The Friday Finish - Commodities Delayed, Delivered - Where I Meet Jesus: A Cold Day... - Cool the School Moving - Expand "The Sisterhood"
- Tim Crawford
- Feb 6
- 7 min read
February 6, 2026
Commodities Delayed Again, Delivered
Another winter storm rolled through the Bluegrass State last weekend throwing snow and ice to delay the delivery of food from God’s Pantry Food Bank in Lexington. Thankfully, the postponement was only a day, not a week this time so that the low income elderly and disabled served by Red Bird Community Outreach finally got needed food staples on Wednesday. They also got those sweet potatoes from middle Tennessee that had been donated over two weeks ago to help food insecure households get through January into February.
The icy road conditions for many of the recipients prevented them from coming Wednesday, but boxes were held for pickup at the Schaeffer Building on the Queendale Campus. Norma said she had to take a different route in her four-wheel drive SUV to get out of Mill Creek, but she was a true neighbor helping neighbor. She picked up boxes for 5 other households. Those coming in Thursday afternoon got a bonus of fresh onions, cabbage, potatoes and carrots that Red Bird Mission staff picked up at the God’s Pantry satellite warehouse in London.
Where I Meet Jesus: A Cold Day at the Commodities Barn
I’m just an ordinary Appalachian girl, nothing fancy to my name. Through my eyes, these are my stories: I catch little glimpses of Jesus in the people and the work we do out here in these hills. And today, I met Jesus.
By mid-morning the barn at Red Bird looked less like a storage building and more like a little factory line in the heart of the Appalachian Mountains.
Cardboard boxes, filled by hands that already knew this drill by heart. Canned vegetables, beans, juice, all for somebody’s kitchen. Volunteers from different departments, staff kids and my own kids worked their way down the line grabbing, stacking, passing, learning what it means to love your neighbor with more than just words.
Outside, the cold still had its claws in our hills. And standing right in it, like she always does, was our Coordinator of Women and Children Ministries, Candace. No fancy title out there by the barn—just a sweet lady in a heavy coat, a knit hat, and a faithful smile, greeting each car that pulled up like she’d been waiting on them all week.
Beside her was Ken Smith, our long-term volunteer from Tennessee, who thinks nothing of driving down to our little corner of Kentucky just to help Candace make sure nobody gets forgotten. There’s no “backup Candace,” no deep bench she can call in when she’s tired or sick. On commodity days, she leans hard on volunteers. She trusts that God will send people who will show up, grab a box, and stand in the cold with her.
I came that morning to take pictures and video—because folks need to see how much quiet work goes into one day of “the mission took care of us.” I caught some good shots of the line inside, the way people moved together without a lot of talking. Then the morning after, I watched Candace and Ken out there in that wind, box after box after box, and something in me just said, “Alright. Camera down. You’re needed here.”
So I put the lens away, and stepped out into the cold with them. Kelton joined in too, because that’s just who he is, and before long we had a little crew: Candace calling names and checking lists, Ken and Kelton and me hauling boxes and bags of taters to trunks and cars that have seen a lot of miles on mountain roads.
Every vehicle that pulled up had a story sitting behind the steering wheel. Some faces I recognized. Some I didn’t. There were grandparents raising grandbabies, older folks who probably debated all morning whether they could risk the drive. Some held their head high, some wouldn’t quite meet my eyes.
But one by one, we loaded boxes into trunks and backseats without questions and without judgment—just food, a smile, and a “y’all be careful and stay warm.” Almost everybody said the same things on their way out.
“Thank you.”
“I love you.”
“Come and go to church with me.”
It didn’t matter how cold our hands were or how tired our backs got. Love looked like carrying one more box into one more trunk, over and over again. At one point, Kelton looked at Candace and said,
“This work is the heart of the mission—people are counting on this food, and no matter if it’s rain, shine, snow, or ice, we keep doing God’s work and getting it to them.”
Real love isn’t shiny or staged out here. It’s people who are struggling themselves still showing up to carry somebody else’s load. It’s a mom with her own bills and worries packing boxes with her kids so those kids grow up knowing this is just what we do. It’s a Coordinator of Women and Children Ministries who stands in the freezing air with no backup plan, trusting God to send help and trusting that if one of her families needs her, she’ll be there when they roll up beside the barn.
There’s a holiness in days like this that you can’t always explain, but you can feel it. You feel it in the quiet “God bless you” from an elder on a fixed income. You feel it in the “I love you” shouted out a rolled-down window from someone who’s been through more than you know. You feel it in that deep, steady warmth in your chest when your nose is red and your fingers are numb, but you know beyond any doubt you are exactly where you’re supposed to be.
In these times—freezing cold, tough work, people you can count on—this is where I meet Jesus. Not in the easy moments, not sitting in the pews of a church house, but out by a drafty barn, a line of cars, and a handful of faithful folks doing what they can with what they have. This is where lessons are taught, where kids learn what real ministry looks like, and where tired hearts remember that they’re not alone.
“Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.” — 1 John 3:18
- Kayla Smith, Development Gifts & Media
Cool the School Moving Towards Reality
Many supporters may be wondering what’s happening with the urgent need to provide central air conditioning at Red Bird Christian School. Room air conditioners have helped, but school administrators and student families know that our students may not be doing their best learning on those hot August and September days when early dismissals have been required when classroom temperatures get into the 80’s.
Progress has been made over the past two years by Red Bird Mission
Maintenance staff and volunteers to prepare for purchase and installation of a new air conditioning system. Repairs have been made and the pipes have been tested for the heating and cooling water delivery system to verify they won’t need replacement for several years.
After consideration of alternative systems, a new replacement chiller has been ordered thanks to funds collected through the Cool the School initiative thus far. We still need approximately $10,000 by March to get delivery and begin installation before the building starts heating up at the end of the school year. Please help now with an online donation, or mail your check to Red Bird Mission, Inc., 70 Queendale Ctr, Beverly, KY 40913-9607 marked “Cool the School”.
Replacement of the failing classroom units for the system will follow, but can be done on a room by room basis as funds become available. The cost for installation and replacement of the library units is coming in at $10,000 so the expectation is that costs for other room unit replacements would be lower. We’re asking alumni groups, church groups, or churches to begin organizing special fund drives to complete the Cool the School initiative so that our students will have a better environment for learning.
Reconnecting to Expand “The Sisterhood”
The story is not unique to the mountain region, but the lack of resources and training prevent resilient and determined women from providing better conditions for their families. The New Opportunity School for Women (NOSW) began in Berea College in the late 1980’s providing a short residential program to help women gain the skills and connections to improve their economic capacity benefitting their families. NOSW’s success in helping women advance their opportunities has been supported by major charitable foundations including Oprah Winfrey’s Use Your Life Award.
Red Bird Mission Community Outreach has referred local women to the program that has now expanded to other states and evolved with the times adding non-residential programs, online offerings, and a Sisterhood network to accommodate 21st Century needs. NOSW staff Angel Short, Executive Director, and Crystal Burton, Program Coordinator, paid a visit Thursday to Tracy Nolan, Community Outreach Director, to learn what Red Bird Mission is doing for families through its programs. Tracy is hopeful that this reconnection will create new opportunities for some women in our community to become part of the NOSW “Sisterhood” network strengthening households in the Red Bird communities.
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