It's almost over...

It's hard to believe that it is already time to debrief. We arrived safely in Stevensville, MI where we are staying tonight in a hotel and talking about our experiences from the week. Tomorrow we are going to the beach and enjoying our last day together as a team. It has been a great week of growth!!

Wednesday afternoon we had the opportunity to visit the South Asian Friendship Center in an Indian part of Chicago. We enjoyed an Indian food buffet for lunch. All of us found at least some things that we liked. It was another chance to try new foods.

After dinner we spent some more time cleaning out Grace and Peace Fellowship (the building at which we were staying.) We also began to pack up our stuff in preparation to leave this morning. John Coleman challenged us all to Love. And we played a game with Joe and caught Ecquadorian Booga-boogas. (Ask your kids about these.)

This morning we worked to almost finish cleaning out Grace and Peace. We went to lunch at Giordano's for famous Chicago deep dish pizza! We then ventured through Chicago traffic and made it to Stevensville. All of us our excited to take warm showers tonight (We were roughing it. Only 1 of the girls 2 showers, and none of the boys had warm water.) We are shortly heading to dinner. We are eager to see you tomorrow!

Rachel

Chicago jr hi 2006

Chicago jr hi 2006
Monday and Tuesday brought oportunities for us to assist the GAP community center in moving out of their building that they just sold and paint part of the Community Center -- the existing facility. The students were great about digging in and helping with whatever task was at hand. We broke into two groups so that our tasks would be handled efficiently and we wouldn't get in each others way.

We also had the opportunity to continue our park ministry with neighborhood kids. Several played basketball, we had some coloring books, sidewalk chalk, water balloons, and frozen pops to help us continue to build relationships with the children and invite them to the church which meets right across the street.

Please pray for our students as they continue to process the different cultures that they have experienced over the past few days. Realizing that these are new experiences, our prayer is that God uses these breif encounters to help them understand the globe and God's heart for the nations. We are so grateful for your prayers and the impact it has on our students!

Ministry and Learning

It's Day Two!

Happy Father's Day to all our Fathers out there!

Yesterday was quite the experience as we had many adventures in both the park where we will be doing ministry and at the festival.

When we went the park, there were no neighborhood kids around, so as some of us played in the water fountains, about half of the group was able to go around the neighborhood with Joe. He served as a great translator and we were able to invite somewhere around 30 kids to the park for our ministry on Monday and Tuesday. We also prayed around the park in groups and wrote with sidewalk chalk all the details of our coming ministry.

Then it was on to the Puerto Rican Festival where the students all had the chance to buy "authentic" food! Many interesting faces came from the new tastes! (Although at least one group all had hotdogs!!) To the families of Ben Crompton and Ben Boverhof... you are now proud owners of fish as both of the boys won them at a game yesterday!! Congratulations!!

Some of the kids enjoyed going on rides, while others loved the shopping. There was lots of music and new experiences for everyone!

Today started off with church at Grace and Peace (the church we are working with here) which was of course a service for and about fathers. Then we were able to hang out at the "church" (it is held in a local school) with the people who attend and meet up with old friends from our past years here.

We also had a tour of ICI (Inner City Impact) where John Coleman will be a missionary this fall. It is in the same neighborhood which we are working in, so it was great to learn about some other ministries which happen year round here!

Later today we'll be going back to the park to clean it up, as long as the rain holds off! Otherwise, we're having a more laid back night tonight to prepare for our full day of ministry tomorrow!

Again, we want to wish a Happy Father's Day to our dads and thank them for all they do for us! You're all awesome :-)

Until next time...

Sam and Rachel

The first night, what an experience!

Hey all!

We saftely arrived in Chicago last night and the first thing we did was we found an amazing authentic Mexican restaurant!! Most of the kids had fun eating hot sauce on chips and then were "too full" to eat the large helpings of tacos and burritos!

Today we are all off to the park in the morning to enjoy some time with kids there, and then for lunch we will go to another park where the Puerto Rican festival is going on. The afternoon will be filled with carnival rides, treats in the park and new experiences and we will roam the festival until dinner time. Then it'll be time for our second meal with the new cook at GAP community. (She made us pancakes for breakfast!)

The host family, Joe and his wife and kids are all great people and said "Well, we can tell you all aren't shy!" They are looking forward to our week of ministry just as much as we are!

Well, as the kids are now finishing morning devotions, we're off to the park with lots of sunscreen and games!

We'll update again soon!
Sam and John

Off to the Windy City!

After meetings and planning, it's hard to beleive that our journey to Chicago will begin this week! Please pray for our students and leaders as they make final preparations and head for Chicago on the 16th.

We will post updates periodically. Please check in to learn of our progress.