Over Spring Break, five PHC students volunteered to serve at Christian Encounter Ranch (CER), a ranch for at-risk youth in Grass Valley, California. That week, PHC students and the kids at the ranch had many good conversations, played dozens of rounds of UNO and ping-pong, uncovered a family of bats living in the siding of a cabin, caulked and painted another cabin, launched a prank war by putting an armful of vegetables in an intern’s unlocked truck, and made so many memories together.
Patrick Lee, a rising junior at PHC, said, “Despite all they’ve been through, the students are still kids, dynamic people with feelings and personalities. The ranch does a really good job of respecting that. They take them as they are and work with their individual character traits and flaws to try to bring about the best version of themselves.”
He and the other PHC students experienced the kids’ growth at the ranch through both their ups and downs. One snack time, a ranch student complained to those around him about a leader figure at the ranch.
“It was sad to see that student criticizing the man who was trying to help him,” Patrick said. “Yet, that leader continued to love the students and serve them even when they disrespected his authority and opposed him, emulating the steadfast love of God.”
Patrick was not the only one to witness the steadfast love of the ranch staff and interns. Gretchen Whittington (JRN, ‘26), another PHC student on the trip, said, “My vision of Christian love changed too—we must live not only excellently, but we must love constantly and without reward, just as we were loved first.”
Seeing the students walk through the stages of learning to receive and handle love made it all the more special when they began to reciprocate it.
Abby Lee (ESS & CLA, ‘26) experienced this reciprocation of love when, at breakfast, a ranch student pulled the barcode sticker off a banana she was eating and put it on Abby’s shirt sleeve. This was something she was known to do to her friends. Abby proudly wore it for the rest of the day. Whenever someone pointed out that she had a banana sticker on her shirt sleeve, thinking she’d want to take it off, Abby just nodded, smiled, and patted the sticker fondly. She could see the unspoken words behind that student's action and treasured the sticker because of that. 
A week is a small amount of time to get to know the students at the ranch at a deep level; despite this, many friendships were formed, and both CER and PHC students encountered Christ in new ways, learning how to better emulate God’s love to those around them. 
Patrick said, “Christian Encounter Ranch is like Narnia in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. We’re in the wardrobe with Narnia on the other side. The question is, ‘Are you going to walk through the wardrobe or are you going to stay where it's safe?’”
Patrick Henry College exists to glorify God by challenging the status quo in higher education, lifting high both faith and reason within a rigorous academic environment; thereby preserving for posterity the ideals behind the "noble experiment in ordered liberty" that is the foundation of America.
