Another great day! This morning started a little earlier than yesterday morning in an effort to get started on our work projects. When we arrived at the church, Nathan led the team in a devotion about what it means to be a doorholder in the Kingdom of God. He referenced Psalm 84:10 and talked about how that relates to what we are doing this week serving with Soul City Church. After his devotion, we spread out around the church and prayed individually for about 30 minutes. That was a great experience and most of the crew really got into it.
From there, we divided into two teams. Six people stayed at the church and painted the stage. The rest of the crew headed next door to Warehouse B to clean, demolish stuff, and throw stuff away. Picture a Warehouse about as big as the auditorium at West Ridge Church or even just 3 times as big as the NCCS gym. That is what we cleaned. The building used to be a car dealership and it has just been neglected for many years. We really had a great time and the team busted it to get everything mostly done before lunch. The boys had to move some furniture that was broken and damaged to the dumpster. This also included several doors with glass panes in them. Let’s just say that they might have had too much fun putting those in the dumpster! (very responsibly of course)
After lunch we went back over with our broom brigade to give it a once over and tidy things up and we were done. One day soon, Soul City Church will need this warehouse for their worship space. We want to come back up here and worship with them when that happens. There is enough room for thousands to worship Jesus together here in the city! Today we were doorholders helping to prepare the space for that to happen.
Everyone enjoyed the lunch break. The Morgan Street Deli has been a great find! The sandwiches, salads, and other choices have all been a big hit with our hungry crew. After we finished lunch and the once over at the warehouse, we got back together for a quick strategy session and divided our group into 9 teams. 1 team of 4 went with Nathan to BreakThru ministries. BreakThru is a ministry to homeless people that Soul City supports. Our guys were delivering hygiene supplies and other things along with one of the staff guys from Soul City Church. 1 team of 8 worked for Soul City Kids putting together more Easter Eggs, working on the new kids space, and doing other tasks. Chad and Marcus did an awesome job putting a crib together…do you know how many pieces those things have??!! The other 7 teams divided up and went out in groups of 4 within a couple of blocks of the church to pass out invite cards to the “Paint the City Green” event that SCC is hosting Friday night. We are doing a ton to help them get ready for this event. We are bummed to miss it…but believe that God has amazing things in store!
The 7 street teams met up at a park when all the cards were handed out. That was a great place to hang out for a bit as we learned a few new games. It is such a blast to see our kids enjoying each other’s company! We walked back to the church and helped the Kids Ministry group finish up. After that, we all gathered in the auditorium to look at our task list for the week. It was fun going through item by item and crossing things off the list. I think we have definitely accomplished more than Soul City Church realized that we might be able to. It is such a privilege to partner with these folks that sacrificed so much to move to the city to reach the West Loop for Christ. We have had a blast working with them!
We hopped on the “L” back to the hotel so everyone could clean up. Then, we divided up into a few groups to check out more Chicago restaurants for dinner. There were groups for Gino’s East pizza, Portillo’s Chicago hot dogs, Chipotle, Q’doba, and Pizzeria Uno. Lots of great choices within a very short walk from our hotel. After dinner everyone had a little bit of freetime to pick up some snacks and relax.
Our team meeting will be at 9pm Central time. This has proven to be a great time of worship and sharing each evening. It is hard to believe that 38 people in a hotel room could be enjoyable, but the team has come each night ready to worship. We have also spent a good bit of time praying together and that has been a joy. There are burdens in our midst…but tons to be grateful for as well!
We want to give a big shoutout to the NCCS 4th graders that are praying for us this week. We love you guys and have really enjoyed all of the notes you sent for us. Ya’ll are the coolest kids and we are so proud of you and the way you stepped up to support us this week. We can’t wait until you guys get to come on Spring Term. We love the 4th graders!
Megan Strange
