And now we’re home…
By Jeffrey Kanode, RealWV
As a Methodist pastor, I’ve called multiple houses, churches, towns, and counties throughout West Virginia my home. In case you’re not familiar with our system, Methodist pastors live and work under an itinerant system. Our bishop assigns us to the churches we serve, and much like a member of the military who moves from a base here to a base there, sometimes across the globe, we move according to our assignments–though ours are confined to a small geographic area, like West Virginia.
For most of my ministry, I have served in the southern part of our state. To be completely transparent, I have always asked to pastor in the south. It’s home. I grew up in Mercer County–Princeton, and my parents still live in the house in which my sisters and I grew up. My wife grew up in the tiny community of Waiteville, near Union, Monroe County, and all of her family still live within a small radius of each other in that place of such stunning beauty.
Home.
For over forty years, I found home in the lands where the New and Greenbrier Rivers flow, where blue mountains tower over verdant, green fields. The people speak with a bit of a twang. Most all of us love NASCAR. Loyalties are equally divided between WVU and Virginia Tech.
Last summer, I received a new assignment: pastoring the New Martinsville United Methodist Church in Wetzel County. One doesn’t need to be a Golden Horseshoe winner to recognize Wetzel is as far north as one can get in West Virginia before crossing the Mason-Dixon, entering the Northern Panhandle.
My emotions matched the palpable thumping of my heart both during and after my conversation with my superior. I knew New Martinsville UMC has a wonderful reputation in our conference–I was getting a great “gig.” I knew I would be moving far from my parents, far from the southland of home. I knew I would be asking my wife to leave places and people she cherished, too–places and people cradling heart and soul and being for a lifetime.
We couldn’t pass up the opportunity.
And this southerner has found home in a small town along the Ohio River. Every time I see the river–just outside the walls of my church; along Route 2 as I drive here and there–I remember that for black people trapped in slavery, the Ohio marked the boundary between chains and aspirations–it was the river of freedom. When I travel to Wheeling for meetings or for date night, I recall Wheeling’s proud history in the statehood movement–loyalty to the Union, birthplace of a new, proud state.
Then, there’s the people: the people of New Martinsville, Wetzel County, the panhandle.
They say “you ‘uns” or “yinz” instead of “ya’ll.” NASCAR fandom is rare but Pittsburgh football and baseball mean the world.
Yankees though they are, they have hearts as deep as a southern West Virginia coal mine, souls as true as evergreens on an Allegheny slope stretching toward heaven.
They work hard to fund and staff programs to feed their hungry neighbors. They give furniture out to families in need so children have warm, cozy beds in which to sleep. They nourish the sense of community in their church with potlucks and outreach events. They cherish the sense of togetherness they feel at their kids’ ball games. They strive to build the best educational opportunities for their kids.
They are people–good, caring, friendly people.
They are my neighbors. They are my fellow citizens. They are my friends.
Home for me and mine will always be the southern tip of the state where East River and Peters Mountains divide West Virginia from mother Virginia. I’ll be buried in those highlands someday. These lowlands down by the Ohio–where forever flowing waters form the boundaries of statehood; where kind, good people live in towns like New Martinsville– now feels like home, as well.
