chicago: day three

started our day off again playing with the kids at the Carole Robertson center. we were working with the Headstart program, which is basically a temporary preschool for the kids. one of the kids started off the day by sitting down to do a craft with me, looking up, and promptly stating, "I like your eyelashes..and your eyeballs." it made my day. today was Spanish day, which was fun knowing that in circle time I could understand most of their songs (most of being the key phrase), but it turned out to be ridiculously frustrating at times when we hit a language barrier, or-shocker-most of the kids could speak Spanish better than me. I asked one of the girls what color marker she wanted to use (in Spanish) and she replied, then proceeded to tell me about her weekend, all the places she went and the games she played and so and so on and I just had to nod and smile.

we then went to an authentic Chinese restaurant! yay..except for my peanut allergy. even though they assured me that I was able to eat their food, I didn't want to risk it. we went to Silver Seafood and everyone who ate there loved it! they had this lemon chicken that looked delicious and I have to admit, I've never wanted Chinese food because it always looked disgusting to me but the chicken looked fantastic. instead, I got a slice of pizza the size of my face next door and settled for a banana at the restaurant. mmm, fruit.

after eating, we were supposed to head to St. Thomas of Canterbury Catholic Church to serve at their soup kitchen, but it ended up being double-booked. I think God decided to test our flexibility there and we bounced back easily! we went through at least 800 plastic bags in order to make 20 balls of 'plarn', plastic yarn, that will be given to a group of women in a nursing home to crotchet into large mats to give to the homeless. they're extremely durable and washable and waterproof and COOL!

we ended the day by playing wiffleball in a sketchy park at night, which was fun to get out of the apartments and be active. we walked back in the dark and saw police cars and obviously got freaked out-I mean, inner city Chicago here-but realized it was just a high school graduation and the police were just monitoring the area. oh. we then played Mafia to realize that in the end, J-Money will always be the killer in J-Moneyville.

chicago: day two

obviously I am still not on my mission trip, but I figured it would still be worth posting these anyway. the journaling got shorter as the week went on but still covered everything!

day 2: we went to the Carole Robertson Center, a school for kids in the North Lawndale area. the name is named after one of the four girls that died in the Birmingham church bombings and we were there just after the anniversary of the bombing, so the school was covered with pictures and drawings of the girls and recognition for them. Austin and I walked in to a class of smiling kids and sat down for circle time, learning that today was 'English Day'. glancing around at a class of all Hispanic or black kids, we exchanged glances at each other after figuring out that tomorrow would probably be 'Spanish Day'. they seemed to have a song for absolutely everything, and when we left in the afternoon I was both tired and had several songs about cleaning up and sharing and keeping our hands to ourselves stuck in my head, unsurprisingly.

after lunchtime and showers in the North Park University locker rooms, we prepared ourselves for immersion night at 3. we were split into groups of four (five in my case), given $2 each, a subway pass, and told not to come back until 7:30. four and a half hours of wandering around Chicago to find an inexpensive dinner (in the city!). joy! I had Alan, Alli, Will and Austin in my group. we were supposed to go to the neighborhood of Lakeview, so we walked towards the subway station to get on the Brown Line at Kimball.

the subway map took some time to figure out, but we got it eventually. we got on the subway and got off at the right stop, walked around the neighborhood for a bit, finding only eight to ten dollar meals (per person) and decided to just walk straight down one street. after a while, with multiple rainbow flags decorating the area (and lingerie and..other..shops) it was evident we had ventured into the 'gay district' of Chicago. we saw several shops advertising $1 drinks, and one of the boys suggested we go in there to refill our water bottles! ..but we figured out quickly enough that the shops were most likely bars, and would probably not let us refill our water bottles for a dollar. we ended up at Wrigley Stadium somehow and took a picture in front, of course.

 

after that, we found a nearby subway station and took the subway downtown to Millennium Park and walked through the gorgeous city to the Cloudgate sculpture-more commonly known as the Bean. more pictures.

 

then we sat on the steps of these two fountains with faces on them (apparently Crown Fountain) and were then told to get off the steps, so we ended up leaving. we hit the end of the work day, unfortunately, on our way back home and had to squeeze into the subway car with a bunch of people, which was not as fun as being the only people on the subway like before. when we got back to our neighborhood we were staying in, Albany Park, we realized we still hadn't had food yet. so we found a taco truck selling $1 tacos and each got one, then found a fruit truck right next to it and picked up 10 peaches for $2, 7 bananas for $1, and 2 mangoes (that unfortunately were left at the apartments and never got eaten) for $2. good food and awesome that we were able to eat what seemed like so much for so little.

