Images courtesy of David Eades

The written notice from city inspectors could not come at a worse time for the Fairmont, West Virginia couple. The husband had been battling cancer and was out of work. The construction needed to resolve their property issues would add another expense the couple could not afford. 

As the couple discussed their predicament with officials at the city municipal offices, David Eades and Lydia Kuehnert were waiting to be seen about a permit. The official pointed to Eades and Kuehnert and said, “Those are the two people you need to talk to.” 

Fairmont city officials know that families in the town can find the construction help they need from Dayspring Camp and Conference Center, where Kuehnert is camp director and Eades is vice president of the board. Eades also pastors Front Porch Church.

Dayspring Camp and Conference Center is a non-profit that hosts short term missions teams to serve Fairmont and its surrounding communities. While the organization functionally meets needs in the communities of the Fairmont region, the structure is meant to encourage discipleship and relational connection, both among volunteers and between the visiting teams and local community. 

The organization was formed in the mid-1990s out of the vision of the late Kenny Robinson, a PCA pastor, and operated in partnership with Mission to the World. While the organization has been operating independently for the last 10 years, they are endorsed by Mission to North America. Eades estimates about 90% of participating churches are PCA churches, and the organization’s bylaws stipulate a majority of board members must be in the PCA. 

“We love the construction side of things and the practical side of bringing the hope, help, and healing of Jesus to this community through construction and fixing people’s homes,” Kuehnert said. “But it’s also really neat when teams connect on a relational level with the homeowner and people of this community.

Fairmont, West Virginia as a town bears the scars of both the opioid crisis and economic depression. While coal mining opportunities spurred a population boom in the early 1900s, closing coal mines in the latter half of the century have had a negative effect on population. 

Eades notes that West Virginia is also the only state in the nation whose inflation-adjusted median household income has decreased since 1970.

The resulting effect on the town is that many homes are nearly a century old and in need of repairs and renovations. Families often pass down homes through generations, but cannot afford to repair or maintain the homes.

Thankfully, Dayspring Camp is in the business of recruiting armies of volunteers who descend on Fairmont armed with tools, skills, and love for the community. 

“We come with the hope of the gospel of Jesus. We come to walk with people to hopefully be the Lord’s presence in helping to relieve human suffering, and we see a timeless principle of helping people carry heavy burdens.” Eades said. 

Summer is the busiest season for the camp. Teams, usually from churches, come for a week at a time, and work on projects ranging from home renovation to Vacation Bible School. 

This summer, 35 churches will send teams, traveling from as far away as California, Florida, and New England. Dayspring Camp will host multiple churches each week. As the groups from different churches get to know each other, it encourages and enlarges their view of God’s work in the world.

“We hear and see a lot of teams really encouraged by seeing vibrant churches from other parts of the country,” he said. “It gives people an encouraging and bigger picture of what God does just throughout this country.”

Dayspring Camp serves as a basecamp for the assembled teams. Volunteers stay in cabins and eat most of their meals at Dayspring Camp, but are deployed to work sites during the day. 

A typical summer week runs Saturday to Saturday. Sunday includes worship in the morning, with some afternoon orientation to the sites, and evening worship and group prayer time. With the exception of a Wednesday afternoon off for recreation, Monday through Friday are full workdays. 

As project manager, Mike Keith serves as the liaison between the community needs and the teams. Months before a team visits, the team leader submits a document listing skills that team members possess. Keith matches a team with a project, with projects often extending across multiple weeks and teams. Some teams have returned in the offseason or the following summer to continue working on the same house. 

In some cases, relationships with homeowners have developed over years. One team developed such a close bond with a Fairmont resident that they traveled to Fairmont for her funeral after she passed away.

In addition to building relationships between teams and homeowners, Dayspring also seeks to cultivate a model of discipleship that encourages relationships between team members and between the teams themselves. Intergenerational bonds form as much over teaching a team how to use a drill as they do in prayer.

Each week has a significant emphasis on prayer, beginning and ending each day with devotions and prayer time. Dayspring also encourages teams to set aside a “prayer chair” on the worksite and have each team member spend 15-30 minutes in the chair praying for the rest of the team.

At age 12, Kuehnert attended her first mission trip at Dayspring Camp. She says those mission trips taught her to pray and experience the power of intergenerational discipleship. 

“When I came on these trips, I was able to learn from other adults in my church at the time, and they really took the time to teach me. I still see that from churches who come. Not only are these adults teaching practical skills, but they’re coming alongside and asking these young people what’s going on in their lives,” Kuehnert said.

Longtime team leaders David and Denise Spiezio have also seen the fruits of discipleship in the lives of their children and church members. This summer will mark the couple’s 16th year bringing a team to Fairmont from their Frederick, Maryland church.

In those early years, the teams were mostly teenagers, but as those teens became college students and young adults, they wanted to continue coming to Fairmont each summer. Now the teams include students and adults. Relationships built among team members have lasted beyond the week and into the years. 

“It builds a connection so that you’re able to continue ministering or show your care and love even after the trip, no matter where they are in their walk with God. It builds an opening to be able to continue relationships, even years after the trip is over,” Denise said. 

The emphasis on prayer that runs throughout the trip is a significant factor in building these bonds. 

“We’re encouraged to continue with prayer at the job site as somebody’s in a prayer chair throughout the day. At the debrief time in the evening, we share the good, the bad, and the ugly and what God has been doing for us through tough times,” David said. “It definitely creates more bonds and, later on, the opportunity to pray for them throughout the year as well, seeing them grow through their struggles.”

The Spiezios say they have been encouraged to see the teens’ desire to return to Fairmont each year, even when given the opportunity to travel instead to a Bible camp with more recreational activities. 

Church members back home have supported the Dayspring Camp teams by providing fundraising opportunities for the mission trip and donating scholarships. To double the impact of the worksite prayer chair, church members sign up for shifts to pray at home while the team is on the jobsite.

Seeing the transformation in the homeowners’ lives has also been rewarding for the Spiezios and their teams. 

One family had a wheelchair-bound daughter who had been using a portable toilet in the living room. The team’s bathroom renovation made the bathroom accessible and gave the daughter the dignity of privacy. Another woman had been unable to shower for 10 years because she could not navigate her stairs after a leg amputation. The team built a shower in her dining room, and installed a wheelchair ramp so that she could both shower and leave her house safely.  

The Dayspring Camp leadership hopes that after pouring into Fairmont for a week, volunteers will want to serve their home communities in the same way. Sometimes a team will decide not to return to Fairmont because they have chosen to spend a week of service addressing needs locally. This news always encourages the leadership of Dayspring Camp. 

“We’re kind of an incubator for folks to come and try out this kind of ministry in a setting that’s already been doing it and equipped and established for it, and they’ll take it back and replicate it. We really appreciate the fact that the Lord has given us the opportunity,” Eades said. “We’re a small little group of people, a small little church and a small little out-of-the-way place, but we see how the Lord has given us an outsized ministry relative to our little size and we’re just really grateful for that.”