What a beautiful day here in Chicago! Partly sunny skies and 75 degrees made for an amazing work day here in the Windy City.
Today our group spent the morning in Washington Square Park, just a few blocks west of Fourth Church where we're staying for the week. We had time for silent devotion and meditation, followed by some time for frisbees and soccer balls and just enjoying each other's company around a picnic (early!) lunch. Soon thereafter we dropped our stuff off at the church and grabbed public transit out to the far westside for our work of the day.
When we arrived at Bethesda Retirement Center, we met with Ruth and she told us how they had started a project years ago called "New Life for Old Bags" -- and yes, they do see the irony in that name and she said the residents get a laugh out of it still to this day. The project takes donated plastic shopping bags and cuts them into long loops that can be tied together to make plastic yarn, or plarn. Then the plarn can be crocheted into sleeping mats that can be handed out to the homeless in the community. Unlike cardboard that many people use to soften their sleeping areas if they're without shelter, plastic doesn't absorb water, which can make for a much more enjoyable and restful sleep.
It takes about 40 hours to make enough plarn for a single sleeping mat, and another 40 hours to crochet it together. That's 80 hrs total that's necessary to put together a single mat for the project. So having over 50 of us once we combined with another group from Kansas City made for an amazing day of productive work. As you can see, we made a LOT of plarn in just a few hours in a single afternoon.
Later in the evening after we returned to Fourth, Small Group 3 cooked us a delicious baked potato bar for dinner! They even set our tables with cute flowers made out of tin foil. It's the little things, people...home away from home.
Post-dinner, Small Group 2 led us in worship together talking about the time, talent and treasure we can give to the community and people around us. We had an awesome discussion about how our day went and what we've experienced and learned so far, and we heard such impactful stories from students and adults who had met new people from the community today that changed their lives for the better.
Tomorrow we split into three separate groups to go to multiple worksites around the city. We're already amazed at how fast this week is moving past us, and we're trying our hardest to maximize our impact and the impact this journey has on us while we're here.
Please continue to pray that we would be fruitful in our work and fruitful in our own learning and personal spiritual development as we break old habits and points-of-view and create new expanded lenses through which to view the world.
Peace,
High School Mission Week 2
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