Days 162-165: The Craziest Days on NET. Ever. (2/14-2/17/21)

Valentine’s Day is a little bit more special this year, because it is Andrew’s 19th birthday! We cannot celebrate it like a normal day, though, as we have a day-long retreat then more traveling afterwards. Yet, the snow and ice came in pretty hard last night, so today’s retreat is extremely up in the air. When we arrived at St. Matthew’s in Ripley, MS, for breakfast and setup, we learned that the snowy and icy weather will only get worse, and people chose not to drive up due to conditions. Who can blame them, snow hits differently down here in Mississippi. Yet, we still got a good amount of retreatants to come, but the retreat got weirder and weirder as it went on. I sent Elizabeth to pick up Grace from Memphis, about and hour away, as she flew in from her brother’s wedding if you recall the last post. The 4-hour roundtrip, according to them, was quite the experience with the ice and flipped cars on the highway, as they arrived for lunch. Due to conditions, the retreat had to be shortened by almost 2 hours so people could get home sooner. Hence, we changed the schedule and fit everything we wanted to into the last of the retreat. But we still had to drive 3 hours to the other side of Mississippi in Greenville after retreat, so we had to go before it got too icy and dark. We loaded up and said our goodbyes... until Brenden and Samantha noticed something wrong with our left trailer tire. After checking it out, we put it on a jack where we noticed the wheel was ready to FALL OFF THE AXLE. AGAIN! This happened back in October in Virginia as well. So, now what? We talked to our contact person, and decided to just stay the night in the church where we just put the retreat on! It had all the necessities: showers, small classrooms for suitcases, and Jesus in the tabernacle. We could stay there until we get our trailer fixed! Perfect. Luckily, the parish people knew a couple mechanics, so within two hours our trailer was fixed. We still decided it was not worth driving in the dark and snow, and would just take our time the next morning. We chilled that night, after 4 retreats in a row with alot of travel in the middle, by doing some praise and worship and eating alot of food. That’s quite the birthday, isn’t in Andrew? All glory to God we didn’t start driving with a bad axle, man, that would’ve been horrible! Praise God for His protection, He’s totally got us. . . We took our time in the morning getting ready to go, had breakfast and did team prayer before leaving around noon. The ice and snow built up alot overnight, so our 3 hour drive turned into 6 hours. We were technically supposed to have a retreat today (Monday), but it got cancelled due to weather. Hopefully Ash Wednesday’s retreat works out. While driving, we learned the city of Greenville, MS, where we were heading, lost their water supply with the weather issues... how crazy! So we stay in the hotel in Indianola, the city next door, and hang out for the night. Grace and I reconnected that evening after her quick departure and figure things out for the rest of the week. I’m not sure what to think, though, it’s all so much to figure out for the team. I will admit, it’s alot of fun problem solving under pressure, and I’m grateful I am utilizing this skill I did not know I had. Praise God! . . We had team day inside the hotel, and it was just time for us to chill out, play games, and eat the week’s worth of food that has been given to us within the next two days. Luckily it was Fat Tuesday, so it made sense for us to eat until it hurt. A couple things that happened though: our Wednesday retreat did get cancelled due to no water, so ministry in MS is officially done. While having a meeting with NET’s fundraising department, the fire alarm in the hotel went off. Apparently, some of the rooms’ hotel pipes busted too!! Luckily not any of ours, but wow. That’s insane! After some thinking, Grace and I decided it would be best to leave a day early and get out of this state ASAP, especially since the next day they were expecting 8 more inches. We were planning on going to Georgia and staying a couple nights, but now we will stay an extra night to get out. Here we go. . . This is easily the earliest we’ve had to leave anywhere yet this year. At 6am, we departed from Indianola, and headed east. It took 5 hours to get out of Mississippi instead of 3, but safety was worth it. We definitely felt the ice, and it was scary to say the least. All the other states were fine by the way, just Mississippi was a hot mess. We stopped in Tuscaloosa, AL, at the University of Alabama’s Catholic Center, for Ash Wednesday Mass. I saw their massive football stadium, and learned the Catholic Center is named after their football coach Nick Saban, who is apparently super Catholic. My sports side was freaking out, that’s for sure. And also, you could not have told me last year on NET (or ever I guess) that I would get my Ash Wednesday ashes at the University of Alabama... what a time. The rest of the drive was easy, and we made our way to Woodstock, GA, where the Doty family would keep us for a couple nights. One of the kids, Austin, did NET last year, and was a Team Leader. I remember him being super chill and funny, so I’m excited for the next few days. . . That was easily the craziest few days on NET, if not my life. So many strange obstacles we had to work around, but the Lord provided in big ways during this time. And although it was fun figuring it all out, I got extremely tired from it, naturally. Just gonna keep chugging along, though, gotta maximize my last three months on NET, right?