Dunked Right Out Of Town: Harrisonburg, VA [July 3 – 4]

The drive to Elkton was another long one for these stallions to make in their Raging Blueberry. They were now becoming very conscious of ways they could improve on gas mileage, and one apparent method was to lighten their load. Therefore, they were forced to stuff down the rest of the brownies still lingering from their cake walk victory in Coloma. Post-analysis is showing a drastic 10% improvement in mpg.

Back to the pertinent matters at hand, our heroes had another challenge ahead of them for the evening. Shortly after departing Clinton, SC, they learned that their contacts in Elkton- Pastor John and wife Carole, were not going to be around for the evening. Making matters even more difficult was the fact their ETA was around 11pm. The stallions would need to pull out a little magic to build some community this evening.

Without having to worry about the excess of brownies, they were able to think much clearer about their option. Fortunately, one member of the campaign had spent his past summer in Richmond, VA, about 2.5 hours drive from Elkton. There was also one of his co-workers named Blaine who had attended school at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, VA, only 15 miles west of Elkton. Even more fortunate was that Blaine and a few of his college friends were headed out to Harrisonburg this evening for some 4^th of July festivities! Therefore, they would have plenty of community to build that evening and could still attempt a meeting with Pastor John and his family the next day to keep the community chain alive.

Harrisonburg, a town with a permanent population of 25,000, doubles its inhabitants during college season. It thrives off the activity of its four colleges and universities, JMU and Easter Mennonite University being the main ones. Needless to say, on a quaint evening in early July on a holiday weekend it was seemingly deserted. This was just fine with these boys, though, since they were with a dynamic and welcoming group of people that included Blaine, Gabe, Lauren, Gordon, Jason, Graham, Leslie, Allison, and Bradford. A big shout out to Blaine and the group for being so accommodating with the late notice!

After a night in Allison’s waterless house which she was no longer living in, the stallions got a late start on the day with an early lunch at Jess’ Quick Lunch near downtown. Earlier that morning, they had made the connection with John’s daughter Sharina via phone, and learned they were welcome to stop by the house any time that afternoon to talk. The chain would stay connected after all!

The home of the Centers’ was historic in and of itself, being located just two blocks down the street from Confederate General Stonewall Jackson’s headquarters, and a small white building in their backyard was actually General Jackson’s carriage house.

While rain began to persist outside, the conversation with the family began to warm up inside. The stallions were not only joined by John, Carole, and Sharina, but their other son Robert and the little-man Caleb whom the family was babysitting. Besides running his church called Destiny Christian Center in Harrisonburg, John worked part-time in a hospital. Sharina had just finished her first year at Emmanuel College near Athens, GA while studying Pastoral Ministries, and Robert was home-schooled who proclaimed, to the disapproval of his mother, that he was going to take his own Campaign For Community after getting his license.

The conversation that afternoon traveled many different directions, much like the Campaign itself. They heard John talk about his adventures, struggles, and successes with leading a church. After his previous church was robbed of its real estate by a group of attorneys playing loosely within the law, he was faced by the challenge of building a church entirely from scratch. During this process, he received some unlikely support from an unlikely character named Phillip. Phillip was in his late teens and so shy that John sometimes thought he had a metal disability. He was always unresponsive to John’s questions and didn’t contribute in conversation to the church community. So one day, when a computer problem presented itself John was both surprised and skeptical when Phillip offered his help. Within 15 minutes, he had solved the problem to the amazement of John. The next day, Phillip offered a revolutionary idea- to take John’s church online through pod-casting- and he would set it all up himself. Again, John was skeptical and defiant, but Phillip went through with the idea anyway, promoting the idea himself. Today, the service of Destiny Christian Center reaches 1 million people every week through pod-cast, all due to the vision of one shy, seemingly incapable young man. The community builders would like to highlight this story as a testament to the capabilities of our youth.

Another fascinating aspect of the family was the story of Carole’s brother and his wife, who had dedicated their life to an organization called Wycliffe, which attempts to create a written language for some of the most isolated and unstudied societies in the world. Her brother was in Cameroon and would be there with his wife for the rest of his life, only taking a short hiatus to the United States every four years or so. The process starts when the two Wycliffe representative approach the society without any type of introduction into the community. Their goal is to become integrated into the community while learning the language from scratch. Once the speaking of the language is mastered, they must find a way to create an alphabet and eventually teach that written language to the people. By no means is this a quick project- it is estimated to take over 150 years, or three pairs dedicating their entire professional careers to that community.

So what appeared to be a connection that wouldn’t even happen with this family turned into a highlight not only of this city, but of the entire trip for these community builders. The stallions thank John & Carole for opening their home for conversation and getting at the true meaning of this trip- quality conversation and collecting stories of everyday individuals they otherwise never would have met.

Little-man Caleb

Despite this successful visit, the family still couldn’t find a contact to send the boys onto, so they made one last attempt to build community and find a connection to a new state in Harrisonburg’s town center, where 4^th of July festivities were now underway. Their first and only stop was a dunk tank raising money for a vacation Bible school. Campaign member Pederson needed an extra ball to execute the dunk.

Before

After

More importantly, dunk tank operators Brandon and Laura were friendly and listened to the predicament that the stallions found themselves in. Having only known these journeymen for a few minutes, he made a call to his friend Debra who had a daughter Melanie in Manhattan, New York City. After talking for a few minutes with Debra, she felt comfortable enough to call her daughter, who then contacted the community builders.

They were on their way to NYC, fittingly one of the former capitals of our country. There was no way they could have envisioned this scenario unfolding a few hours ago, much less a few days ago when they sat in a diner in a town of 600 people in rural South Carolina. But adventure is what they lived for, and what they were sure to get in NYC on the 4^th of July.