Grace Church

We arrived in Chicago, checked in to the hotel, and ate some great food at Portillo's for lunch.

Then, we headed to New Community Church to help with the Great Grocery Giveaway. There we helped unload the truck full of food, sort and organize it, and then help give it away to the community. It was a wonderful way to start our trip!

We had the great opportunity to worship with New community church. Bob, Jackson and Christy Lee shared their testimonies in front of the Congregation. 

Pastor Chris Preached an amazing sermon on Luke 15. He spoke some real truth about how God Loves us without limits, and how God loves to find us when we have strayed from Him. 

This afternoon we had a great time hanging out with the youth group from New community church. We had a great lunch together and played tons of fun games. To close out our time Pastor Anthony gave a brief lesson about unity and how we should live in unity as believers. 

**Also Chad made it in time for church and the Woods family finally made it to us just in time for dinner. The wonderful snow story that passed through made everything a little more difficult. But everyone made it safe! **

This morning we went to the Dolton parks district to help with some cleaning and set up. Because of the snow we were not able to start the Outside work we had planned. Instead we were able to help clean up the inside of the community buldings and set up for events. We worked hard cleaning up the basket ball gym and conference rooms. We swept, mopped,  vacuumed, cleaned the bathrooms and put away table and chairs. 

The parks facility director was Great to work with! He is so fun and helpful and just so happens to also be from Greenville! 

Monday and Tuesday afternoon we have had the opportunity to help the American Association of Single Parents with their after school program ACE. This program is held at New community church. The program is designed to help single parents with child care by helping with homework, providing a snack after school and allowing the kids to time to play games and do crafts. We have been able to provide help in those areas and connect with the kids that attend. 

On Monday we made Slime!! Which of course was a huge hit with all the kids.

Jess helping with Homework.

After we finished road side clean up we movies to another park to rack leaves, pick up trash and branches. Our goal was to keep the park looking good and help preserve it for the community surrounding it. Again the team did a Hreat job filling tons of bags with leaves and trash and working together. They never complained and always helped out to get the job done. 

After lunch Pastor Chris met us at the church and as able to share a little more about his story and the importance behind the work we have been doing this week. She shared that one of the main focuses of the church has been to reach the community around them especially families. Unfortunately many of those families are single parents which is why after school care is so important. He also shared that many people for one reason or another don’t want to come to church but when they see groups like ours helping clean up the parks they see that we are different. By working in the parks we are being a light to the community around us and encouraging people and sharing the love of Christ through our actions. 

At the end of his time we had the opportunity to pray for him, his family, the church and surrounding community. 

Wednesday We finished racking leaves at one park and moved to another. There, we trimmed all the branches along the fence line. By this time we had quite the experienced team with branch cutters. The other half of the team racked More leaves in the park that had been piled up for some time. At one point another person came out and started helping us. We had a great time getting to know her and the other park district team members. 

Trimming trees 

To end a great week Mr. Knuckles grilled out for us at the Parks department! It was awesome to spend the last day with him enjoying some good food together. After lunch some of the students even picked up a game of basketball in the gym with some kids who had the day off of school.