The Silent Treatment

Today, I am giving the silent treatment to the world... It's not out of anger or frustration, but because I am on a silent retreat. Sometimes you need to be silent to hear or see God.

When you are very quiet, you tend to hear how loud everything else is. I walked to the beach, and though the beach was breezy and peaceful, the streets on the way there were not. I noticed how quickly it is turning into fall, especially with the cool air coming off the lake.

I reflected on my time here so far. How sometimes it seems I have been here forever, and sometimes it seems like I just got here. I think about how Chicago at times, seems familiar to me and other times, I feel lost.

I think how my fellow team members and other team members sometimes feel like old friends and other times, they could not seem more foreign.

I think about the future and how God is going to work in my life, but it is hard to think about the future without assessing the past.

For those who know me, they know that I tend to fill the silence instead of embracing it. Today, the silence was embraced...

Thinking of You...

 I can't explain why, I just know:
 
I smile when I think of you...
I smile when I think of our times together...
I smile when I think of your love...


I admire when I think of you...
I admire when I think of your tolerance...
I admire when I think of your determination...


I cry when I think of you...
I cry when I think of losing you...
I cry when I think of you crying...


I pray when I think of you...
I pray when I'm with you...
I pray when I leave you...
 
I can't explain why, I just know...

A Fun Surprise!

The 2 Kansans, Isaac Shue and I were excited by this surprise when we got off the brown line stop at Armitage! A KU bar! If it was only basketball season! Now, I just have to find one in England.... ROCK CHALK

Random Acts of Hospitality...

Today ended up being one of my most favorite days since being here in Chicago. This morning with were given the instructions to spend the day being hospitable around the city. Those were our only guidelines to follow. Bethany and I had a few ideas on how we wanted to spend the day, but we also knew that we wanted to be random. To start the morning we went down and walked the "Magnificent Mile" starting at the bean. There we found people who were struggling to take pictures of themselves and offered to take a picture for them with their loved ones. This also is a great conversation starter and proved to be AWESOMELY fun...:) One of the couples there was so excited and said that they had been in Chicago for 3 days and hadn't taken a picture with the 2 of them in it yet. Apparently we looked trustworthy enough for people to let us hold their property because I did get to use some extremely high dollar equipment. After a while we left because it was obvious that some of the people we were taking pictures of were noticing us walking around taking pictures of other people. Kinda wierd...

After we left there we walked around downtown some more being very conscience about doing every hospitable thing we could do whether it was a big or little thing. From opening doors, to giving our seats up on the bus, to picking a little girls bike up after she had fallen on the street. I feel that during a normal day, many of these were things that I would do anyways, but this day we were thinking about it. We found ourselves in Borders ( book store) with the mission to read to little kids, but unfortunately the kids didn't come. Our other idea was to find a flower shop and get some daisies or something and hand them out on the street, but since it was Labor Day, all the shops were closed! We still want to do that on another day.

That evening, Leigh really wanted to invite someone to dinner with her at McDonald's and she asked me if I wanted to go. I am so glad that I sad yes because that McDonald's experience will always be one of my favorites. I had just come from that way, so I had told Leigh that there was a women who we could ask in front of one of the churches. But at the end of the alley we saw a man and he smiled at us. We both just couldn't walk away from this man. That could have been Jesus sitting there... We asked him what he was doing later that night and he said that he was free, so we invited him to join us. We both found it a little odd when he popped into a convenience store for a second as we walked across the street to the McDonald's. After some deliberation "Terran" decided that he really wanted the classic Big Mac; that was his favorite:) 

We got our meals and were settling in and Terran mentioned that he had a fiance' and that she was sitting "in their spot" where we had found him. She had been the one who he had told he was going to McDonald's to in the convenience store. I practically yelled, "Well, GO GET HER!" He gave us a sheepish grin and went across the street to explain the situation.That was when we met Candy...

