Late Tuesday night

It feels like late July or August in Chicago, but the students were troopers working through the heat at their service projects.

Tuesday afternoon is one of the most powerful of the week. The meal share is an opportunity for students to engage in conversation with the homeless while sharing lunch. The group heads downtown and in groups of 3 they spread out with an extra lunch and look for someone to share it with. They had open hearts during the meal share and it was really neat to see the students be bold and loving.

The leaders have expressed such positive things to me from Joel's passion, knowledge and skill as a teacher, to hearts being opened in new ways. God is moving! One of the work crews plans had to change this week and now they are helping out at Sunshine. They feel so blessed to do this because Sunshine can use the help around their offices but they are always sending people out to help others. Our team is loving serving them in this way.

Here are a few testimonies from a few of your kids. Thanks for your continued prayers and encouragement. They are feeling it!

Blessings and love, Kelli

Today was amazing. God was totally at work in new and eye-opening ways. Our work crew service time was a little shorter than the other days because we got to do something super cool; we did the meal share. It was a humbling experience to see how God was teaching me through the many stories on the street and through realizing how I was viewing the world. God has radically transformed my view of others and of missions by showing me that people are not a means to an end, as in we should serve others not just as a way to share the gospel but to love them and to represent the gospel. We finished the day with some pizza and time of fellowship at the lake, It was so beautiful!
- Annie Kronlokken

The things that I experienced today were very impacting. I am in the gardening work crew and we are helping a woman named Tarina fix up some vacant lots. Today we helped her dig up a ledge along a fence that was covered in dirt. We also helped her put a puzzle together that she was then going to laminate and hang up on the fence along the garden. At the end of our day she had this passionate talk to us about how she felt about the community and how she wanted it to just be a better place. I found this talk very powerful because she volunteers so much of her time helping out the community and has so much passion for making it a better place and helping out others. She is a very impacting person and I can't wait to go back and help her work on more projects this week!
- Allie Denn

God is so Good! I am working this week in the basement of Living Hope Church, and my job along with 7 others is to drywall. The ceiling of the basement is 6ft high and me being 6'3'' is a little difficult. I have broken light bulbs and bumped my head into hanging beams but it is all good because of the cause and dedication of the church's pastor Brad. He is so encouraging and his courageous works in this community is incredible. He started Living Hope by branching off of a church in the North side of Chicago, and rented out a room in the University of Chicago. He started very small with only a few college students but it has grown into a family. The church has an amazing diversity of people's including Latinos, Blacks, Asians and others who join together to worship. To make a long story short they needed a building to their own so they recently bought a beat up building a few blocks away. It is old and very dusty in the basement but are progress is very encouraging. I believe that God decided for me to work in dry walling for a lesson in patience and the opportunity to build with the people in my group. The meal share today was awesome, Brooke, Alex and I were assigned to a group and we met SeBron outside of a McDonalds in the shade. He didn't want to eat with us because he told us he is diabetic and has cancer but really wanted someone to talk to. So we had an hour conversation with him where he did almost all of the talking. As we were talking to him 3 different sets of people came up and started talking to us, it was amazing how a little interest can make their day! Finally we met a man named Elijah who had a very difficult time talking. We gave him our extra meal and although he couldn't talk, it was interesting how he was so proud of little items such as orange juice he had bought with his own money earlier in the day.
Love you family
-Caleb Sprenger