Mission Chi-town

So we went to downtown Chicago for the mission and did some work for the Lord. It was really awesome, I thought, and I got a lot out of it. Friday we went to a youth group in Cabrini Green. Saturday morning we went back to that organization, Kids Clib, and helped clean the place up. A few people vollunteered to clean the closets while I went outside with Tony and Jason to shovel and clean around the dumpster. After Kids Club we went to a Womans Center. From what I understand, they feed lunch to the woman everyday and possibly they give a service everyday about God. A lot of us were downstairs helping Rosie, the woman who coordinated the lunch serving. I volunteered to wash dishes. What I had to do was rinse off the food and pass it on to Allie, who would scrub, and then Jackie who would dry. After that we went to an Asian Frienship center and learned a lot about theMuslim and Pakistan culture. We were taken to two stores, a figurine store and a book store. There were some interesting things in the figurine store but I found the book store to be especially intriguing. They had books on how to witness to Christians, and children stories about the crusades and things like that. I was surprised to find out that the Muslims are evangelical also. I dont think I ever really thought about that before so it was cool to learn. We went to a pakistan restuarant for dinner. The food was good, but a bit too spicy for my sensitive taste buds, lol. I was pretty open to trying new things and Im so glad the Lord put that willingness in me when we got there. I kept thinking about the woman Pastor Jeff told us about, who ate maggots and a lot of other horrible things to prove herself sincere to a culture when she went there as a missionary. If she can eat maggots, why cant I try a new kind of chicken!?!! It sounds so silly when you put it like that. So that was an awesome experience. Later, after dinner, we went back to the bookstore, Asian Friendship, and heard the testimony of a Christian man born and raised in Pakistan. When he was there he was beaten for his faith and thankfully, the Lord was continuously faithful to Him and gave him ways to escape so many situations. On Sunday morning we left Chicago and came back to our church. A man from Voice of the Matyrs came and spoke to us about persecution. He had a slide show and a lot of it was funny but a lot of it was very serious and very hard to hear and see. Crystal bought "Jesus Freaks" and I bought "Extreme Devotion." I think the money spent on the books goes to support them. Im looking to buy Operation World, which give numbers and statistics about christians in many countries. It sounded very awesome. I think overall, the Lord totally answered my number 1 prayer for the mission, which was that I would learn. So often I pray to be made closer to Him but its such a vague prayer for me that I decided to pray specifically to learn. And boy, did I ever! One of the coolest things about the trip was that all three organizations we partnered with asked us to come back. Im excited to see how the Lord opens doors for us to partner again with some of those organizations.