HUF, Harvest and Halloween

As you know, the HUF program here in Florence is very active and invites us and our students to many activities. There are three that I have personally participated in most recently.

The first would be the grape harvest in the beginning of October. I did this last year as well and man, it was so interesting and gross last year. It had rained for several weeks and the grapes were moldy and the ground was really muddy. This year on the other hand it was perfect. There had been just enough rain but the ground wasn't too muddy and the grapes were gorgeous and not so low to the ground. Awesome! It went much quicker and we would fill up the buckets before they could empty a load so we could continue to harvest more grapes. Afterwards, there was a cookout with big slabs of bacon, ribs and garlic bread. It was so delicious!

The next event was the olive harvest, which was only last week. Harding has probably 50-100 olive trees around it's property and each Fall, the HUF students help harvest them. I went up for an hour or so since things are staying so busy at the Bible School and helped with the harvest. It's very different than harvesting grapes and makes you appreciate olive oil a lot more.

That night was the Halloween party at the villa. Kyle asked the Avanti workers to play a part in the Haunted Walk they do for the students. How it works is, Kyle or Mona take a few students at a time around the grounds of the villa telling scary stories about Scandicci or the villa. My role was to be a ghost of a girl that was always late and one day she got left and now, on Halloween every year, she comes back to haunt the villa. It was fun and if you've ever been to the villa, you know it's pretty easy to make it scary.

This next part has nothing to do with HUF but happened the weekend before the olive harvest and Halloween party. The church where Andrea is working hosted an area wide retreat and invited us to come and be a part of it. So, we left Saturday afternoon and arrived in Bondeno a few hours later. There was one speaker that evening and then we all went out for a pizza, stayed in homes, and the next morning came back to the church building for worship and a meal. I stayed with a girl named Esmeralda...I say a girl but she is actually somewhere around my age. She was very sweet and even though it was just for one night, it was nice to get to meet her.

Me and our newest Avanti Member, Kelli

It was great to see Andrea again and all the work she has been doing. She and some of the other young people have been painting the building and she worked very hard in helping organize this weekend. Great job Andrea!