Days 197-199: The End (3/12-3/14/20)

Welp, time to get my sad-boy hours in. These next three days would change my life, our lives, forever, and we didn't realize it at the beginning of March 12th. It was just another morning, without Sarah and Roni of course, with prayer and ministry practice and team bonding time. Feeling the pressure of the coronavirus has grown with each day. They just cancelled the NBA among alot of other things the night before, it felt like our world was falling apart. But we were still here, and will continue to move forward. Today, we moved to St. Anthony's Parish in Lakewood, NJ, and we will be here for the next two days for two back-to-back confirmation retreats. Fun fact, according to locals, Lakewood is the home of Jewish people, and Jews from Israel recommend moving to this place. Anyways, the retreat was alot quieter than groups that we have had recently this past month or so, but it was good to have a challenge, as they were super respectful and just had to get them to open up to us. It was a very Hispanic-dominant group, which I thoroughly enjoyed. After the retreat, though, that's when it all began. After everyone left, Nels said he has news, told us to not look at our phones, and to pack up and head to the van for our convent, where we would stay the night. Everyone had a feeling what it would be, but no one wanted to speculate/admit to it. It got even more scary when Sarah came back in the middle of cleaning. Why is that scary? Well, she came back a day early than expected from her personal retreat. Tensions were high when we arrived to the convent. We unpacked and met in the living room. It's around 9:45pm. Sarah calls up Christina and Jaime on Google Hangouts, and they share the news that NET has suspended ministry until April 13th. They have ordered all missionaries to return home as soon as possible, and return all NET vans to headquarters. Every team was different, but for us, we would have our final retreat tomorrow at the same parish, then begin our journey home March 14th. As you could imagine, we were heartbroken. How could our year but cut short like this? Will we be able to come back after April 13th? So many questions and tears and scary thoughts entered the room. It doesn't feel real. After the call, we split off to begin working on our travels home. I called up my mom, and I would plan to stay with my auntie who lives in the Philadelphia area for a few days, then head home on March 16th. It was a hard night, but we all were grateful we had one more opportunity for everything: one more day (40 hours to be specific), one more team prayer, one more retreat, one more final conversations. Just weren't ready for them at all. . . The next morning, we were served a wonderful breakfast, and had our final team prayer, led by Jakob. It was powerful, and we all gave our hearts out. It was special. From there, we began planning our final schedule. Typically the retreat leader chooses who does what, but because it is our final retreat, people got to pick who was on what, and pick our favorite skits and dramas to perform one last time. It took 30 minutes, but it was alot of fun building the schedule. Once finished, we began praying over eachother for healing and comfort in a hard time, right before leading our 93rd and final retreat. And there's no question we gave our hearts out. Aimee, a bilingual Spanish speaker, led the retreat and was absolutely loving leading a Hispanic-dominant group, said she "felt at home". Everyone got to do something, which was super special, and it was truly a fun ride. Today's retreatants were more energetic than yesterday's group, but still on the lower energy side, but nonetheless so good. That night, we went back home and had one final night prayer before breaking off into hoods (guys and girls). We had the speaker blaring music, when we started playing weird music/noises off of Youtube. That's when us guys came up with an impromptu plan to prank the sisters. Why? Because it's our last night that's why! The sisters were sleeping in the basement, so we found the weirdest/funniest video/sound byte we could, prepared it on speaker, and using a rope, dropped the speaker down the railing. Once we dropped it down as far as we could, we played it on max volume an and ran off! This, expectantly, scared the daylights out of the sisters, one of whom was already sleeping. The girls marched up the stairs in anger and frustration, punching the brothers on the shoulders while we are cracking up laughing. They were beyond confused, and we were beyond accomplished. It was a good night. . . We woke up early the next morning to get to Chadds Ford, PA, to Roni's house, and do our final things as a team before splitting up. The plan: From Chadds Ford, me(pickup by auntie), Moriah (flight from PHI-DEN), Ellie (pickup by dad), and Roni would stay back, while the rest of the team would head for Sarah's house in Erie for the night. From there, they would leave Sarah behind while the rest (Nels, Evan, Jakob, Adam, Monica, and Aimee), would head back to St. Paul. This would take two days, and will stop at a hotel in Chicago. From there, the Minnesota Twins (Adam and Evan) would get picked up, while the rest took flights home. Before this plan went into action, we would do our final, 6-minute one-on-one conversations with everybody, saying whatever we needed to say before leaving each other. Of course, it was emotional for some, but we all would try to stay connected after the road anyway, so it wasn't goodbye forever. After conversations and final lunch/grace together, we did quick affirmations with the whole group, one final Hail Mary, and final team hug. That's when the tears began for pretty much everyone. It was hard. It was the end. Adam unpacked our stuff for the last time, and like that, the NET van drove off. Ellie got picked up by her dad, I went with Moriah and Roni to Starbucks to visit Roni's sister, Morgan, who works there, while waiting for my auntie. Finally, the whole family was there to pick me up, and I threw my stuff in the car, and left. And that's all she wrote.