Hosting Week 1

As I've already said I just finished my first week of hosting.


These were two of my three hosts from this week. From the left: Matty P and Julie. Funny story about Matty, he goes to APU with me. But we've never met. He's from Denver and he's one of the coolest and nicest guys I know. He always goes out of the way to help everyone out. He is also always willing to walk me to the office when I have to go back at ten at night to do the finances.

Julie reminds me a lot of me. We're both athletic, competitive and always trying to solve problems. But we're also different in a lot of ways. So we even each other out when we co-host.

The host not pictured is Joseph. He doesn't like having his picture taken and he doesn't talk much but he has quickly become one of my favorite people in the world. He'll probably have his own post sometime during the summer.

Hosting itself has been quite interesting. It has been draining but so rewarding. In my last post I talked about Chase elementary. We would go to that site in the morning and in the evening we would do different things. On Monday and Tuesday we went to soup kitchens. It was so cool seeing the group of Sophomores and Freshmen just willing to serve in any way possible. My position is supposed to be more of a supervisory role but at these places I got to help with the serving of the food. I loved seeing the people of Chicago and having the most random conversations.

On Wednesday we went to a men's shelter called Epworth. This is a place where guys can sign up for a bed in the morning and come to the place later that night. There is about sixty guys there. We go to just talk to them and listen to their stories. It was the night of the Stanley Cup finals so we also got to watch the game where the Blackhawks officially became the champions. It was fun. These guys just love to talk, too. And really that's all anyone wants in life: someone to listen to them.

Thursday night, the group broke up into four groups and explored four different neighborhoods with only $2 each for dinner. When we debriefed that night, it was so cool hearing what the different groups did. One group went to Trader Joe's and another group went to Jimmy Johns (sub shop) and bought day old bread for 50 cents.

And today they had a full day off to walk around downtown. That meant that all the hosts had a day off too. Since the week was draining, we didn't make any extravagant plans. Matty P and I watched the South Africa vs Mexico game this morning. Then Julie made the suggestion to go the beach. I took her up on this offer because the wonderful humidity that Chicago is known for came back this morning even though yesterday was an absolute beautiful day weather wise.

The day started off overcast.

And then it started to rain. But we weren't going to be moved. We had only been there for an hour and we were not ready to go back.

We got in the water but it was freeeezing so I only went in up to my knees. You could go out pretty far and it still was shallow.

And then the sun came out. We were laying out and reading but we kept getting attacked by bugs. Julie made a joke that we would have a better time reading in the water. So of course we took our books and cameras and made it a great photo opportunity.

Sunday is when the next batch of groups come. There will be a total of nine groups so it doesn't necessarily mean that I'll be host. But there's a good chance.