Swimmers Enjoy Mission Trip to Tennessee
WILMORE, KY—The skies opened up for the Asbury Swimming and Diving team in more ways than one over the 2009 missions/training trip to Tennessee. The team stayed at the Mountain Tennessee Outreach Project camp in the Cumberland Plateau of Tennessee where it rained for the first three and a half days of the stay. During their stay the Asbury team trained in the mornings at Sewanee University. In the afternoons the Asbury team split up into several work teams to accomplish the various jobs the Mountain T.O.P. staff had prepared for the team.
The Asbury swim team returned to campus Saturday, January 3rd, to train and pack for the upcoming trip. The team left on the Asbury bus Sunday morning to arrive in
Tennessee that evening. The team stayed in Friends cabin which boasted a commons area in the dividing space between the men's and women's side of the lodge, a men and women's bathroom as well as rooms with bunk beds for over 43 people. During the trip the team did its best to eat the camp out of supplies due to the camp chefs' outrageously good cooking.
Monday and Tuesday the entire team split up into work teams designated to help improve the camp's appearance. These jobs included organizing a junk yard of spare materials, cleaning the upstairs of a barn, dry walling in various places, partitioning off a room, and planting trees. Planting trees was the most difficult job as evidenced by the leaning trees of Pisa. Wednesday and Thursday, while some groups finished up tasks at camp, others took off to other counties. One group helped a community center get more rooms renovated and two other groups helped clean-up and repair two families' homes.
In the evenings after dinner, the team came together for chit-chats with "Mother Theresa," aka head coach Dorothy Kempf, and atime of testimony and worship led by assistant coach Alex Keyser. Thespirit of God was noticeably present at every worship session. Thursdaynight the Mountain T.O.P. staff shared a message with the team and had ameaningful send off of the group. The send off included a gift of thesymbol of Mountain T.O. P. - a fish hook pin - and a hand-carved, crossnecklace. The gifts were representative of the life lessons each personlearned while at Mountain T.O.P.
Friday morning the team left Mountain T.O.P. for a stopover at the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga before going on to Gainesville, Georgia, for a tri-meet. Asbury swam against Brenau University and the Savannah College of Art and Design. After a long week of training, Asbury swam solidly, beating Brenau and losing to SCAD. The team arrived home at 3:30 a.m. Sunday morning, the 11, due to automotive difficulties.
Story written by Allie Hubach
