DAY TWO!

Today has been AWESOME!

This morning the team got up and enjoyed a delightful contintental breakfast at the Heart of Chicago motel and spent a little bit of time reading through I Thessalonians 1 & 2. Each morning we will spend time together reading the Bible and talking through what we're learning. It seems to be a pretty good way to start off the day!

We then headed off to Lathrop Homes, which is a government owned property that houses hundreds of residents. Many of these residents have ended up here becuase of life circumstances and family issues that have put them in a position where they couldn't provide for their family with "regular" housing. We are partnering with Service Connector which is connected to Chicago's human resources department. They have case managers that work with the residents and then connect with us to let us know what needs done and where it needs done.

We split up into three teams and started tackling our list of apartments! Some residents were in need of a little extra help cleaning up their apartment while some needed some extensive cleaning! Students were great at helping the residents feel loved and valued as they were working away! And from what I hear several teams had the opportunity of meeting some cockroaches!

The team that I was with worked with a lady named Carol who has 5 children aged 12-18 and you can tell that they mean the world to her and like most moms she would do anything for her kids. She had a LOT of clutter in her apartment that ranged from shoes to piles of clothes and bikes and more clothes and papers and more clothes. It was difficult for our team to all be in one room because of the lack of space. Loretta, Blake, Whitney, Tailore and Halley got to work helping Carol sort through stuff, deciding what was needing to be tossed and what could be donated to help others. Even though Carol had so little in her life, she still wanted to give what she had to help others! Myself, Cory, Grant and Chris tackled the bathroom and entryway. We cleaned every inch of the bathroom and knew we did a good job when the kids came home and said how they had never, ever seen the window sill that clean. We wrapped up the bathroom and entry way with a fresh coat of paint. The girls later tackled cleaning the kitchen with Carol and then we ended the afternoon with a coat of paint for the kitchen too.

Jeff, Cody, Scott, Austin, Sarah, Nikki, Valerie, Peyton, Kelsey and Becky started the day off doing some extensive cleaning to help out a gentleman who was in danger of losing his apartment if he couldn't get things turned around. They worked extremely hard and got it done before lunch. In the afternoon they tackled another cleaning project in which they also did some painting.

Dave, Hayden, Josh, Tyler, Carole, Kirsten, Kira, Olivia and Gabby tackled some of the lighter cleaning projects and were able to get two completly cleaned before lunch. The residents had intended for help only cleaning one or two rooms, but Carole wouldn't have any of that and they took on a bunch more. In the afternoon they continued on and helped clean up a couple more apartments.

We're off to dinner in a little bit so that's all for now! Jeff will be posting some pictures from today a little bit later on!