In this post, I want to tell a few details about our mission trip to Chicago. Part of the problem, however, is that our team was split into two groups for most of the activities, so you'll have to settle with about half the story... But I do have a few pictures I can share from the other serving group (and maybe I should invite Donna to be a guest writer to share more).
We got to town on Sunday evening (with some minor traffic delays on our way to pick up Kandice from the airport) and got settled at our housing site. On all 4 CSM trips I've been on, the housing has been different. This year in Chicago we were housed on the edge of North Park University in the Albany Park neighborhood. We stayed in a row house that was actually owned by the college and rented by CSM. The other church groups there were in other buildings, except we shared our house with a group from Utah. The house was an old building with little furniture (a few bunk beds), no air conditioning (so we were thankful for mild temperatures all week) and three floors. The guys slept on the first floor and the girls on the second, and sometimes we used the basement for our evening debriefing. Because of the old pipes and large number of people, we weren't able to shower there. We had scheduled shower times in the evening where we walked over to the campus and showered in their locker rooms... which meant community showers for the guys (insert giggles here). We didn't spend a lot of time at the house because of our busy schedule, but we had our breakfast and "quiet time" devotions each morning and we had debrief, showers, "quiet hour" and "cell phone access half hour" each evening. All in all, it worked very well for us.
After we got settled at the house, met our city hosts (Wesley, Dale and Brooke) and had a brief orientation, we headed out for dinner. Each evening we ate at a local ethnic restaurant as a way to experience the culture of the city. On Sunday night we started out with dinner at a Thai restaurant in the Uptown neighborhood. It was great food, and I was pleased with the kids' good attitudes and willingness to try new things. It was served family style, but they only brought out one dish at a time... it was almost like a meal with eight courses.
After dinner was the prayer tour. This is one of the best parts of CSM for me. It's hard to explain, but it provides a powerful beginning to the week by taking us around the city and sharing insights into where God is at work there. What we do is we load up in the vans and our city hosts guide us around the city where we see some the obvious tourist sites... but the impact of the prayer tour is that we pause and think rethink their significance or we will reflect on some not-so-obvious meaningful places. For example, a not-so-obvious point along our prayer tour was the once all-white country club that over the years had been integrated and made open to the public and became a symbol of progress in that neighborhood. Another example was the well-known and brand new U.S. Cellular Field where the Chicago White Sox play baseball. What we reflected on was its positioning in the southside of Chicago and how they tore down all kinds of housing to build it and the resulting strain on the homelessness in the area... all the while, refusing to tear down the old stadium because they didn't want the baseball team to be without a home for even a short time. The implication: the homelessness of the baseball team took priority over the homelessness of the residents of that area. Another powerful illustration from this prayer tour was driving Michigan Avenue. You may know the "Magnificent Mile" and all the shopping and beautiful downtown buildings of Chicago that line that street, but what you may not realize that this same road stretches south and it's the very same road that quickly becomes lined by pollution, liquor stores, pawn shops and other signs of poverty. It may be the same street, but there's a world of difference from one end to the other.
You see, it was on a prayer tour just like this in Philadelphia several years ago I found myself in a park overlooking the city when God hit me with something that has moved my heart for missions in a powerful way. This may seem a little strange to you, but I remember looking up at the bright stars filling the sky and my middle school science coming back to me, thinking about the difference between these stars and the sun. The sun is simply another star (actually it's even a weak star in comparison to the others) and yet it has so much influence over me and the rest of the earth (heat, growth, power, etc.). And looking up at all those thousands of stars in the sky, they are beautiful, but they really don't have much practical influence over my life. The difference? The sun is closer. Proximity equals influence. Sometimes I think I'm not the most beautiful or powerful Christian around, but when I am willing to get close to the broken and needy, then I am able to make the biggest difference. I don't have to be the best, I just need to come near... and then I'll be able to have real influence in their lives.
(the other serving team at CCO)
Anyways, Monday was the first day of serving at our ministry sites. The other team loaded up and headed to their anchor site, Cornerstone Community Outreach (CCO), a women and children's shelter where they ran a VBS program for the children who were staying there. My group headed out to the YMCA to help with a children's program. We were split up to help out in three different areas helping the teacher and giving these children a lot of extra positive attention. We read stories, played games, reviewed lessons, danced around, chased on the playground, and anything else we could do to pour our lives into these young children for the brief amount of time we had that morning. It was the Monday after Michael Jackson died, so I remember one of the teachers bringing a MJ album to play in her cd player while the kids were playing on the playground. Fun memories.
That afternoon, we went over to the Uptown neighborhood and were given a task to perform. We were divided into two groups, given $5 and were told to talk to people in the area and find a way to help someone with that money. I was so proud of Jennifer's group who went and bought a bunch of water bottles and gave them away to people they met as an act of kindness. They really blessed a lot of people through that creative generosity.
Later, we had a chance to visit the CCO where the other team was doing the morning VBS, only we were there to help prepare and serve dinner Monday evening. I love feeding ministries because of the opportunities to actively serve (through passing out meals and cleaning up) and to meaningfully engage the people who are there in conversation. Here I spent most of my time washing dishes, but our students did a great job jumping in wherever they could.
That night, we met back up with the other group at a Lebanese (Middle Eastern) restaurant in our neighborhood, and I got to try pickled radish (not so good) and felafel (not so bad). We went back to debrief, shower, and head to bed.
And that is where I will pick up later... with Tuesday.
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