{"id":3195,"date":"2011-03-30T20:51:35","date_gmt":"2011-03-31T01:51:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/meganstrange.com\/?p=3195"},"modified":"2011-03-30T20:51:35","modified_gmt":"2011-03-31T01:51:35","slug":"spring-term-2011-chicago-day-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/meganstrange.com\/?p=3195","title":{"rendered":"Spring Term 2011: Chicago Day 5"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today was a great day!\u00a0 We were sad not to see our friends that we have made at Soul City Church, but we were all excited to visit Wheaton College.\u00a0 We rode the red line on the \u201cL\u201d a couple of stops and then hopped off to walk to the Metra train station.\u00a0 We were running a few minutes behind\u2026so we actually ended up running to make our train!\u00a0 The \u201cL\u201d trains come every 7 minutes.\u00a0 The Metra trains come every hour\u2026so it was imperative not to miss this one.\u00a0 We were quite the group\u202638 people running through the train station.\u00a0 I\u2019m sure that was a real blessing to everyone else!<\/p>\n

Once we hopped on the train, we settled into our seats for the 45 minute ride out to the suburbs.\u00a0 It was remarkable to see how much the city changed outside the train windows as we moved out from the city.\u00a0 By the time we arrived at the College Avenue exit in Wheaton, we were ready to check out the college.\u00a0 Our first stop was the football field where Mr. Masters gave a devotion based on Romans 13:12 and talked about how we as Christians have an opportunity to bring the light to an otherwise dark and hopeless world.\u00a0 Mr. Masters also shared some of his own experiences as a student at Wheaton and some things that had been particularly meaningful to him during his time on campus.<\/p>\n

We visited the Student Center on campus to hang out for a few minutes on our way to chapel.\u00a0 Chapel is held on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday each week at Wheaton.\u00a0 They take attendance in chapel and students are only allowed so many skips per semester.\u00a0 When we arrived for chapel, Mr. Masters showed us where to sit.\u00a0 Because they take attendance in chapel based on assigned seats, we actually sat in the seats that belonged to current students.\u00a0 Mr. Masters told us that would make us very popular because those students would be counted present just because we were sitting in their seats.\u00a0 Some students walked up and thanked us, some students asked kids to move to their seat so that they could be counted present, and some just laughed.\u00a0 It was sort of like a service project to Wheaton kids who wanted to skip chapel!\u00a0 Our kids got a big kick out of that.<\/p>\n

The next funny moment came when the speaker was introduced.\u00a0 The adults had consulted the Wheaton chapel schedule in advance and knew what the topic would be and decided we would wait to see how the kids reacted.\u00a0 They were having a special series on Sexuality and Holiness.\u00a0 I wish you could have seen the looks on their faces\u2026definitely some interesting comments afterwards!\u00a0 The speaker was good and I know we\u2019ll talk more about that at our team meeting tonight\u2026what a blast!<\/p>\n

After chapel we went on a tour of the campus led by an Admissions rep that happened to be one of Mr. Masters\u2019 best friends from college.\u00a0 He gave us a great tour and we learned a lot about Wheaton.\u00a0 That school has a tremendous legacy of training missionaries and pastors including: Billy Graham, John Piper, Jim Elliot, and Nate Saint.\u00a0 Their student center was named after Todd Beamer (of 9\/11 fame), also a Wheaton alum.\u00a0 The admissions rep went on and on about the family atmosphere on campus at Wheaton.\u00a0 It was cool to hear a few of our NCCS kids talking about the fact that we are used to that at NCCS!<\/p>\n

The tour was followed by lunch\u2026always a favorite with this crew!\u00a0 They enjoyed the fact that lunch was all you can eat\u2026and they did!\u00a0 After lunch we spent some more time in the Student Center and visiting the bookstore.\u00a0 From there we rode the train back into the city and jumped the \u201cL\u201d back to the hotel.\u00a0 This evening was another night to check out restaurants in the neighborhood of our hotel and enjoy hanging out together.\u00a0 My crew ventured out to Gino\u2019s East for more Chicago deep dish pizza.\u00a0 Other groups went to Hard Rock, Chipotle, and Subway.\u00a0 After dinner, one group went for ice cream, but everyone else has been hanging out at the hotel relaxing.<\/p>\n

We will have our group meeting in a bit and recap the day.\u00a0 Tomorrow will be an early morning as we hope to finish the projects at Soul City Church and spend a good chunk of the day with the kids from Brown Elementary School.\u00a0 Tomorrow evening we are going to tour the Art Institute of Chicago and then enjoy our last team dinner at Ed Debevic\u2019s..a famous Chicago restaurant.\u00a0 It is hard to believe that 24 hours from now we will all be packing up.\u00a0 Our goal is to make the most of the time here that we have to invest in the people and encourage the staff of Soul City Church.\u00a0 We are having a great trip!<\/p>\n

Megan Strange<\/p>\n