Christian Appalachian Project

The Healing Power of Happiness

Despite her health, Vineta is one of the happiest people in her eastern Kentucky town. When she opens her front door to greet her visitors, they get nothing less than a warm smile and a heartfelt “hello.”

Vineta lives by herself, but you’d never know that with the stories and life updates she always has to share. Her best friend lives not too far from her, but with neither of them having means of transportation, they don’t see each other often. Frequently, she’ll be visited by her 95 year-old friend, who walks from around the corner to visit her.

“She’s a doll, and she just loves to chat,” Vineta commented. “I know that when she’s getting ready to come over, it’s time to bake a pie. Oh, she loves pies. Last pie I made, she loved it so much she said, ‘I believe the rest of this is coming home with me.’ We have such a fun time,” Vineta said, as she laughed with joy.

Vineta makes you forget that she is in poor health or that her living conditions are so humble. She has a heart condition in which the exterior heart tissue squeezes in on the aorta. While she takes medication to alleviate the symptoms, there is no known reason or cure for the condition. She has also survived two cancer surgeries.

Until recently, she was having structural problems with her home. With the hard work of CAP volunteers, she now has a new covered front porch, back steps leading to the yard, and a new floor in her kitchen and front room. “I really, really appreciate what CAP has done for me, I really do,” Vineta says as she gets a hug from Anita, a CAP volunteer who visits her frequently. She doesn’t know how she’d get along if it weren’t for CAP.

Vineta knows the happiness she shares with others will come back to her, because it already has. She and her brother had lost touch with each other many years back. It was in 2001 that they found each other - Vineta being in Kentucky and her brother in Florida. Now, her brother sometimes takes her to Florida so they can spend some time together.

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