Repair, and FEMA Denials
What neither Derek nor I saw coming was Mrs. Irene.
Her story was a particularly tough one: her husband passed, then her house flooded, she worked through FEMA to receive a payout for the damage to her house, hired an incompetent contractor who took off her roof and simply left it off long enough for rain to destroy the inside of her entire home. She describes it as raining inside her house to the first floor from the second floor.
As you can imagine, most everything was destroyed. To add insult to injury, as of the writing of this blog, she has just received the second denial of her appeal to FEMA. How? It simply doesn’t make sense to me. But what can you do?
For that hearty Hope Force team of trained Reservists, what we could do was tackle the jobs at hand that would help her to make her way towards recovery. That week Dan the Man worked to repair the upstairs bathroom, installing a toilet. This sounds very nice. Until you realize that Mrs. Irene’s adult son, Kenny, had been sharing her bathroom for the last two years. For every mother who has ever had a son, if you are reading this, suddenly that seemingly benign task truly takes on a whole other layer of kindness and empowerment. For both Mrs. Irene and Kenny.
A refurbished mud room/laundry room.
A refurbished kitchen.
An overgrown yard brought back to life by the gentle hands of a gardener. We didn’t know Phyllis was a master gardener when we arrived that week. But there is a tree and rose bush in particular that are going to grow straight and thrive after she worked her magic. Maybe sweetest of all, watching Mrs. Irene talk with her and watch as her yard and garden heal was life-giving to all of us watching it happen. It was a beautiful expression of the ministry of presence, which is a vital focus of Hope Force’s ministry.
Two Silhouettes and a Reminder of Home
During one of our many conversations that week, Mrs. Irene mentioned two black wooden silhouette cutouts of her parents that were somewhere in her outbuildings. She spoke with tenderness about how she asked her siblings if she could have those after her parents passed, because they were fashioned to be likenesses of her parents. “Mama’s hair looked like that, and Daddy wore a hat like that,” she said with a brightness in her eyes. She never asked us to find them.
That hit home for me. My own Mother passed away at 95 in September of 2025. Her family hailed from East Tennessee, in the mountains. Mrs. Irene, 85 and spry, reminded me so much of my own Mother… down to her laugh. Being around her, hearing her stories, seeing the mountain grit of her personality, it was a beautiful reminder of my own Mother. We came to provide hope and healing for her, and she wound up providing that for me. What a picture of how faithful God is to our every need!
You know where this is headed. We found the silhouettes. We reconstructed and painted them. We hung them on the building in her backyard so she could look out the window and see them as she works at her kitchen sink every day. And when she asked Derek if he could trim out that window above her sink, it was a done deal. Trust me when I tell you that it was beautiful.
Chronic Need and Deep Faith in War, West Virginia
So many times since our trip, Derek and I have thought of her, of the mountains, of that tight-knit community walking through the challenges of flooding, systemic poverty, and the fallout of being ground zero for the opioid epidemic in America. Throw in the decimation of the work force needed for the coal mine as it modernized.
Through all of that, they persist. Their faith is critical. It defines who they are. When Mrs. Irene’s son was thought to be dying with COVID, she paused and pulled her family together for a corporate prayer, pleading for favor and healing from her heavenly Father before they got on the road for the drive to the hospital. I tell you, that convicted me mightily. What a humbling picture of a faithful Mother who leans fully into her Savior for every need. She preached an inadvertent sermon directly to my heart that day that I didn’t know I needed.
“Thank You for Helping to Save My Home”
Saturday morning dawned as the previous mornings that week, with the fog lifting slowly from the surrounding peaks. Breathtaking, but with a looming promise of another scorcher of a day. Derek and I packed up and then went to tell Mrs. Irene goodbye. It was harder than I would have liked. She talked about the week and what it meant to her and her son. How grateful she was. We tried to share that we had been far more blessed than she by the week…and meant every word of it. Then she showed us what she planned to do, animatedly sharing her vision of her yard reclaimed, cleaned out, and a falling shed torn down. She was a woman with purpose and excitement for restoring her world.
As we reached for the gate at the edge of her yard, she reached up (because she is a small woman and my husband is tall) and laid her hands on Derek’s chest and said, “Thank you for helping to save my home.”
Eight words. The joy created by those eight words carried us home on the long drive that day. They carry us still. Your story is waiting. I pray you check out Hope Force 101, train to be one of our amazing Reservists, join the next deployment, and step into your restoration story.
