scenes from my week...

I had so much fun watching Trevor's new lizard, "Spyro"...

Tyson kept me laughing all the time...

After 5 days of trying EVERYTHING, I FINALLY decided to warm up to Auntie Jill. :) ha!

The boys have cleared all the snow off the car & we're heading back to VA tomorrow morning!

Mission trip update: Yesterday (Thurs.) the group had another amazing morning of training (from Marc's reports, it sounds like it keeps getting better and better!), then they went to some kind of ministry that coordinates all types of urban ministry & Marc said could potentially be a great future resource. (sorry I wasn't real clear on what that visit was, but Marc said it was really great.) Some of our group is working on painting colorful murals with Christian themes that will be hung up to bring beauty to the neighborhood.

For lunch, the group ate at a famous local pizza place that is run by former convicts at the Hope House. After lunch was free time! (of course it was also the same time that the snow storm dumped the most snow, too!) SO, at least the group was able to go visit the Art Institute (for free on Thursdays!), but the Sears Tower was shut down when they got to it. (wouldn't have seen anything anyways...) They ended the evening at a really cool hot chocolate place downtown & sounded like they were having a great time together.

THIS morning (Fri.), they had their final training session. (haven't heard yet, but judging from the past, I'm guessing it was great!) Then some of the group worked more on the mural paintings while others put up insulation & helped out at a ministry facility (not sure where-- didn't quite get that detail in the quick phone conversation...).

Tonight is the most exciting part of the week. Tonight the group is heading up to the streets of northside Chicago to observe & learn from a ministry to male prostitutes, many of whom are runaway teenagers needing to make money any way they can to survive. Since we have to head out early in the morning, some of the group (including the drivers) will cut out early & come back here to my sister's house to sleep tonight, but some of the group will stay out until 2 or 3am visiting with the boys/men on the streets. What an incredible opportunity, right? Wow! I hope to be able to share more about this with you guys sometime after I hear how it goes.

We're piled up with snow around here, but it doesn't slow ANYBODY down here! Around here in the suburbs, all the neighbors were out at 6:00am with their snowblowers, clearing out their driveways in order to head to work by 8:00am. Crazy! Thankfully, the roads are clear here, and hopefully they will be tomorrow on our long drive. Please pray for our safe travels tomorrow if you get a chance.

So that's all from Chicago! Bye bye for now!