Today one of the girls on mission with us hurt her ankle at work and was taken to the Urgent Care to get it checked out. She returned in the evening with crutches and couldn’t put much weight on her foot. She posted in the GroupMe and asked if anyone wanted to take the bus with her to the Break Room (Thursday meeting). It was so cool how many people showed up to take the bus with her. There was probably 25 people on the bus and most of us had never taken the bus before to the Church; we had always taken the train. It was amazing to see not only how many people wanted to help her but also how much she let people help her. She was offered piggy back rides from several people and accepted many of them. She let me give her a piggyback up and down the steps of the church for the meeting. As the night went on it was just fantastic to see how she never let her ankle slow her down and how she was so accepting of all the help she was offered. One thing I have always struggled with is letting others help me. I never want to be a burden and cause someone else to go out of their way for me…even though I love doing that for others. I am really inspired by how she was so willing to let us all help her in any way we could. I am so impressed with how our community gets along here and how, just by making a need known, so many people offer to help.
Week 3: Focusing on God
Coming Together as an Army
Today is Jay’s birthday so we decided to get our friend Tim to take him out for Night with the Lord while we make a cake for him for when he gets back. There was a terrific thunderstorm during our quiet time and it was so awesome seeing the city lit up by the lightning. When Jay and Tim got home we shared the cake and then got into a really deep discussion about struggles we have had while on mission and how everyone has felt during the past few weeks. It was such a blessing to hear us all comforting each other and how they really cared about me when I was sharing with them. I am so happy that God placed them in my life for the summer and I am so happy none of us walk alone in our battles. We ended the night with a round of Hot Seat where we got to ask each other random questions and build a stronger connection with each other.
Giants Among Us
The past few days have been a struggle for me and I’ve been feeling disconnected from the group a bit. My energy levels are running low and I cannot seem to be active in group settings and hang outs. I really just wish there was something I can do that’s just a one on one conversation where I don’t wear myself out. That’s what I was thinking as the day went on. I skipped going to campus because I didn’t feel like I could talk to anyone and instead stayed home trying to regain some of my energy. To my amazement, God had something planned that would help me get back on my feet that night. After a friendly game of Family Feud, one of the guys on mission asked me to be his Giant for the day. I knew a little bit about what he meant when he asked me to be his Giant but I had no idea what it all entailed. We went up to the graffiti room and grabbed a chair and sat down to talk. We had an amazing conversation just the two of us. He has questions he asks a different person every day to get to know them and then has us design a perfect world in our head where we are a Giant. Not in the sense of being huge, or being a monster, but in the sense that we can help a lot of people and our world view is exactly as we want it. He asked me to describe it to him. He had some follow up questions before giving me a change to draw or write something on the wall. At the end of the night he took a picture of me and my quote and posted it along with a description of my answer to his question: “What does true peace mean to you?” My post can be found on his wall of Giants here (see his other Giants here). It was the best way to end the night. I went to bed feeling loved and ready to take on the rest of the week.
Future Posts Update
Hello everyone! Thank you so much for checking out my blog and staying up to date with me in Chicago. I wanted to give a brief update about my blog moving forward.
Looking back, my blog mostly resembles a journal of my time here in Chicago and it has been really hard for me to make time to write up posts almost daily. Therefore, starting this week I am going to be posting fewer posts on here and will be focusing on highlights of my time and things I have learned or struggled with while on mission. I will continue to post some pictures on here, but to see more visit my Facebook page or my photo album on Facebook.
There are also two new pages on my website that can be found in the menu at the top of the page. The first is a page called Prayer List, where I am keeping a list of all the people I have met in the city of Chicago and held conversations with. Along with a first name I have a small description of what I learned from them or about them. The second page is called More Student Blogs, where I have created a table of all the other blogs students are keeping while here in Chicago. I also have links to their blogs on the page so you can quickly jump over to their site and check out their blogs.
A final small change is that the pages for My Calling and My Goal have now been combined into the My Calling page.
Thank you again for continuing to support and pray for me and everyone on this trip. The past two weeks have been amazing and I cannot wait to see where God takes us next.
Outreach in the City Weekend
Saturday morning Sunrise:
Friday:
With the pretty free weekend coming up I want to try and start running again. Friday morning I woke up to go running at 9 with my friend John. We ran to the fountain and then along the coast to the aquarium and planetarium. We had some pretty great views on the run and we thought it would be cool sometime to wake up early and run to see the sunrise over the lake. We got back around 11 and I got some lunch before spending some quiet time with the Lord. I looked and saw that the sunrise is at 5:14am tomorrow…dang, I don’t think I’ll be able to wake up that early to see the sunrise. Not long after that I got a message from someone on mission asking people to walk her to the union station tomorrow to catch her bus at 4:45am. Well, I guess I am going to be able to see the sunrise after all! I got to work a little bit on my summer online class before a bunch of us met to go to the beach. We got to the beach around 6ish and went into the lake, played some spike ball, Frisbee, and watched the sunset into the city. From out in the water the sunset looked amazing! Then we all headed back after dark and got some subway. I went to the sky lounge to see what everyone was up to before heading to bed early. Continue reading