Days 171-176: The Return to Florida! (2/23-2/28/21)

It’s not often we get to stay 3 nights in 3 different states, but that is the case for us. After a great supervisor visit, we dropped off Christina and Anthony at the Charlotte airport, and continued with our ministry. Andrew shared the next chapter of his book with us, which led to good one-on-one’s with peeps that afternoon before driving north to Bishop McGuinness High School in Kernersville, NC. We had dinner with the campus minister and some high school seniors, who were peer ministers at the school. Peer ministers essentially put on retreats for the high school underclassmen, but with COVID restrictions, they called us in to put on the sophomore retreat. The next morning, we put on the 10th grade retreat for 120 youth, our biggest retreat yet. It was a strange retreat, not because of size, but because it was only 5 hours, the shortest retreat we have had in a while. We still made it work, it was a good time. Immediately after retreat, we packed our bags and drove down to Charleston, SC, where we stayed the night with a group called Discipleship Missionary Team, which is basically NET but exclusively in the state of South Carolina. Deacon Jerry, the founder of DMT, is a NET alum who brought this ministry to his home state of South Carolina. They are a great group, and I bonded with a girl who is close college friends with my teammate Sarah from last year. They even put on adoration and a praise session for us, which was so beautiful. Continue to pray for their ministry as well! They deserve the love. . . We left early the next morning, with a full 8-hour travel day ahead of us to Palm Beach, FL. When we arrived that night, I did not realize how beautiful and boujee the area is. Many famous people and athletes, such as Tiger Woods, Celine Dion, Serena and Venus Williams, and Jack Niklaus, currently live in the area we are at. We specifically had dinner at St. Jude in Tequesta, FL, which is apparently Joe Namath’s home parish and where Perry Como went to church and donated a beautiful statue of the crucifixion to the parish. That evening, we split into different host homes, so Luke and I stayed with the Docimo family, who love hosting NET Teams. We stayed up until 11:30 talking, which was so fun since we do not get many split host homes anymore. I made the most of the time despite how tired I was. I missed it so much, it was so good. . . Team Day this time around was led by Samantha and Andrew, from team prayer in the morning to the lenten bible study at the beach in the evening. Of course, since we are in Florida, we went to Dubois Beach on the Atlantic coast. While walking, Katherine, Sarah and I found this massive conch in the water, which now stays in the van because of how cool it is. With the Docimo’s that evening, we played guitar and cards until 11pm, which was super awesome, again due to lack of host homes this year. I’m thriving in Florida, just like I was last time. Man, I love it here! . . Today I had a retreat off with Samantha, which was both relaxing and exhilerating. We started out chill at a coffee shop and a library to get some work done, but in the afternoon went kayaking in a waterway full of gators!! Yet, the gators never revealed themselves to us... WHY!?! The host family who generously allowed us to use their kayaks and water guaranteed there would be gators, but to no avail. It was a good time no doubt, just a bit disappointed with the gators. We returned that night to the church, St. Ignatius in Palm Beach Gardens, for dinner, then to our host home. Grace, Amanda, and Sally’s host family dropped us off, but we all stayed and played Catch Phrase until 10:30 that evening, once again taking full advantage of our time with a host family. . . We said goodbye to the Docimo’s, and put on a retreat at St. Jude’s that was a little tougher than usual due to less crowd participation, but was still a solid retreat. They were ancy yet excited to go to confession, which was really awesome to see conversion through that sacrament! Plus, Samuel led his first ever retreat and absolutely killed it! So proud of him for running the show. Right before leaving for our next stop, the parish youth minister, Frank, who is an absolutely incredible man of God, gave us all wall crucifixes to keep for ourselves! It was a generous gift, really beautiful as well, and I look forward to praying with it. We didn’t have to drive far, only 30 minutes south to West Palm Beach, where we stayed the night in a hotel. Our time with that group was incredible. The adults were so much fun to hang out with, our host families treated us so well, and the weather was spectacular! All glory to God for this life and these opportunities.