While many students spent fall break relaxing, a group of youth from First Baptist Church chose something different: giving their time, energy, and faith to help strangers in need.
The students attend Carroll County Middle School and High School. They traveled to London, Kentucky, unsure what kind of work they’d be doing, but knew they were ready to serve. “We weren’t sure what we were getting into, what the project was going to be,” said CCHS senior Shelby Hillebrandt.
They discovered, upon arrival, that they would be helping Tonya Poindexter, whose home and Wilderness Trail Wildlife Rehabilitation Center were destroyed by a tornado earlier in the spring.
“Her whole house and back yard were destroyed by the tornado,” explained Lydia Risk, also a senior at CCHS. “The guys spent a lot of time helping with her house and doing the drainage pipe work around there while some of us dug up rock in the back yard.”
Addison Rose, a sixth grader at CCMS, explained that the tornado literally flipped the woman’s yard over. She and several others spent their time collecting rocks and making the ground usable again.
The work was intense and often tedious. Students spent hours crawling under a porch with buckets of gravel, clearing debris, digging rocks out of fill dirt, and painting an animal shelter. “We were doing projects nobody else wanted to do or had the time to do,” Shelby said. “She couldn’t find anyone who was willing to do the jobs we did.”
FBC Youth Minister Jay Montgomery explained that, initially after the tornado, Tonya had some help the first couple of weeks and then everything was at a standstill for the last six months. “She needed the hard work people really didn’t want to give time to and students did,” Montgomery said.
The students also recognized that Tonya was deeply grateful for their help. “We prayed for her multiple times and she was open to that,” Lydia said. “It was nice she was open to our help.” The students also appreciated the chance to share the love of Jesus through their actions and noted the woman connected the gospel to her rehabilitation program.
By the end of the trip, the youth had helped care not just for a person, but for a few animals, including opossums, sugar gliders and turtles. Eventually, deer and bats will return to the wildlife rehabilitation center once new fencing and shelters are rebuilt.
This mission trip changed many of the students. “I thought I was doing a good deed and helping out. Helping really made an impact on me and I would do it again,” added CCHS junior Tristan Curry.
Shelby agreed: “That was my first real mission trip. It was really special to me. Mission trips are about the mindset and what it means for you as a Christian, how it helps you grow in your faith.”
The group stayed one night in London and worked from the moment they arrived until the moment they had to leave, even choosing to stay a little longer than they had originally planned. “I was sad we only stayed one night. I wish we could have done more,” Shelby said.
The experience even inspired the students to look ahead to future opportunities. Longtime mission volunteer and Carrollton business owner Dennis Raisor traveled with them and encouraged the teens to continue serving. “He poured a lot into us,” Shelby said. “It opened my mind to being a model of faith for the younger people.”
As Lydia put it, “People hear during fall break you’re going to dig up rocks, but once you go and experience it, it was really rewarding and it didn’t even feel like work.”
In the end, what began as an uncertain, one-project mission became a powerful lesson in selfless service and Christian compassion that will have a lasting impact on these Panthers.
The full group included Dillan Davis, Nik Brown, Tristan Curry, Shelby Hillebrandt, Lydia Risk, Michael Weedman, Parker Wright, Zoey Willhoite, Kelsey Dickerson, Adalyn Oak, Addison Rose and chaperones Mackenzie Wright, Nicole Montgomery, Jay Montgomery and Dennis Raisor.