If he is with me...

So immediately after explaining to you that I don't write because there is nothing to write about, I immediately have two entries that I want to write. How's that for irony?

I realised a couple of months ago (I think it was October), that I didn't feel called to go to the school that I had planned on attending next year (the University of Waterloo for Social Development Studies), and that I should go straight into a pastoral ministry program instead. This was partially because I was reading one of the books that we have to read for Radical Journey called Dangerous Wonder by Michael Yaconelli, which talks about childlike faith, but it's also been something that I've been struggling with for a while, I just don't see putting off studying about God, to be worth the effort. So I applied to Emmanuel Bible College, and Tyndale University College, and left it at that.
This past week I got accepted to EBC, and after several days of basking in my happiness of being able to go to College, and doing what I feel God's Calling me to do, I went back into my usual “6” state (see my entry about the Enneagram), and began worrying about anything and everything that could go wrong with this such as how I was going to pay for college, how I'd pay off the debt I've taken to go on Radical Journey, and how I'd overcome my speech impediment when I preach (I have a really heavy speech impediment which makes it hard to understand what I say some times, my brother has literally translated what I've said for his friends before). And everything seemed to be impossible
But then yesterday at the Picnic, there was a time of worship, and we sang Hossana by Hillsong, which is about God's great providence, and seeing his Glory revealed on this earth, then Pastor Russel told us a story about a young man who wanted to be a missionary in Mongolia, despite his parent's wish for him to take on the family dairy business, and how he went to Yale, Seminary, and went off to Egypt for a missionary training program before getting sick and dying, and how he was totally committed to his cause.
Because of these things, I feel that God reminded me of the very strange events that led me to even to get to Africa, how I applied 2 months late, how I was supposed to be going to sweden, and how I didn't get my passport/visa back untill the day before I was supposed to go to Chicago, and how God's hand was in me getting this far. Now I know that God is with me, and if he is for me, then how can anyone stand against me?


And if anyone is interested, I am still waiting on Tyndale, so any prayers in that regard would be greatly appreciated.

Albert falls times two and fun times

So on friday, we went to a retreat center in a place called Albert Falls in order to have a forcasting (read: planning) session for next year.

We got their friday night, and ate the best T-bone steaks I have ever eaten (maybe that's because I don't eat very many t-bone steaks). Then we played games that night. First I played thirty seconds (kind of like South African Taboo) and failed miserably at it. Then we played spoons, during one round, the last spoon flew off the table, and there were two of us still fighting for it, so I pushed the table towards the other guy, and then dived for the spoon on the ground (which was quite fun).

Then on Saturday (It was a sleepover), we had times of worship and planning for the next year, there they talked about the evangelism goals they have (5 new members/person), effective strategies for reaching those goals, and how the structure for the youth would change. One of my friends here, Wayne, (the guy I pushed the table at), was going to become a senior leader, my Mentor Hein, the guy in charge of the youth, will be taking a more supervisory role, and a bunch of the other leaders were moved between different parts of the town, to make up for one of them leaving for a YWAM Discipleship training school.

On sunday we returned to Albert Falls, but instead of being at a retreat center, we went to a park for an all Church Picnic, which was really fun. The youth set it up so that those senior leaders that could afford it would pay more, and those of us that couldn't could bring less expensive stuff, and everyone was really cool with it, and very gracious. I took a couple of pictures before my camera died again (don't worry, I'll steal pictures off other people's facebook accounts once they get posted), then I played Cheat, and then President before spending 2 hours Braai-ing.

Now this is probably the most important role that one can do at a south african gathering. Braai would be our Barbecue, but they don't have hamburgers and hotdogs, they have real meat- steaks and porck chops and chicken wings, etc, and they eat it in quantities far greater than what we do (in fact, literally one of the first things we were told when we got here was that South Africa is one of the few places that consider Meat to be a staple). So for me to Braai, made me feel deeply connected with south african culture. (The other great thing about being the braiier is that it is our right to sample the meat as we cook it).

Then when we got home I got an SMS (read:text) from a friend from youth inviting us to go to Fantasia, a carnival, with his friends, Connie and I were the only two up for it, but the two of us went anyways, going on incredibly sketchy rides (on the swinging ship, our side gate was kept attached using wire), then we drove to a restaurant to get take out, and went up to World's view.

