Serving in God’s Mission

Two-year-old Kason stands at his front door anxiously waiting. When the colorful mobile classroom from Christian Appalachian Project (CAP) turns into his driveway, he cheers and eagerly waves to the driver. Lori Ross, CAP’s Infant/Toddler caseworker, makes the stop to see Kason and his 1-yearold sister, Clara Jane, every other week for their lessons.

“These kids have my heart,” Ross said. “Having a child excited to see you tells you you’re doing something right. I’m proud to see the impact the mobile classroom is making on children in our area. I love my job.”

The mobile classroom is an initiative of CAP’s Eagle Community Center in McCreary County, which launched in 2023 in partnership with Save the Children. The mobile classroom ensures children from birth to 3 years old receive critical developmental care. Ross works with children and their families, offering developmental screenings and specialized lessons to meet the needs of the children she serves. Ross also performs maternal health screenings, promotes self-care and self-confidence in guardians, and evaluates needs to connect families to essential services CAP or other organizations may offer.

Like many children she sees, Ross works with Kason and Clara Jane on social-emotional skills—skills Ross has discovered children in her area need help developing. However, the geography of Appalachia can pose challenges in finding services or opportunities that are available to help children, their families, and seniors in the region.

“Social-emotional skills are so incredibly important,” Ross said. “I see almost every one of the children I work with struggle with it. Services for families are not something that is readily available in our area because it is so rural. We are isolated. I want to help as many families as I can. I want to be there to say, ‘I’m in your corner, we’re going to get through this together, and you are not alone.’”

Ross finds that consistency in her lessons is key to making progress in skills and building trust with the children and families she serves. When she first met Kason and Clara Jane, they were very shy and only comfortable being with their mother. Through consistent lessons and encouraging video messages during the week, Ross gained their trust and developed their social skills through imagination play, reading books, learning colors and letters, and simple playtime. Today, the brother and sister are open to being with other people, making new friends at church, and attending play groups and events hosted at Eagle Community Center alongside other children and their families.

“We absolutely love when Ms. Lori comes for our visit,” said Valerie, Kason and Clara Jane’s mother. “We signed up for the mobile classroom in hopes that it would help them with their social skills and to form relationships with others. There’s something about Lori—they’ve bonded with her since the first day they’ve met her. I am so thankful for this program and what it has done for my kids already.”

Ross is proud of the work she does in her community and is grateful for CAP supporters who make it possible. “Our supporters are just as much a part of everything we do as I am,” she said. “We are thankful and respectful of each dollar or resource we receive, that we use it to help build the families we serve and our region. We are all serving God through this mission, and you can tell He is in everything that we do.”