St. Joseph would have loved Eddie Michael. Besides knowing their way around a plane and a lathe, they both build hope. Carpentry is merely the setting for rebuilding hearts.
Eddie Michael is a lifelong resident of Louisa in eastern Kentucky. He is the current executive director of the Father Beiting Appalachian Mission Center (FBAMC), which serves his fellow eastern Kentuckians by helping them repair their homes.
The area has many challenges. More than 25 percent of its families live below the poverty line and many counties have the lowest educational attainment and life expectancy in the country. Michael knows this area well.
He served as a football coach, teacher and superintendent for Lawrence County before retiring in 2003. Coaching runs in Michael’s blood. Both his son and son-in-law played in the NFL. This explains why Michael is such a great coach to FBAMC clients looking to improve their homes
Full-service love
There is little that Michael and the FBAMC volunteers do not do. As executive director, Michael leads an average of 200 home visits each year for potential clients. A home visit assesses the social needs of a family as well as the condition of their home.
The Home Repair Program offered by FBAMC completes an average of 50 home-repair projects annually, with projects ranging from handicap-accessible ramp installments to roofing repairs.
Michael’s clients have many other needs besides home repair. Some of FBAMC’s efforts have included providing transportation to homeless shelters, filling a tank of gasoline to assist a family who must drive every day for cancer treatments, giving gift cards to families that lost food during a weeklong power outage, or helping a senior citizen complete paperwork to become a resident in low-income housing when their home is beyond repair.
A true measure of the effectiveness of an outreach program is what happens to former clients, who lived in homes in need of repair such as the one pictured below.
They have become servants to others. Such is the economy of God’s grace in action.
Sixty of FBAMC’s former recipients were so grateful for the services provided by Michael and his team that they have become regular volunteers themselves. They lead and work alongside parish and college groups that come from around the country to serve those experiencing poverty in eastern Kentucky.
The life-changing power of hope
One woman’s life was transformed by her encounter with FBAMC. She was a single mother who needed a handicap ramp installed on her trailer home. Michael and some volunteers spent five days getting to know her while the installation was being completed. She said her goal was to attend phlebotomy school but didn’t know if it was possible or where to start. Michael helped her explore potential programs for the remainder of the week.
A few months later Michael went to do a follow-up visit. When he arrived, he noticed that the ramp had been painted and decorated, and the front yard was meticulously groomed. The woman said that the ramp was such a gift that she wanted to take care of it as best as she could. She also told Michael that she had enrolled in phlebotomy school and was working to make a better life for her child.
Michael and his team have also developed a seminarian internship program. Two seminaries in Michigan and Wisconsin send their students for a 10-week program beginning in May to act as job foremen for home-repair projects.
While Michael and the seminarians are doing home repairs, they ask their clients for prayer intentions. They pray with and for those they are serving.
For many of the people receiving home-repair services, this is their first interaction with Catholics.
In fact, in many parts of eastern Kentucky, Catholics represent less than 1 percent of the population. For the seminarians it is a powerful grounding in the realities of rural poverty and learning how to preach through action and love.
Michael and his FBAMC volunteers know that nails, drywall, lumber and bricks are essential home-repair materials; they also know that hope is the one essential material for repairing hearts. St. Joseph surely agrees. It is this hope, which can withstand anything, that FBAMC gives in abundance to create a sturdy foundation in the hearts of the people of eastern Kentucky.
Catholic Extension Society is honored to share the story of Eddie Michael, a finalist for our Lumen Christi Award. This award is our highest honor given to people who radiate and reveal the light of Christ present in the communities where they serve. Visit this page to read the other inspiring stories from this year’s finalists.
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