Afternoon delight

I just want to take you on my afternoon commute home.

"Oh wow, look at that great skyline"

"The sears tower is so tall" (1,454 feet with the antennae and 110 stories)

"The ride is going nice."

"Oh, hey breaklights. Always love having you around."

Hate is a strong word but in the case of the 90/94, I think its quite appropriate.

First Cove

This past week this was my group. They were from Rockford, IL and attended a church called First Evangelical Covenant Church. They were absolutely so fun to be around because they had such a go with the flow attitude. The leaders also were just amazing because they were so easy to work with and talk to. I was so blessed to be a part of their family this week.



Since the pastor (Dave far left) was a returning participant to CSM they were given the option of taking public transit all day. They are the first group to ever take CSM Chicago up on this offer. Our anchor site is 111 blocks south of downtown Chicago. And our housing site is already 50 blocks north of the city. So we had a long commute. However, public transit in Chicago is just amazing. And we only had to make one transfer between the 'el' lines and ride the city bus for 10 minutes. The group was such good sports about it too. It did take an hour and a half but I really think they enjoyed themselves. I know I did. I just love the 'el' and people watching. There were definitely some characters out there too.



It was such a long week but it was such a good week. I barely had time to breathe because it was go go go with only about an hour break during the day. And this is the rest of my summer. Who's excited? My hand is raised :)

My new best friends.

For the rest of the summer I get the opportunity to go to Roseland/Pullman Boys and Girls club in the mornings. It is my anchor site (CSM's fancy word for the only consistent thing in our schedule). This past week was my first week there. I absolutely love it.

There are over 150 kids there with ages ranging from 6 to 14 years old. They have a rotating schedule where they go from class to class. There is an arts and crafts class, PE class, social recreation class, fine art class and education class. The kids spend only an hour at each place so that they don't get bored and cause more trouble then they already do.

There are four different age groups. The cadets are aged 6-7 and they wear the red shirts. The preps are aged 8-10 and they wear the green shirts. The juniors are 11-12 and they wear the blue shirts. And the intermediates are 13-14 and wear the grey shirts (this is by far the smallest group).

The groups that I bring go with whatever group they want and follow them from class to class. This past week, the volunteers did so good just being there and helping the staff in whatever way they could.

I was more of the supervisor and went from group to group. But if I could stay with a group it would be the cadet boys. These boys will definitely be my new best friends this summer. (This isn't all of them.)

The staff at Roseland/Pullman is also just so fun to work with. I'll probably write about them later on.

It's not the ocean...

but I guess it'll do till I'm back in California.

During a break between ministry sites, I got to take my group to the lake to hang out for about an hour. There were so many people. But it was so nice.

There's a nice little fence closing for the dogs of the city.

We went at such a pretty time during the day. It was so peacful and there was a beautiful breeze.

I could have sat here for hours. But it was a nice little break from the go go go of this week.

They didn't cover this in training...

This past week has been a HUGE growing week. I have learned so much about myself and really what to expect the rest of the summer and just some lessons about people.

The group that came in was from Milford, Ohio. I wasn't supposed to be a host this week but since some of there people didn't come, my director told me that I was co-hosting five minutes after they got here. So not much time to prepare. There were eight kids in all: one boy, seven girls, with ages ranging from eighth grade to a senior in high school. The leaders were all volunteers and they had daytime jobs. The main youth pastor wasn't able to make it since his wife's father had just passed away. So it was an interesting beginning to the week.

The first day, after we take them to dinner, we take the group on a prayer tour of the city. Joseph, my co-host, and I are in different mini-vans. Due to drivers not listening to instructions, we end up taking the group an hour out of the way before even starting the tour. Again, an interesting start to the trip. We get back pretty late and after debriefing, it is evident that this group is timid in praying and talking about anything.

The days go on and I let myself not get totally involved with the group because it feels like I shouldn't be here anyway.

And then Friday comes.

This is the groups of kids with two kids from the neighborhood, outside of Will Feed, which was our anchor site for the week. It's a place where kids can come to hang out and essentially stay out of trouble. They get two meals for free and our volunteers just go to hang out with them.

It's about 4:15 when we leave Will Feed on Friday. And it is also when a huge thunderstorm decides to accompany us back home. We were on our way to get to a 5:30 reservation at Siam, our Thai food restaurant (one of my favorites).