Later we found out that when Terran went to get her he told her that he had met some ladies, and she replied," WHAT?! Where are you going with this?" We laughed about this later. They were a HOOT! We didn't know how the conversation would go, whether or not these two people that we had just met would open up to us about anything in their lives or not. Honestly speaking, the conversation went really well. Terran (friends call him T.J.)  and Candy are 23 and 20 years old and have been engaged for a while now and they have 3 kids. Unfortunately their kids are in Kansas with Candy's sister because at the moment they are not able to care for them under their current situation. We got to see pictures and it was apparent that they love them and miss them very much. Terran was the first person that I have met who struggles with multiple personality disorder. Brandon Young comes out in aggressive times, and Tony Williams comes out during "business time". (Flight of the Conchords reference-look it up!)  We talked about so many things: church, flowers, jobs, school, careers, family, and other random things. Though they are down on their luck at the moment they were so nice and were telling us where we could get food and what shelters were available at what times. We were showing hospitality to them, but they were definitely showing it back to us. I think that was the most powerful thing about the whole evening was that they didn't ask for anything, they didn't expect anything from us, but we could sit down and have a "nice" meal with them.

A Peace think-piece

peace

  /pis/ Show Spelled [pees] Show IPA noun, interjection, verb, peaced, peac·ing.

–noun

1. the normal, nonwarring condition of a nation, group of nations, or the world.

2. a state of mutual harmony between people or groups, esp. in personal relations: Try to live in peacewith your neighbors.

3. a state of tranquillity or serenity

 

4. silence; stillness: 

Peace. Shalom. Fulfillment. Wholeness. Soundness. Harmony.

When I think of peace I think of a settle feeling deep inside. When I think of peace, I think of friendships forming. When I think of peace, I think of God's creation all over the world in the beautiful landscapes. When I think of peace, a hand sign. When I think of peace, I think of lollipops and rainbows....just kidding. But seriously....

Over this last week our focus has been on peace. We have learned about the Anabaptist history (which I found extremely neat because both girls I am going to England with are not Mennonite).  History is important to me and I feel like it affirms my faith when I hear what my ancestors went through. Also, James Krabill of Mennonite Mission Network came to share with us the similarities between evangelizing and peace. He also explained the meaning of Shalom, but expressed how hard it is to actually define. Below is an excerpt from James Krabill's (J-Krabes as some of the boys renamed him) book, " Is it Insensitive to Share your faith?"

..."Shalom is a broad concept, essential to the Hebrew understanding of relation between people and God. It covers human welfare, health, and well- being in both spiritual and material aspects. It describes a condition of well-being resulting from sound relationships among people and between people and God…
For the Hebrews, peace was not merely the absence of armed conflict. Rather, shalom was assured by the prevalence of conditions which contribute to human well-being in all its dimensions. Not mere tranquility of spirit or serenity of mind, peace had to do with harmonious relationships between God and His people. It had to do with social relationships characterized by His people. It had to do with social relationships characterized by justice. Peace resulted when people lived together according to God's intentions. Peace, justice, and salvation are synonymous terms for general well-being created by right social relationships." 
 

The Dancing man...

This little guy was in our flat when our group got there, and needed to be shared with the world...

Chit Chat

The past few days have been filled with a lot of talking and sharing and learning. We did activities in the park to challenge us as a group to work together and solve problems. It taught us a lot about setting goals and trying to achieve them. Later that day we shared our spiritual narratives with our team and with Darrell and Lyz (our program directors). This was a time to share how God has worked in our lives, where we feel closest to God, and the trials that we have gone through thus far. I feel that throughout the next year, my teammates, Bethany and Leigh, will probably know absolutely everything about me. I do look forward to that connection! 

A fun thing happened this weekend while doing laundry...We went over to Unique thrift store and I found a Chicago Cubs t-shirt and Anneliese had an unusual find! Anneliese is a JPUSA girl who was actually born and raised here. She has a 1 year old daughter named Chloe who is absolutely adorable! We have been getting close to many of the single women here at JPUSA, which has been really fun because we are able to spend some quality girl time. Anyways, Anneliese is getting married this next May and has been trying to find a wedding dress at thrift stores for a while now. She found one that she really liked and Bethany wanted to buy it for her, but she didn't have her money with her so she borrowed part of my rolls of quarters! It was so neat and special for Bethany to be able to buy her new friend her wedding dress for $3.75!!! Amazing! In the next few weeks we are going to alter and add to the dress to make it her own. We are all really excited for her! 

OK Bye!