On a recent youth mission trip to Hazard, Kentucky I had the opportunity to visit with the homeowner. His name was Randy. We were working on his trailer. We were tearing down his back porch and building a ramp. He walked with a cane and wore a blue tooth.
He was a kind man and he lived in a poor trailer park. He offered us Pepsi’s each day. During a light rain, he invited our youth on the porch to tell us about his life. He told us about his days as a coal miner. “I was twelve years old on my back half a mile into the mountain mining coal. Mama made us sandwiches and we ate inside. We worked nine hour shifts. The coal company made it so our family wouldn’t leave. They helped us with housing. They had a store. But when they left they tore down the store. We were as poor as they come but didn’t know it.”
After the youth left, he told me about speaking in tongues. “I’m part of the holiness church. I don’t know what church you’re apart of. It don’t matter. We all got our own journey. When I was a kid, I could never get the holy ghost. All my friends got the holy ghost. They could speak in tongues. I was always so mad because I knew what they did on Friday nights. But when I got older, my mom got sick. She was here in this trailer. All I could do was pray. I prayed all day. Then the Holy Spirit put me in a trance. I’m telling you. It got me higher than any drug. I felt like was floating. It was like I was hovering off the ground in this trailer. And if there wasn’t a roof on this trailer, I would have floated on up and out of this trailer park. I would floated real high and looked out over all the holler as free as a man can be. That’s the way that spirit got hold of me. I never had it like that again.”
Will Zant 