 

we headed back home to find that almost every other group had gotten the exact same meal as us, except for a group that got food at CVS and one that got lost and came back an hour and a half later than the time we were supposed to be back by, because they got off at the wrong bus stop and started walking a mile in the wrong direction. it was interesting to hear other people's stories and experiences and made me realize that 1) if given such materials above, I wouldn't have a hard time navigating the city again and 2) I take so much for granted.

 

chicago: day one

Long drive but fun. We got here around 5pm and set up our tiny rooms, then got separated into our two groups. I was instantly thrown out of my comfort zone by not being with some of my friends, but throughout the night I realized God must have put me there for a reason.

We went to go eat at a restaurant called Afghan Kabob, and we were served pita bread with hummus and potato turnovers with a sort of yogurt sauce, which was pretty good. Then the main course was beef, VERY spicy chicken, ground chicken, and rice. I had the ground chicken and rice and it wasn't bad, but I'm pretty sure I had a lot of pita bread. A lot. The owner was very friendly and always smiling, and you could definitely tell he was proud of his restaurant.

Then we started our prayer tour, a tour of the city and the different issues that each district faces, and we prayed at every stop we made.

The tour started in Humboldt Park, a district with a very large Puerto Rican community. There was a festival going on that happens every summer, and the area was very busy where we drove. There were ferris wheels and a carnival set up in the park. Humboldt Park is the only recognized Puerto Rican community outside of Puerto Rico, which is cool. The edges of the district are marked by the two largest permanent sculptures of the Puerto Rican flag. Spanish is the most commonly spoken language there, and the district had Spanish signs everywhere. The community faces a lot of hunger and gang violence and is the origin of the Latin Kings. The Latin Kings used to be a sort of protection system for their families when it first originated, but greed and drugs led to a shift in the gang's focus and it is now one of the most violent gangs in America. We drove by Roberto Clemente High School-yes, the baseball player-and learned about the lack of quality education in Chicago public schools there. Their graduation rates range from only 10-30% from each neighborhood graduating. The school is mainly made up of Hispanics and blacks, and only less than half will graduate. Only 12% of students that go there and graduate will have the opportunity to choose a selective college. The reason for most of the dropouts is the gangs that surround the neighborhood. It doesn't matter if you want to be in the gang or not, because if you're in the neighborhood then you're a part of that gang. Students will often have to walk to school with a member of their respective gangs just in order to be safe, because they typically cross at least 4 or 5 gang lines just to walk to school.

We then drove to Garfield Park. There is a place called the Marillac House that has a daycare and classes for children and also offers education for adults, such as GED courses. In the two days after MLK's death, there were riots all across the country, specifically Chicago. There were 6 major fires reported every hour those days, yet the community surrounded the Marillac House and the house was completely untouched after the two days of rioting. As Martin Luther King said, "a riot is the language of the unheard", and the people wanted to make their point. The fact that the Marillac House was completely untouched shows how much the community values a safe place for their families.

Next we drove into the Lawndale Community, a very strongly church oriented neighborhood. The area is 94% black, 5% Hispanic, and 1% white. It was nicknamed K-Town previously for the amount of street names starting with K, but now for Kill-Town, because of the amount of violence in the area. (I'll admit that this is where I started getting a little anxious.) To the left of where we parked was Lawndale Christian Health Center, a modern building with very affordable health care-something extremely necessary to the people in the area. There is a community center with its motto based off of the verse Micah 6:8, "He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." This simple verse is there to encourage the people in the community to change their ways and follow God for a new path in their life.

(This is the part where it got too dark to write about the other districts, but they all have the same concept-facing violence and needing safety.)

As we drove towards downtown Chicago, the Chicago that everybody knows and loves, our CSM host put on the song Give Me Your Eyes by Brandon Heath. The lyrics represented the gorgeous city we drove through and gave us all a new perspective. I strongly encourage you to listen to the song and really take a chance to listen to the lyrics as well. While driving through the crowded streets surrounded by tall and elaborate buildings, I noticed that there was only one, maybe even no churches that I spotted along the way. Yet in the run down areas of Chicago, there would be two, three, even four churches on every single block. It made me wonder why people that are suffering are often the best and most dedicated worshipers of Christ you've ever seen, and the people that are well off and have no worries are the ones that struggle in their faith lives. We ended the prayer tour by listening to God of The City by Brandon Heath, perfectly fitting the tour to let us know that the city still has greater things yet to come.

