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"Cranks Creek Survival Center" read the sign. And I thought, Will I really survive this week?

This was the introduction to my first-ever mission trip. Toto, we were not in the Chicago suburbs anymore.

On our job site, we got to see dead poisonous snakes, a living brown recluse spider, experienced a bedbug "scare" in the dormer and witnessed two hospital visits from volunteers who got hurt on their job sites. We got rained on almost every afternoon as we worked, but kept going.

And, it turned out to be one of the best times of our lives, and both my daughter and I would do it again. Really.

You have to understand how impactful this statement is. My daughter is a girly-girl who desiresto have lovely hair, perfect makeup and manicured nails. When the heavy-duty house projects happen at home, she is nowhere to be found.

That latter statement may change.

Last week, my daughter filled and carried buckets of gravel, moved heavy debris, used a power drill to help assemble a porch, drained buckets of dirty water and helped create a water filtration drain using PVC pipe, porch screens, and other materials found on site.

About 40 teens and young adults plus10 chaperones landed in a tiny southeast Kentucky town called "Cranks Creek" to help residents there through Catholic Mission Trips (CMT).

We stayed at the survival center, which featured no air conditioning, a dormer with old, basic bunk beds, cracked linoleum floors, a broken mirror and a fickle electric system.

For facilities, two shower stalls and two toilets for each gender.

It wouldn't take a AAA award for cleanliness, although we all did try to do our part to keep things as neat and clean as possible.

The truth was, the place was lovingly constructed and served its purpose well. It was just shall I say "seasoned" a bit.

Meal times consisted of teams of young people/chaperones on a rotating schedule preparing breakfast, setting out the assembly line of food to pack lunches or cooking and cleaning up dinner.

It was as close to living in a commune as you can imagine. And you know what? It all worked.

Each morning, the nearby rooster crowing at 4:30 AM would either awaken the teens, or, if that didn't work, one of our chaperones used his wonderful, mighty singing voice to wake them up at 6:30.

They would eat breakfast, make their sack lunches and depart to their job sites. Afterwards, they'd come back, wait in long lines for showers and then eat dinner. Cell and internet service was spotty, so kids spent their free time playing spike ball, basketball, chatting with the local children who came by to talk with them, singing songs, playing cards, or simply talking.

Arranged evening activities included games planned by the CMT young adult ministers, which were hilarious, challenging and fun, listening to CMT-lead witness talks and enjoying the inspiring guitar music and soothing yet powerful voice of the musician arranged to join us.

Everyone knows that you don't need money and "things" to be happy. But my family and I live in an area where a certain way of life is expected, and so money and "things" becomes important to impressionable teens.

Not this week though.

Clearly, I was taken aback by the conditions of the survival center where we were staying when we first arrived. It's called "survival center" because it was built after a flash flood ravaged the area in the 1970s. The people who endured that were true survivors. Although at times I felt like I was on a "survivor" TV show, I was just managing to get by in different housing conditions than I'm used to for one week.

I found this link that featured the Survival Center on PBS.org under a section called "Chasing The Dream: Poverty and Opportunity in America" that showcases rural concerns in and what people are doing about it. If you're looking for a little more information on the center, I invite you to visit the site.

The folks living here know about hard times. According to the PBS web site, 30 percent of the county lives below the poverty line. A coalmine that provided many jobs for generations has resulted in dwindling employment for decades.

And yet, the people our group met were among the most pleasant and welcoming I've ever encountered.

We met a most colorful, enjoyable young man who joined us as we worked on his parents' home, and our team loved him.

Another group was invited to attend a family wedding after working on their home.

One of our teens said he was touched when a woman, knowing he got injured and was taken to the hospital while working on another job site, saw him the next day and said, before he even had a chance to introduce himself, "I've heard all about you and I've been praying for you ever since I heard you got hurt."

The folks we helped had various needs. One woman was having knee surgery and needed a ramp built for her home. A man had cancer and a multitude of other health issues and required a ramp to be built so that a gurney could enter his home to transport him. Another family had a home that needed significant repairs all over the house.

Ours started as a porch replacement, but due to water pooling under the porch from an underground spring, the porch supports had rotted from the humidity. So we worked on creating a pipe filtration system, a well and a ditch to divert the water from the porch. Then we stripped out the rotted support materials so that we could replace the porch boards.

Whatever project each of us worked on and it was hard labor for our group the teens (and adults) truly rose to the occasion.

I loved hearing the teens talk about how beautiful they thought the area was, and it truly was. There was lovely scenery with the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains in view of our work site and all around as we drove back and forth from the center to the home we were working on.

The kids even said that the Survival Center really started to feel homey after a day or two. So many made great memories. They deepened their existing friendships, got to know other teens on the trip better and chatted with our young adult leaders from CMT.

The adults from our parish had a history of attending these trips and were veterans. One of them had attended mission trips for over 20 years, and I thought it was awesome for the younger people to see the vitality and energy he exuded in addition to another retired gentleman from our parish. They were funny and creative, and brought a lot of experience with them (as well as power tools and know-how!).

Most of the women had attended mission trips in previous years and were very prepared with everything you could think of to make the trip go well.

It was great for the teens to see older teens and twentysomethings from our church lead by example, and our youth minister is sort of a pied piper for getting teens involved. Barely over 30 and married with a young son, he's just young enough to relate to teens and young adults but mature enough to relate to all the other adults. His carpentry skills and choice of music kept us very productive on our work site!

I came upon a blog called "WordSlingers," and I think it did a great job of summarizing in seven steps why mission trips are good for anybody. Although the author's reasons are religious ones, most of her points could apply to anyone religious or not.

Click here to see the blog author's take on it. I couldn't agree more.

I will admit, I was glad to come home. But I do miss being among all of those great people.

My heart will forever be connected to Harlan, KY. A place I hadn't even heard of a couple of months ago. Amazing how there's always room for more in the human heart.

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Spiders, Snakes, Bedbugs and No Bathroom Privacy Oh My! - ChicagoNow (blog)