Working on the farm

Tara helping Ella, Ranita and Chad supervising, Christina working hard

On Friday we spent the evening at Shepherd's Field where four Philippi Mennonite Church families live. On the farm the families each have some gardens and animals, some of which they share responsibilities of care. One of the shared responsibilities includes cleaning out their sheep barn. Traditionally the Service Adventure unit has helped with the cleanup so we offered our services for the night in exchange for pizza and fellowship. None of our participants were strangers to this type of work since they've each had some farm experience (two growing up on farms). All were willing to take a turn at scooping and shoveling for a little while and enjoyed relaxing after-wards with some delicious home-made pizza.

Everyone's Here!

Ranita, Tara, Ella, Christina, Mike, Ian and Heidi

Everyone has safely arrived in Philippi and we began our orientation last Wednesday. Our volunteers have had some time to settle in and experience the place they'll be calling home for the next 10 months. Living in the small hilly city of Philippi is different for each of them as they've come from flatland farms and towns even smaller than our population of 3,000.

During the week of orientation we have spent time going over what living in community will be like, explored the city and met many members of the local community and supporting church, Philippi Mennonite. We were able to spend some "relaxing" time hiking up Seneca Rocks and hoped to also get to a state park, but were rained out two days in a row, so we'll save that trip for another day.

Seneca Rocks

How big is Seneca?  So big!

After our hike we stopped in Harman to pick blueberries at Lester and Mary Beth Lind's.

Everyone is ready to begin working at their job placements on Wednesday. Ranita will be working at Myer's Clinic assisting anywhere she's needed, whether it's filing or observing patient care. Tara will be working at Head Start assisting teachers in the Preschool age classrooms. Christina will be working with Heart and Hand Ministries at their local garden market and thrift store.

Unit leaders arrive!

It has been a long week of travel, unpacking, settling in, meeting people, more unpacking, and there's still a lot to do! We arrived in Philippi late Monday night (11:30PM) after over 15 hours of travel from Goshen, Indiana. Travel was not without "adventure" since our rented moving truck broke down several times adding significant delays to our journey. Fortunately, the first break-down occurred within minutes of our planned lunch stop with family in Columbus, Ohio. About an hour after leaving Columbus it broke down again and while we waited for the service company, we enjoyed an unplanned dinner stop at a rest area. We finally arrived in Philippi, though too late to unload the truck but were fortunate enough to have a member of the support committee let us stay at their home for the night. The next morning we unloaded the truck with help from members of Philippi Mennonite Church. The following night we lost power while trying to make dinner with the same family from the church. Power wasn't restored until about 18 hours later.

It was a busy week of unpacking and setting up the apartment. We've started to rearrange the unit house in anticipation of the arrival of our participants on the 17th. There's still a lot to prepare prior to their arrival but we've felt very welcomed by everyone we've met so far!