Colorado.

Listen. Do you hear the sweet melody of the crimson cardinal? Can you smell the crisp mountain air clearing your head? Look. Do you see the dark silhouettes of craggy mountain peaks? Can you taste the sweet melted s'mores disintegrating on your tongue? Smile. Do you feel the warm breeze filling you with happiness?

Yes?

Then you are here, heaven on earth-Leadville, Colorado. Lift your arms up and rejoice! Watch the extraordinary scarlet sky tinged with cerulean and lavender fade into an ebony darkness. Only a glowing silver orb, along with thousands of twinkling stars illuminate your path as you walk around the pine-needle covered campground. Shadows of miniature groundhogs dance their ways into underground shelters.

Don't try taking refuge in the stark white RV, no! Envelope the warm beams of sunlight with loving arms. Leap in the dusty gravel road while pelting rain refreshes your soul. Halt at the mountainside and look up to the snowy white powder that rests upon the peak. Dare to climb the rocky structure. Twirl at the top, for you are one with nature and no other.

(this is an old writing piece from freshman year that I'm particularly proud of.)

Take off.

an·glo·phile/ˈaNGgləˌfīl/

Noun:	A person who is fond of or greatly admires England or Britain.
Adjective:	Fond or admiring of England or Britain.

This is, most simply, me.

I've always wanted to go to Europe. To Edinburgh, Scotland, where Hogwarts is. (To pick up my late letter, but of course.) To Amsterdam, Holland, where Hazel and Augustus (from The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, I highly recommend it) escaped from their harsh realities. To Kensington Gardens where Peter Pan is. To King's Cross station, to greet Harry and the others coming back from Hogwarts.

I am so strongly influenced by fiction literature, and I thrive on novels I can dive into and enter a whole new world filled with new surprises, new people to grow to love, new adventures to experience. All throughout my imagination. But recently, I've developed a sense that just reading about these travels isn't enough. I want to live them.

In the book Thirteen Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson, the story follows Ginny, a girl whose aunt has given her, you guessed it, thirteen blue envelopes to travel Europe, reading the envelopes step by step and following only the rules set in the letters. I want an adventure like that, being able to just take off with my goodbye being, "I got sent on a solo adventure and I'm taking the challenge. Don't know when I'll be back, bye I love you!" And then off I would go by myself to the airport, flying across the sea to an unknown kingdom far, far away.

Sometimes, when I contemplate this, I have to slightly doubt myself, for the sake of reality. Would I be able to do it? I'd like to think that I could. Yet the longest I've been away from home was a week at my church camp, a place I could almost regard as another home, now that it's so familiar to me-the people included. Of course, I think I'd have to have something to document the experience-a video camera, a still camera, a never-ending travel journal filled with vast scrawls of my adventures. I think I'd be fine without a phone, as long as I had the ability to send letters home to the ones I love.

I suppose I could do it. Wouldn't it be nice, to get away? To have just the right amount of money to take off on a silver bullet, to land in an unknown destination where they would force you to get off the plane and step out into a new realm. Is it odd, though, unrealistic, for me to love a pure idea, hardly thought out and formed in my brain?

Could I do it?

Nellie.

Meet Nellie!

Nellie is my brand new ukulele. And I love her very much.

It was hard to decide on what I wanted to name it. My mom suggested Gertrude. (In Seussical the Musical, a bird named Gertrude plays the ukulele in a love song to Horton the Elephant. Gertrude's ukulele looks exactly like mine except with green feathers on the neck.) I contemplated Ellie, but my cousins recently got a dog they named Ellie and that would end up to be confusing. I was close to naming it Buddy, after Buddy the Elf.

Then I decided on Nellie. How? I don't know. It just fits. (I'd like to take more pictures later, I just took camera phone photos now.)

What was your favorite Christmas gift?

Happy December!

Open your advent calendars, everyone. Its the holiday season and you'd better be in the spirit. I want to hear you caroling out in the streets, see you making snowmen and snowangels, taste the decorated cookie that you made, fresh out of the oven.

Christmas only comes once a year, so you  better enjoy it.