Days 108-112: The Buchheit House (11/30-12/4/20)

Our first day back from thanksgiving break, time to brainstorm. All we can do currently is send ideas to our supervisor Christina so she can tell Grace and I what is possible and what isn’t. The current emergency plan is staying in Pennsylvania, but not with the Ellis family. Rather, we drive over to Grace’s house and stay with her family for a few days. So off we went, a 2-hour drive west of Lancaster, to Grace’s farm in Needmore, PA. What’s awesome is her farm sits on top of a mountain, and the views were ridiculous! We met the Buchheit family a month ago at a bonfire dinner in Alexandria, VA, so it was great reuniting with the family. That evening, we played some games that got extremely competitive, which was fun for me since that side of me doesn’t come out as much anymore. . . Good news: We found some ministry! It may be the only ministry this week, but we will take it. We connected with Grace’s homeschool community and her sister’s confirmation group, and did some ministry for each of them. For the confirmation group, it was a 45-minute virtual class, which only allowed time for a talk and teaching a way to pray. Only half the team attended, meanwhile the other half went to set up the retreat in the Buchheit’s barn. We put up lights and got resourceful to keep the barn as warm as possible (which was not happening during a snow day). In the evening, we put on a 2-hour retreat for the group, which turned out to be a huge success! The lights made the barn look like a Hallmark movie, and although it was freezing cold, the Lord worked. Praise God! . . The next two days were alot of ministry practices: Drama, Skit, and Music practice, along with helping NET out with a project they’re working on. Yet, there was some fun activities sprinkled through it all. The first evening, we watched a Charlie Brown Christmas and The Grinch (60’s version) on VHS. The next day, we took some time to recreate the Charlie Brown Christmas movie, directed by Andrew. I played Pigpen if you were curious, but it turned out really well! Grace’s dad also took us trap shooting on their 119-acre property, as most of the kids did it for sport. This was the first time I shot a gun before, and I didn’t do half bad! I mean, I hit a couple clay pigeon targets, what else can you ask for? . . On our last day at the house, Sally was able to find a service project for us through her old youth minister, which was to write letters to all her parish’s confirmandi. So, we spent the bulk of the day writing letters, and cooking a meal for Grace’s family friend. In the evening, after dinner, Mama Buchheit took the whole team out for ice cream, which was delicious, and ended our time at the house with Deal or No Deal (with a twist), ran by Luke. It’s his family’s traditional game, and except for money prizes, there are certain different challenges you must do if you pick a certain suitcase, all the ones Luke chose being team inside jokes. It was a blast, at least for me. I really appreciate teammates stepping up during this time while Grace and I are trying to figure out things to do. We may not have found much more to do, but we know this much: we’re going back to Lancaster! The Ellis family found some stuff for us to do for a week, and it’s enough to keep us in the state. Is it weird, staying in the same state for three weeks? Yes, especially after being in a new state every week for the past 2.5 months. Hey, we take what we get right?