3 years later: Methodists head out on a mission

8/1/2018

By Patsy Nicosia

3 years later: Methodists head out on a mission

In a journey that really began three years ago, 30 Methodists representing congregations that stretch from Warnerville to Delanson loaded up four vans Saturday and headed south to lend a hand in Appalachia.
There, volunteers will spend four days installing linoleum, putting on roofs, and building stairs as part of a Red Bird Mission.
Saturday, it was good-natured chaos as sleepy teens and energized adults squeezed sleeping bags, supplies, and donations.
Bill and Fran Sossei of Warnerville were the first to arrive; Mr. Sossei was headed out with a carload of four teenage boys, something 40 years of teaching high school prepared him well for, he joked.
“It’s really amazing to be part of this,” Ms. Sossei said. “The need is so great…It’s coal country and people live with very little.”
In fact, the average income is less than $7,000 a year with the three counties—Bell, Clay, and Leslie—that Red Bird serves among the top 20 poorest counties in the country; more than 30 percent of residents live below the federal poverty level.
The Red Bird Mission, located in Kentucky, is sponsored by the Methodist Conference; the Schoharie Region United Methodist Churches headed to the work camp are represented by volunteers from Cobleskill, Delanson, Esperance, Gallupville, Grosvenors Corners, Huntersland, Middleburgh, Sharon Springs, and Warnerville.
Ms. Sossei said this is the first time the churches have worked together on something this big.
“There was a lot of work just getting to this point,” she said, beginning with fundraising: dinners, bake sales, and a Red Bird sale of items handcrafted in Kentucky that was held at the Warnerville UMC last summer.
The Sosseis have already visited the area the volunteers will be working in; her husband, who also has a lifetime of experience in contracting, was so struck by the need that he wanted to go back right away, Ms. Sossei said.
The youngest volunteers are in the teens, the oldest is 74-year-old Linda Van Schaick of Sharon Springs, who started recording the trip in her journal before the first van even left the parking lot.
The trip itinerary called for taking two days to reach Kentucky with an overnight at the Fisherville UMC in Staunton, Virginia.
Once in Kentucky, the volunteers will stay at the Red Bird Mission dormitories.
Wednesday will be a day off to explore the area and the group will return on August 5.
Anna Blinn Cole, pastor at the Warnerville UMC and regional coordinating pastor for the Schoharie Region UMCs, is originally from the area the local groups will be working in, Ms. Sossei said, and she was already there, waiting for them.
“Pastor Cole deserves so much credit for this,” Ms. Sossei said. “She is so innovative in the things she wants us to do. In Warnerville, we’ve become ‘can do’ people. It’s such a good feeling.”
It was June of 2015 that Warnerville—along with UMCs in Hyndsville, Dorloo, and Mineral Springs—were slated for closure, in part because of declining membership.
Mineral Springs, with the smallest, oldest membership, did close, and the Hyndsville and Dorloo congregations joined forces to create the non-denominational Christian Community Church of Faith with a church in Richmondville.
Only Warnerville remains as it was and with drive-through dinners, a vacation Bible school and free summer meals held in conjunction with other churches, and even things like movie night, it’s hardly “as it was,” Ms. Sossei said.
“We’re doing what we should be,” she said. “We’re blessed.”