Pietermaritzburg is literally in the middle of a bowl of mountains, which makes for lot's of pollution and popped ears and other such problems, but it also means that if you get to the top of the Bowl (at a place called World's view), you have an epic view of Pietermaritzburg, especially at 10 o'clock at night with all of the light's shining).

We spent the night talking, and bonding, sharing stories and telling jokes, and growing our relationships with the people of Pietermaritzburg.

Sorry

Yeah, sorry I don't blog more often, but I really don't have much to say because:

1. We don't do much, after work we sit around and watch a tv show on our laptops, and I don't think you want to read about what Jim and Pam are doing on the office in season 4 (btw, we finally got season 4, so that prolongs our watching of the office, yay!)

2. I don't hate everything about africa, while there would be plenty of things to complain about, I've decided to not let them bother me, so I won't say anything about it.

3. I'm not good about talking about my feelings (hey I'm a guy, what do you expect), so That throws that option out to

So here is my blog

Hard work, and a new friend.

A church with a property the size as Breakthru has a lot of garden refuse (lawn clippings, tree trimmings etc), and Breakthru hadn't done anything with theirs for two years, so there is this massive pile of compost, just sitting in the corner of their property, and at one area about one story tall, so what did Breakthru do?

if you guessed have the RJ team clean it up, then you win a million dollars*. So for tuesday and wednesday there was always a couple of us either loading it up onto the trailer, or ripping branches out of the pile and stacking them to go into the trailer (it's a lot easier that way). So after 2 days of work in hot weather, we had managed to make a dent in the pile, we would have made a bigger dent, but we were waiting for fuel money to come back to the church, anyways, during our wait for fuel, we started prepping for the next load, and I heard what I thought was a cat, but I couldn't see anything, so I went back to work, 5 minutes later, Kyle finds this half starved kitten under one of the branches.

Now remember, we'd been working on this pile for almost two days and and had moved 4 trailers worth of refuse by this point. so how this kitten got there, we don't know (we think a momma cat abandoned it while we were eating lunch).

so Meet Dwight, our new kitten, who will be staying with us for the next few months, and hopefully helps our mouse problem.

*payable in Tim Dollars

"You didn't tell him about the missing jedi" ~Neimodian

"No need to report that to him untill there is something to report" ~Nute Gunray

Star Wars the Phantom Menace

some of you may be wondering why I haven't posted anything in 2 weeks, well that's because there isn't anything really interesting to report in terms of what we've been doing.

However, last week kyle got a package from home, with a lot of cool stuff in it, there was gum, and tea, and books, and best of all Mice Traps! Now, we have mice traps here, but the bait platform on them is made of metal, and not that sensitive, so they don't catch anything. Kyle got traps with plastic bait platforms, that are really sensitive, so we set them up, and then had team time, and then started watching the office (the other really awesome thing that Kyle got), when I go into the kitchen to grab something, I decide to check the trap and there are TWO mice trapped in it facing each other. I yelled, others came over, and we took pictures, and laughed, etc (these mice have been bugging us since we got here, our bottom cupboards smell like mouse poop, they deserve to die), eventually the festivities die down, I reset the trap, and we continue watching The Office, when we hear a snap, and we run to the kitchen, and another mouse is dead, by the next morning we had caught 7 mice!

So that's really the only interesting thing that I want to blog about.

And now it's time for Gabby's Grammar:

"He probably just puts cookie drops in it to make it black"

This means food colouring, and was referring to Christian's Recipe that he claims he can make called "Black Sauce Chicken Geoorge" but we don't know what it is, or what makes the sauce black.

Hectic Weekends, and Relaxing mondays

Hectic Weekends, and relaxed Mondays!


