Repaid in Kind

The Ousley twins, Jamie and Amie, were just six years old and had never spent the night away from home or away from their parents. A year prior, volunteers from Christian Appalachian Project (CAP) had visited their valley and invited them to camp. The sisters were so excited that they packed bags a year in advance anticipating their week at Camp Shawnee.

Once boarding the bus that was taking them on the long winding road up the mountain to camp, the sisters wondered if they had made a mistake. Amie was anxiously biting her nails as she and Jamie took the journey. Upon their arrival at Camp Shawnee, a camp counselor from Chicago, Illinois, saw their distress and made them feel at ease.

“We grew up in a little holler called Conley Fork of Spurlock, just outside Prestonsburg,” said Jamie (Ousley) Conley, who serves as a Housing coordinator for Johnson, Floyd, and Martin Counties. “Growing up in our neighborhood, everybody was poor. We were always outside, playing barefoot in the summer months. The only shoes we got in the summer were a pair of jelly shoes to wear to church on Sunday.”

Conley’s stay at Camp Shawnee was her first introduction to CAP which would later play a pivotal role in her life.

“I attended Camp Shawnee for nine years. That was my only vacation every year,” she said. “Then there was a terrible time in our lives with nowhere to turn and nowhere to go. CAP made sure my family had what we needed to get a fresh start. I will never forget that.”

CAP continued to make an impact on Conley’s life throughout the years. After attending Shawnee, she became a participant at CAP’s Teen Center in Martin, Kentucky. She also witnessed how the organization helped several neighbors who needed home repair.

Years later, it was Conley’s husband Brian who told her about a job opening with CAP. She was thrilled when she got the position. “I was excited to show the same love and compassion to other participants that I felt as a child,” said Conley. “It is important to me that people know that they are not alone in whatever it is that they are going through. I want to help if I can make their burden lighter.”

“I rode with Brian who was driving a tractor-trailer full of supplies to Joplin when it was demolished by an EF-5 tornado,” Conley recounted. “The people lost everything, but then they saw that truck coming. They knew it had supplies they needed. We could see their smiles, people waving, their hope was being restored. I heard so many heart-wrenching stories that day when we delivered the supplies to a church. I love that we can work in different programs and still experience the same outcome, which is helping people in need.”

After all of these years with CAP, Conley has never forgotten the impact of that first encounter at camp. “David Moser was his name. He had to go home the night before camp was over, but he left us a two-page letter telling us that God pointed him in our direction that very first day of camp. He talked about the impact that we had on his life. That experience made a huge difference in our lives.”

Conley now impacts the lives of other families in need in Appalachia. “I have always had compassion and the desire to help others. CAP has allowed me the opportunity to live out my mission in life, to help as many people that I can whenever I can. It is a wonderful feeling to go home from work knowing that God worked through me to help make a family’s life a little brighter. When you can be a part of an answered prayer, it is an awesome feeling.” • __________________________________________ Donate at christianapp.org/MtSpiritGive to help us continue to share these meaningful stories. Find out more about volunteering with CAP on our website at christianapp.org/volunteer