Days 100-107: Thanksgiving Break!! (11/22-11/29/20)

It’s break time! Every year, the NET teams spend a few days around thanksgiving time to rest, just like all the schools do. Last year, I was in Pennsylvania for thanksgiving with my teammate Roni’s family. This year, we are in... Pennsylvania! This time Lancaster, PA, where Samuel’s family lives, and we are staying with his family for a few days. It’ll be fun going back, as I stopped at their house a few times last year. We had three travel days to get up to PA, with stops in Savannah, GA and Fayetteville, NC. In Savannah, my old teammate Ellie housed us for the night, so I got to meet her family for the first time! The next morning, she gave us a tour around downtown Savannah, which is more historical than I expected it to be. From there, we returned to St. Patrick’s in Fayetteville, which was nice to see familiar faces and places. The next morning, we headed for Willow Street, PA, to be exact, for Sam’s house. I cannot WAIT to see what’s in store for us this week. . . So the guys have had this idea for a couple months now. Burger King was selling 10 chicken nuggets for $1, so if all the guys put in $10 each, we could do the 500 chicken nugget challenge, 100 nugs for each guy. So that is what we did the first morning in Lancaster for Men’s Session while waiting to get haircuts by this local barber. We didn’t complete it by any means, but the idea was incredible. A big reason for not finishing was the ladies wanting to honor us im the midst of our nug challenge. They had us do various fun challenges of our own to try to find the trailer key, such as interpretive dances and hypnotizing the Ellis’ chickens (yes, you can hypnotize chickens), before finding the key under a bowl of whipped cream. In the trailer were christmas gifts, including each person’s favorite snack and drink! It was super honoring, and it was a ball of a time. We also began watching this Bollywood movie, and I only mention it because I’ve never been so awestruck, confused, and satisfied with a movie in my life. . . Thanksgiving day at the Ellis house! We started it off with Mass, then had our feast for lunch, where we joined in their annual Bingo tradition. After Bingo, we went and met Sam’s grandparents. This was more important than any normal visit because we have been praying for them since Camp Wapo, when Sam learned his grandpa was slowly dying to cancer. Fortunately, he healed over time, much attributing to the intercession of the saints, but our prayers drew us closer to him without knowing him beforehand. Our time was spent doing some praise & worship and praying over them in person, which was super special. A very simple thanksgiving in the midst of a complicated year. . . When my team came to Lancaster last year, we went to this arcade/laser tag place called Laserdome for my teammate’s birthday. It was SUCH a blast, and they really enjoyed our company too. So, when I learned we were going to Lancaster for thanksgiving, I had to take my new team over. It was awesome being back, and we were there for the whole afternoon, which was so much fun dominating at laser tag and Dance Dance Revolution. That evening we had a special treat. Christopher West, who is extremely popular in the Catholic World for creating “Theology of the Body”, is close friends with the Ellis family, and came over to give us a 2-hour talk on Our Lady of Guadalupe. Let me tell you, my brain was absolutely fried after how much mind-blowing information he shared with us, he was INCREDIBLE!! So the guys afterwards decompressed by doing a quick, late night Taco Bell run. Classic young adult dude moment for sure. . . The weekend before heading back into ministry was super chill: a no obligation day on Saturday and Mass on Sunday. I took this time to reunite with friends and family. First, on Saturday, my teammate from last year, Roni, who lives about an hour east of Lancaster, took me out for the day. I got to see her family again, jammed out on guitar, go on a walk with ice cream, and call some of our old teammates! We saw eachother when I visited Franciscan University, but this was the first time I truly got to spend quality 1-on-1 time with her since we got cut off in March, and it was incredible. On Sunday afternoon, my Auntie, who lives 1.5 hours away from Lancaster, drove over and took me out to dinner! Her, my uncle, and two cousins were also there, and it was great seeing them again! They took me in for a few days between getting cut off last year and the beginning of the lockdown in March, and I haven’t seen them since. It was weird, because I feel I have been doing everything the past four months, and they haven’t been able to do anything during that time since, so I found myself talking alot. Finally, I saw my buddy Peter, who did NET last year and is also close with the Ellis fam. We reunited at mass, then caught up later in the evening. It filled my heart to see these incredible people, and I’m so grateful for the opportunity to do so. . . Couple more things from the break. Sunday morning before mass, the guys decided to honor the ladies by cooking breakfast in the morning. Since it was the first Sunday of Advent, we were all dressed up, making the morning even better. The pancakes and omelets turned out amazing, and it was overall a beautiful time. Regarding the next two weeks, we were supposed to go South Dakota for two weeks, but while in Florida, Grace and I found out they canceled on us due to COVID. This was a week and a half before thanksgiving break ended, so surely it was enough time for NET to find us something. They couldn’t, everyone is shutting down again no one is available. So now it’s up to Grace and I to find some ministry the next two weeks, with the team and the Ellis fam helping us brainstorm. I really don’t know what these next two weeks will look like, but we’re gonna take it one day at a time because that is all we can do. Come Lord Jesus, give us stuff to do!