It happens every year at this time.
Teenagers from other states descend on Chattanooga and for two weeks work to make repairs on the homes of people who wouldn't be able to afford them otherwise.
Eschewing family vacations, afternoons at the pool, hours honing their expertise at video games or sleeping late, they spend the night on sleeping bags on the floor of churches, rise early, endure the local heat and humidity, and work like their parents only wish they'd work at home.
They're involved with World Changers, the Southern Baptist Convention mission arm that works with the city's Department of Economic and Community Development to identify the needs of homeowners. The city pays for the paint, lumber and other supplies, and the teenagers and the adults who accompany them do the work.
The volunteers sign up through their local churches and must pay $340 for the experience of a week's worth of hard work.
The denomination's mission agency has been working here since 2004, and Chattanooga teenagers affiliated with Southern Baptist Convention churches often do the same thing in other states.
As with most mission trips, the volunteers almost always say they get more out of the experience than what they're giving the homeowners.
After all, they're usually dealing with a situation that looks nothing like their comfortable homes back in Danville, Va., Columbia, S.C., or Deland, Fla. What they find, instead, are roof tiles that allow rain to penetrate modest living rooms, shrubbery that has nearly overtaken doors and windows, or porches that no longer offer a safe trip outside the home.
Inside are elderly, poor or disabled homeowners who often have just enough to keep food and medicine in the house but not make repairs on their home. Their incredulity at what is being done for them, and their thanks for it, has moved many a World Changers volunteer to tears. We've seen it.
World Changers, of course, is not the only organization doing such work, and the Southern Baptist Convention is not the only denomination that can recruit teenagers out of secure lives to help their fellow human beings. Indeed, it's how the country grew up - neighbor helping neighbor.
But we're grateful such work continues to go on, and we would encourage anyone who has the time and energy - one doesn't have to be a teenager to be mission-minded - to participate in such work that assists others and takes them out of their comfort zone.