The 90/94 is the highway that we take from the south side to get to the far north side of the city, because that's where our housing is. However, the traffic is comparable to the 91 during rush hour; there's a lot. I encourage Joseph that we get to the 55 and take Lake Shore Drive but he thinks that we'll get there too fast and we have time to kill. So we take the 90/94 and we are creeping along. Joseph then calls me and says ok, let's get off and take surface streets up. So we get off and get to Halsted which turns into a one lane and we are going slower then if we had stayed on 90/94.

So I tell Joseph, let's cross downtown on Jackson to get to Lake Shore Drive, he concedes and we start getting over. Then a wonderful impatient taxi drivers cuts in between the two mini vans and hits Joseph's van. All I could think was, they did not go over this in training!

The impact was only from 6 inches away so no one was hurt and there was only minor damage but since the leaders rented the vans they knew they needed to file a report. So we tell the taxi driver who agrees, but then drives off after saying he'll pull over. Not really surprised at this.

We end up pulling to the corner of Monroe and Wacker, right in the middle of financial district.


Here we are at the corner. The kids have to pee but we have to wait for the cops and Joseph is convinced that it will take two hours for the cops to show up. And we are definitely not making our reservation.

It all works out in the end. But it was definitely a bonding experience. I learned that you have to learn to speak the groups language. This group was highly sarcastic, and I tried to not be sarcastic this whole week so that I could maintain some professionalism and because I didn't want to become too attached to a group. But as soon as this happened, I just let my guard down and became appropriately sarcastic with them. We bonded immediately. I'm going to miss this group. They gave me some headaches this past week but all in all it was a good time.

Saturday Thrifting.

Saturday, Stacey, Nicole and I went on an adventure to Lakeview and Wicker Park to do some exploring and thrifting.

Here we are at the start of the journey.

This is the first place we ventured into.

Books were everywhere! I could have stayed in here for hours. I was listening to a patron talk to the owner and he asked if he could bring some books in. The owner said of course any time. The guy replied ok I'll bring it in and you can look through it to see if you want them. The owner then said to not worry he'll take them all. That's how much he just loved books. This is definitely one of my dream jobs.

Vintage shopping under a vintage sign. This place was a little spendy but the ambience was exceptional.

This is at a different store in Wicker Park. Stacey caught a candid shot when we started laughing that Stacey had taken a shot before we were ready. The couch was wonderfully comfortable from all the walking. We wanted to take it with us back to the apartment but it seemed very unfeasible to take it around with us.

The Buffalo Exchange. Got some awesome sunglasses from here.

We then needed a coffee break if we were to continue our journey. And we found this adorable little place that opened only a week and a half ago!

When we walked in there were shirts on the counter that I started to pick up to look at and the lady said "Take one! They're totally free." We jumped on this offer. They were just fun shirts. Nicole and I talked about how we would definitely move to Chicago for just all the eclectic coffee shops that reside here.

This place was also adorable. They had a lot of fun shirts. Also a bit spendy.

And then we found this awesome store. Read this sign.

It's called The Boring Store and it has a tutoring center for kids in the back and in the front there are all sorts of things they sell. Like books that some of the kids have written.

They also have this awesome map.

We continued on and found a store with regular clothes on the first floor and used clothes in the basement after you pass this fun mural.

Yeah, I found this sweatshirt nestled in the hoodie section. It caught me by surprise. I just had to take a picture with it. I was tempted to buy it, but then I remembered I have about five jackets/sweatshirts from APU...

And then it was time to eat and we found this noodle place that was cheap, good and filling.

Now we were so famished before we got here that Nicole, a vegetarian, was willing to settle for a hamburger and fries, as long as they got to eat soon. But since we found this place, she was able to get her tofu.

And I got my coke, which was something I had been craving aaallllll day. There's just something about a coke after walking around that just makes my day.

All in all it was a great day.

GCFD.

GCFD stands for Greater Chicago Food Depository

It provides food for the greater Chicago area. It could be soup kitchens or elementary schools or really anything that needs food. Its a very highly organized place. Our group went and we got to package pasta into 3 lb bags to be labeled and packed and shipped off.

Here's some of the kids from my group. We worked in a place called the clean room. So we got to wear these highly attractive outfits.

This is the pasta we packaged. It really was barley. I never really had barley before. And after being around it for four hours, I really have no desire to add it into my diet in any way.

These are just some stats about GCFD. Its a really cool organization. It operates a lot on volunteers. There was a woman that I met there named Sandy. She works as a consultant in downtown Chicago. She is currently on vacation and decided to come volunteer at this place. How cool is that? Usually vacation means not having to stand for four hours dealing with a bunch of loud teenagers while being forced to wear a hair net. Just saying. I think she was a really cool example to the group.

Attractive, I know. Don't be jealous. I felt like I was going into surgery.