Training to Listen, Listening to Tears of the Mountains

Tears and storytelling framed the experience of 11 seminary students from Drew University, Memphis Theological Seminary, Columbia Seminary and a seminary in New Zealand.

The ministers in training visited Kentucky and West Virginia through the Appalachian Ministries Education and Resource Center (AMERC) in conjunction with Drew University to learn about health and healing issues in Appalachia.  Dr. Heather Elkins of Drew University, Dr. Lon Oliver of AMERC and I, a United Methodist pastor, led the immersion.

In Kentucky, the students learned about health issues by visiting a health clinic, talking with an herbalist, and going to Appalshop, the Appalachian arts and education center in Whitesburg, where they saw a film on sludge.

Their first full day in West Virginia included a trip up to Kayford Mountain to hear from OVEC board member Larry Gibson.  Sitting on picnic tables and joined by Larry’s dog, the students listened as Larry spoke about his life on the mountain, his family’s connection to the land, and his first-hand experience of living next to a mountaintop removal site. 

The students watched closely as Larry took apart a model of the surrounding mountains and described the destruction of the hills that he had known since his childhood.  However, nothing prepared the students for the actual scene of mountaintop removal.  Standing on the rim of the deep gash in the earth where the coal company was furiously at work, the students talked about how impossible it was to convey the scale of devastation.  Larry and the students sought to comfort each other in the face of the injustice that was before them.

Two days after the visit to Kayford Mountain, the students met with Dianne Bady, Abraham Mwaura and Chuck Nelson from OVEC, and Sage with Christians for the Mountains. 

Abraham led the students in a training for a listening project that was to take place in the town of Eccles, near Beckley. The goal of the project was to identify issues that impact local residents, and to look for persons who would be willing to work on those issues.  Dividing up into small groups, the students knocked on doors and listened to the concerns of local residents. 

Throughout their journey, the students reflected on and discussed what they were seeing and hearing.  One student remarked that what impressed him most about West Virginia is that the people here always fight for what they believe in.