Tonight was a wonderful way to close out an amazing and powerful day! We got dropped off downtown by the Sears Tower and had a little time to kill while waiting till 6pm when we had dinner reservations. We had a little fun with the cameras and jumped around a little bit. Some of those pictures may make the blog...
As we were wrapping up and about ready to head to dinner, a man approached us and started talking with us. He started by saying "Listen to your moms and dads! Listen to Jesus! Stay in school young people, don't ever drop out!" We were caught a little offguard, but decided to talk with him for a few minutes. His name was Rolan and this is his story.
Rolan is 46 and currently does not have a job nor a place to stay. He is in good health and is trying desperately to get a job. He wants to work and he wants to share Jesus with others. When he was younger, his little sister was raped and killed by her boyfriend. Rolan was so upset that he went after the guy and murdered him. And for this Rolan got locked up in prison. He was truly filled with sorrow for taking the life of someone, even someone who had done all that to his little sister. Well while he was in prison he found God. He began to read the Bible while in prison and during our conversation was steadily quoting more Scripture than any of us could probably say from memory. He told how he had seen so many awful things in prison, guys getting murdered, beaten and shanked and he recognized that the only reason he made it out alive was because of God. Since then he has been sharing his story with others and encouraging young people to listen to their parents, stay in school and follow Jesus. Rolan asked if he could pray for us, but before we did, he shared another lesson learned with our students. He explained to the students that we are to love everyone and share Jesus with them and if they are positive influences to our lives than we are to stay around them, but those that are negative influences we need to still love and share Jesus with, but we need to keep our distance so that we are not pulled down. The students got a chance to pray for Rolan and Rolan prayed for us.
It was an amazing experience and one that I'm sure these students will not forget for a long time and to some this may have been the highlight of their trip.
After we stuffed ourselves at Giordano's we made our way all the way up to the 103rd floor of the Sears Tower and had some time to look around all of Chicago. We gathered as a team and talked about what we had done that morning and how much of an impact we had. The team then had some time to personally reflect on the morning and to be honest with themselves about giving it their all this morning. They looked specifically in the areas where they had been praying and were able to identify many of the buildings and remember praying for all the lives that interact with that building. It was a really cool moment of reflection.
Well, it's off to bed now and we'll finish strong tomorrow! We'll be going strong all the way through to 8 o'clock tomorrow night when we pull into the GCC parking lot!
See everybody soon!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment