Miss You

It has been 24 days since I left home, and I miss it. It being family and the community and Mesa. I pray this feeling pushes me forward rather than keeping me back. But to whatever degree, as of yesterday I am officially homesick. Which I know is where God wants me. At a place where I am totally dependent on his strength instead of my own. He is in control, and I am not.

School is going well. I really am enjoying most of my classes. Math I could do without, but that's life. I am in a communication class that is really interesting to me. Learning about theories and more theories about why we have theories, it's good. It intrigues me. Which I think is a good thing, since I am a communication major. That's probably a good sign. I have great Professors. They all seem down to earth, except for math of course. Poor guy. I have had more work in the past two weeks then I have had in a long time. At first this was somewhat of a downer, but my perspective changed when I realized how much time I had to do it all. The ridiculous amount of extra time I have is still new to me.

I am in love with the city. The diversity is so awesome. People from every culture, every background, every ethnicity. It is great. I have been down there any chance I get. There is a train stop 2 blocks from my school, and on that it is about a 20-30 minute ride downtown. My friends are beginning to realize that if they can't find me, I'm downtown. (not by myself...don't worry mom.) The Chicago Jazz Festival was last weekend, checked out the Art Institute a few days ago, and the next adventure is Shedd Aquarium, which is supposed to be a blast. In between those things I have been checking out all the great Chicago food and shops. All of it is music to my ears. Something about the city that makes my heart beat fast.

The weather has been beautiful the past few days. Sunny, but still a breeze, high 70's, green grass everywhere, I could dig that for a while. But I am told to embrace it now...because there is a cold winter ahead of me that won't be as beautiful. Hopefully the nice days last longer than everyone is anticipating.

There are a few things I am starting to get involved in surely but slowly around campus and around the community. An after school program for elementary refugee kids is the first stop. This week I will have my orientation and then next week I will get started with that. From what I know without experience is that we hang out with the kids, play games, get to know them, and then get assigned to two or three specifically to help with homework. Most to all of the kids are refugees of immigrant families who are trying to build a life for themselves here in America. There are also some homeless ministries that I will be a part of downtown. A group of us from NorthPark go down to a well known homeless community in the city and get to hang out with them, hear their stories, and eat food! There are some great people down there to learn alot from. I should be starting up a small group here anytime, just waiting to hear back from the coordinator on which one I will be a part of. That should be a great way to go deeper in relationships with girls on campus. Also, I will be helping out with the chapel planning team and getting to be a part of what they are doing there.

The big news is a possible church to start being committed to. Westridge Community Church. It is a church plant about 15 minutes from campus and is turning out to be pretty legit. There are some awesome people there and God is doing really exciting things through them. There is a possiblity of me leading worship with the band there - which would be more then I could ask for. It's all still in motion and not any solid decisions have been made yet. Please join me this week in praying for what God might be asking of me. The worship pastor is a student here at NorthPark and we will be meeting this week to talk more about the vision he has for worship and for the church. We will see! I will keep you posted on how it all plays out. I am just excited to be a part of what God is already doing in this community.

Miss you guys!