Central United Methodist Church

The team has arrived!! After two days of driving and a stop for dinner the team is finally here. They were able.to meet with Pastor Bentley and enjoy some Jamaican patties he left for us. So far the trip is off to a great start!

We're hard at work this morning! After breakfast and a ride on the buses and trains to get to Cornerstone Community Outreach we're getting to work. Sarah shared an orientation about CCO and what homelessness looks like then we hopped into working. Part of our group is helping clean the kitchen and the other part is helping clean the dining hall.

This crew got to serve lunch to every person that came in the line. They did a fantastic job and got to see lots of faces!

These two guys were on dish duty during lunch time and got to wash and sort the trays, glasses, and silverware. Also, don't you love the outfits!

This afternoon we got to spend some time working on projects here at the church. Some of us scraped paint outside, some picked up trash outside the building, and some did some carpet cleaning inside. Tonight for dinner we went out to get some deep dish Chicago style pizza from Lou Malnati's! Everyone LOVED it and ate more than enough. It was a great ending to our day here!

Pastor Bentley told Grant that he had the best job today because he was in a position to pray while working. Thanks for your servant heart Grant.

Today we started the day with projects at the church. We did some more carpet cleaning in the sanctuary and worked on organizing the youth room here at the church and moving some things out of it. We spent the afternoon at the Greater Chicago Food Depository. We were repackaging beans, and we packed over 2,500 3 pound bags of beans! That's a lot of beans!! But, it is also a lot of people that will have food to eat. Finally, we rode back downtown to spend some time in Millennium Park and to see another bean! We also spent some time on a playground and had dinner at Shake Shack.

Half of the group got to weigh the bags of beans and seal them up.

The other half got to box up the bags and tape them so they could be placed on a pallet.

We took public transportation everywhere we went today. Lots of trains, buses, and walking!

Yesterday we headed back to Cornerstone Commjnity Outreach to serve lunch and take with some of the people who were eating. Brooks made a new friend by spending lunch time with him. They got to know each other and spent time sharing stories. In the evening we sat down to some Jamaican cuisine including ox tail! Afterwards we joined service singing hymns, answering questions, sharing advice on life, and more singing from Devon. It was a great evening of community and fellowship!