I can't believe it's only been 20 days since I moved to Chicago! It feels like I've lived in La Villita, and known my housemates, for a couple of months already. I'm going to talk about my housemates in another post later, but this post will be more of a recap and reflection on the last 20 days.
I arrived at La Villita Community Church on September 6 for national orientation. I'm normally a shy person when around people I don't really know, but I made myself be as outgoing as possible. I was immediately welcomed by my team leader Victoria, who invited me to join her and our roommate Abi in a circle of people. Luckily, everyone was happy to make conversation and they made it super easy to talk. In the first three hours of being in Chicago, I knew I was surrounded by some pretty awesome people.
National Orientation lasted until Saturday afternoon. In that short four days, I made a lot of amazing friends, heard a lot of incredible speakers, and learned so much. I also got to meet all of Mission Year's staff and hear them speak about things they are passionate about, and I was inspired, motivated, and challenged to get outside of my comfort zone, enter into hardships to create peace and joy, take care of myself better, and loved God and love people in so many ways.
Later in the day on Saturday, my team moved into our apartment. I was very happily surprised when I discovered we weren't living in a shoebox. It's small, sure, but it's cozy, and great for 5 young people living a more simplistic lifestyle. We didn't have to work our first week of living there, and we were still going through local orientation, which meant there were more sessions, training and getting more familiar with our new home.
While taking a tour of the neighborhood, we witnessed a... small gang encounter? I honestly don't know what to call it, but there was a gunshot. This is something I've never experienced before, and it shook me up for a whole day. It didn't seem like anyone was hurt, but it broke my heart to think that this kind of thing happens often in Little Village, Chicago, and all over the world. Youth are getting involved in gangs for many different reasons, and are going through some real serious stuff, even facing death. But this topic deserves at least it's own full blog post, which I'm sure will happen, and hopefully soon.
Anyway, that week was pretty much a blur. Last Monday, the 19th, we started working at our service sites. I'm working at The Erie House, which provides ESL classes during the day and an after school program for grades 1-3, as well as different resources for people in need. I've been doing a lot of computer work during the morning, and working in the computer lab with the kids in the afternoon. Soon I will actually begin teaching a conversation class for intermediate ESL students. Most of my housemates and I get home around 5:30, we make dinner, talk for a while and go to sleep, waking up at 7ish the next morning. Friday's are chore days and family nights, Saturday's are community involvement days, and of course on Sunday we go to church. Today, two of my roommates and I went to a worship team meeting after church. Leading worship is something I've missed doing ever since moving to Chicago, so I'm pretty excited about being involved in my new church, Nueva Vida (New Life Community Church.)
Well, I hope this is enough info to keep everyone up to date. Until next week!
