HURRICANE, W.Va. — Winding roads and switchback curves punctuated by tiny hamlets mark the landscape of Appalachia — a 205,000-square-mile, mountainous stretch from Alabama to New York. The region covers all of West Virginia and parts of 11 other states, including 39 of the nation’s 100 poorest counties.
The steep mountains and rugged roads have kept Appalachians isolated from the rest of the country and from outsiders’ involvement in their lives, contributing to a distinct mountain culture.
It’s been 44 years since Lyndon Johnson declared his “War on Poverty” from a ramshackle porch in Inez, Ky. Since then, the region has seen quite a bit of progress, but the current economic crisis in the U.S. has made a tough situation worse. More and more families are finding it difficult to make ends meet. In Clay County, Ky., for example, the median income per household is less than $21,000 a year, with 41.9 percent of the population living below the poverty line.
But hope comes in the form of food, clothing and volunteer labor as Southern Baptists wrap their arms around Appalachia.
This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Appalachian Regional Ministry (A.R.M.). Led by North American Mission Board (NAMB) national missionary Bill Barker, A.R.M. combines church planting, home repair, food pantries, clothing closets, evangelism, literacy and medical missions in an effort to impact lives in Appalachia with the gospel.
From the beginning, A.R.M. was a state convention executive director-driven ministry, working closely with the local Baptist associations and churches. Today A.R.M. entails a partnership of 13 state conventions, NAMB and Woman’s Missionary Union and is supported through the Cooperative Program and the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for North American Missions.
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