Thoughts for Thursday

Hi, it's Rachel!
It's day four here in Chicago and I'm just having a blast! This is my second time to be on this trip and be involved with Sunshine ministries and I've been enjoying all of it so far :)
Now on my first trip I was in the work group that worked with Sunshine's summer day camp (similar to a VBS, but a program that has a duration of several weeks). However, this day camp (called Summer Blast) has not started and so instead, I'm working in a "STAY" group. Our work involves helping a woman named Terina (and her little girl Shonti) with the open spaces STAY owns across the south side. They have restored these areas and planted gardens to in a sense spruce up the surrounding community! Our schedule works where we wake up, eat, make lunch, go to work until 1:00, participate in the afternoon activity that Sunshine has planned for us, debrief, eat dinner, and have devotions and small groups. Starting Monday morning, Mary Grace Jennifer, and I have been working with STAY. We've been pulling weeds until our arms ache and we are sweaty and nasty. But it has been very interesting to see how an overgrown lot with a small, flowerless garden has turned into a clean lot.
In the past four days, we have worked on two of the main lots STAY owns. Today, we painted the container walls of the second lot to make them more appealing. Mary Grace and I were responsible for planting the main garden in this lot. This lot is situated on a very busy intersection, with lots of vehicular traffic and people walking to a nearby CTA bus stop. It was especially cool to think that the seeds I was planting would grow flowers that hundreds of people will see! So that was a neat moment for me today...
It's been fun getting to know the kids in the other group throughout the week, they have some really sweet people. We've been working, fellow shipping, and worshiping with them every day and I have personally enjoyed their company. With that said, there are A LOT of them! They're a group of roughly 50 people and navigating in such a large group has definitely been interesting! For the most part, we've had no issues with their group and we've enjoyed their company and friendship!
Well for now that's about all I'll say! I've really seen God working through our team this week. I've just had so much fun with everyone of our team members and had quite a few good laughs, courtesy of Don! ;) It's such an amazing experience being up here, and I can't wait to share more stories everyone back home!
With love, Rachel! :)

The Memoirs of Taylor the Great and Powerful

So today we made an extra bagged lunch to bring with us and find a homeless person to eat with. I was with Morgan and KC and we found a man named Emmanuel. He told us about the mistakes he had made and his walk with Christ. One of his mistakes was the people he was hanging around with who just so happened to be in a gang. Well he didn't tell us how but through some situation he was shot in the head. He went to the hospital and passed out. He then awoke due to a frigid situation, but you may know it as a cadaver freezer. Then he told the Medical Examiner "Hey man its cold in here!". The M.E. was kinda freaked out so he ran away. He then comes back later and takes him to the E.R. where they tell him that it is too risky to remove the bullet. At this point he points to where it is and asks Morgan if he wants to touch it....... he does.
FIN
P. to the S. Don brought a gag speedo and Connor is now wearing it on the outside like a superhero. Ok so that is about it so..... BYE!!!

Chicago: Day 1

We have just completed day 1 of Bridge Builders, which is our week long program in Chicago. It was a full and eventful day, so let me just give you a fly-over view.

- We woke up to torrential downpours and thunder. But it is much cooler here than in Hixson so we're just fine with that.

- We have begun bonding with the Minnesotans - the other group here with us. The kids are enjoying discussing the different ways we say words like "tag", "bag", "oil", "fire," etc. We're trying to mimic each others' accents, and we're all enjoying our fellowship.

- Our boys got to canvas a neighborhood inviting kids to a summer program at one of the local churches. This was a little difficult because we were forced out of our comfort zones to go and talk to people we didn't know. But the people were kind and welcoming and we got a bunch of kids signed up for the program.

- Our girls were going to do some gardening. But because of the previously mentioned rain, that didn't work out. So they toured some city beautification projects. Then once the rain stopped, they started working on a site that will eventually be used for recreational activities.

- We visited the Pacific Garden Mission, which is the nation's largest homeless shelter.

- We sat under some great teaching from Joel Hamernick, the director of Sunshine Gospel Ministries. He taught on Jeremiah 29, which talks about Shalom, or the fullness that God is seeking to restore to our broken world. We talked about how sin negatively affects our relationships with God, others, creation and ourselves, and how Jesus is seeking to restore all things by establishing his Kingdom.

- We're having a great time here in Chicago and I'm looking forward to the rest of the week! Tomorrow I'll get one of the students to blog. They'll be more interesting, I promise.

G'night,

Morgan

Back to Chicago

One of the most important things I feel we can teach people in their teenage years is a theology of mission. Not a theology of mission trips...although mission trips are tools we use to teach a theology of mission...but I am talking about viewing and living our lives missionally.

Part of learning to live a missional life seems to be finding places and people that God has specifically called us to reach and minister to. After all, it isn't very helpful to say, "I am called to be a missionary to the Western Hemisphere" or "I am called to reach Humans." We need a way to focus our mission. As my Missions professor in seminary said, we ought to pray fervently for God to "Give me (whatever place you feel called to) or give me death!" Part of what he meant by that is we need to search the Scriptures and get to know the way God has gifted us in order to figure out what place and what people God is calling us to, and then PLEAD to God for him to send us there and give us a ministry there! And then, we need to obey by making that place our ministry...our mission.

This is a big reason why we are going BACK to CHICAGO this year! We want to give our teenagers an opportunity to invest in a place and people so that they will begin to understand this concept of living a missional life in a specific place. We don't want them to just be a visitor or a tourist in Chicago, we want them to actually have an interest there. We want them to feel apart of the place and feel like it matters that they go there.

Whether Chicago becomes the place they are called to on a mission, or whether it is a place that inspires them to reach a different place, we pray that our students will begin to discern where God is calling them to be missional. It could be that they will be an actual Missionary, or maybe they will be called to go to school or work in a certain place, which will become their mission field.

Jesus promises us in Acts 1:8 that "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” We could say that Jerusalem represents a city, Judea a state/home country, and Samaria a foreign country that we could be called to. Where is your Jerusalem? Where is your Judea? Where is your Samaria?

For this week and for this Youth Ministry, it's Chicago!