After a great night’s rest, everyone was up and ready to roll this morning. Most of our team took advantage of the hot breakfast here at the hotel. By 9:00 everyone was gathered in the hotel lobby. You might wonder how we keep up with 37 people without losing anyone. We have a system! Each room has a captain. Everytime we get ready to go somewhere, all 6 student room captains have to check to make sure they have all their folks. Avery, Marcus, Chase, Jackson, Jessie, Paige, Kelsey, and Molly have done a tremendous job keeping up with their roomies!
We walked from the hotel to catch the train out to Wrigleyville. Once we arrived at Wrigley Stadium…the Chicago team was so pumped about touring this historic stadium. We had the privilege of walking all over the stadium and hearing the history of the Cubs. The tour guide did a great job sharing some very interesting stories. The whole team enjoyed sitting in the pressbox looking out over homeplate and out into the city of Chicago. There were many stories shared between our team of watching Harry Carey lead Cubs fans in his famous “Take Me Out to the Ballgame”. We also talked about his iconic glasses! From the pressbox, our group walked down and actually got to walk out on the field. We had a blast!
From Wrigley Field we made the customary souvenir stop and loaded up on all the Cubs paraphenelia a person could ever need living in Acworth, Georgia. The next stop was Lou Malnati’s Pizza…a famous Chicago-style pizzeria. They were shocked when we walked in since their restaurant only seated about 40 people…and it was full already! No worries…they did a great job and had us in and out in slightly under an hour and a half. Everyone agreed that the food was awesome!
We went back to the hotel and enjoyed some free time before we got ready to head out to worship with the community at Soul City Church. We rode the Red Line train and then the Blue Line train out to Soul City Church and arrived about a half hour before the service began. It was amazing to see what the SCC folks have done in the space they have. We met some of the nicest people we have ever met and our team instantly felt at home at SCC. Their band did a great job leading us in worship before Jarrett Stevens brought a great message about generosity. He reminded us that we are called to give because God has blessed us so much. “God doesn’t want something FROM you, He wants something FOR you.” After Jarrett’s message, he gave us some practical opportunities to apply what he taught, we spent time in prayer, and then his wife Jeanne closed the service with some great news about the future of the church.
After the service, we enjoyed meeting some more Soul City folks. We are looking forward to serving alongside this community these next several days. God is doing some amazing things in and through Soul City Church to reach Chicago for the glory of God and it is a privilege to be a part of it! When we left church, we headed back on our trains and then split up into groups for dinner. I headed to Chipotle with nine students, Mr. Masters and Nathan headed to Portillo’s with a few others for Chicago hot dogs, and Mrs. Timms took the rest to Chili’s. Conversation with high school students is always a highlight of Spring Term. We have the most awesome kids on the planet at NCCS!
We just returned to the hotel and our team is getting ready to have our debrief meeting for the day. I look forward to hearing how the team is doing. We are eager to get to work tomorrow. We will be working all day at Soul City Church helping them complete some projects they have been working on. Please pray for our team as well as the rest of the Spring Term trips. And…remember in particular, the Spring Term Short Courses that kick off in the morning. May the name of Jesus be made famous this week through the work of our hands and feet as our mouths shout His praises!
Megan Strange