Kyle and I have come up with a new rule, whenever we are asked to do something, we will wait 10 to 20 minutes before starting, that way we only have to redo everything twice and not three times. Because enevitably someone else will show up with another vision of the way things should be done, and we will have to redo it.
Friday morning, Kyle and I got to work early to help set up the tent for the events. They had set the tent up the day before, and had left a bunch of table that needed to be set up. We started to set them up staggered so that everyone could have a view of the front (The way I was taught to do it in school when I set up for countless events), but when the decorators came, they told us that they wanted the tables set up in rows. Being the servant hearted workers that we are (and humble to boot!), we moved the tables we had started to set up, into rows, the decorators then realized that there wasn't enough room for everyone, so they want us to move the tables, take a guess what pattern they wanted. If you guessed staggered, you are right! So we had to reorganize the tables again, the way I had wanted to in the first place! Once the tables were set up, we spent the rest of the morning and into the afternoon hauling chairs from the sanctuary, the children's church, and the Balcony to the tent, and by the time we were done we were exhausted.
We wanted to take a rest, but then we had Kid's Klub in the afternoon, and Nathan, my group leader was sick so I had to lead his group, which is okay, except that they were 12 boys aged 10 to 12, all highly excited (having just played soccer), and not really interested in hearing about how God wants us to take care of the environment. So they were loud and squirmy throughout the lesson.
The next morning I got up early and went to the men's breakfast at the time it was supposed to start, which was a mistake because, everyone here runs on African time (if it happens today, great, if it happens tomorrow, even better), so we spent the next hour sitting around waiting for the food to cook, after we ate, we had some worship and speakers talk to us, and it was really good. Kyle and I then took home a whole lot of leftovers.
The girls went to a High Tea in the afternoon, when it was finished, Kyle and I started stacking chairs, and bringing them back to the sanctuary, after we had gotten most of the chairs returned and set up we were told that we had the chairs set up in the wrong order (we had realized that there were different chairs, and had put them in like groups, but didn't realize it matters where you put the different types of chairs. So kyle and I left, Lwandile (sound guy extraordinaire) behind to figure it out (because he knew what he was doing), and were finishing up moving the final chairs when we realized the tables were still set up in the tent and that there wouldn't be any parking on Sunday if we didn't take them down. So we worked until 8 at night stacking tables. After ward we bought pizza, which we had to pick up, because the Pizza Place wouldn't deliver to our street after dark, and watched a movie.
The next day we had to go to all three services to present a skit we had learned. Which went really well, and fit right in with Pastor Russel's Sermon (even though we hadn't planned on it). However, this meant being at church for 6 hours of service. That night we had to go to a leader's meeting, which consisted of watching a video and reading through some notes Pastor Russel had written. We could have saved about an hour by watching the video, and taking the notes home with us to read.
After a busy weekend, we were looking forward to a nice relaxing Monday Morning (our time that is specifically set aside as our sabbath), and having a debrief with Phil and Christine over coffee, when we found out that morning, that it was going to take up some time we were quite enthusiastic about it. We ended up spending the entire day there, and eating lunch and supper with them. I found out Nathan is “technologically informed” which is his way of calling himself a geek, and we had a long discussion of everything from hardware and software to Lord of the Rings. Before we left they let us ransack their movie and book collections, and we came home with over 20 books, and 7 movies which we are borrowing. Over all it was quite a nice day, and a really good sabbath.


And now time for Gabby Grammer

“You are fasting us up”
this sentence was uttered during the first week of orientation back in chicago, telling Kyle to slow down because he was walking to fast.

Camp

Breakthru runs these events called Encounter Camps, when people stay in the building next to us, for the weekend, and have praise and worship, and teaching sessions etc. This past weekend was Kids Kamp (yes that is the correct spelling), with what was supposed to be 30 kids, but ballooned to a total of 65 kids running around the church property.

I personally enjoyed the camp and found it a spiritually uplifting experience as a whole for both the campers and myself.

Interesting points of the weekend:

-Worship times-one of the coolest things I've ever experienced- 70 kids jumping around, praising God, defintiely a powerful experience.

-The Session about the Importance of the Cross- They showed 70 kids aged 10-14 years the crucifixion scene from The Passion of The Christ, which while it definitely helped the kids understand what Jesus Went through, probably traumatized at least a few of them. As well, there was a lot of focus on the Death of Jesus, without much focus on Jesus' Resurrection. If Jesus hadn't been resurrected, then his death would have been meaningless.

-One night, we had an alter call, then asked everyone who wanted to be closer to God could come up to the front, and we would pray for them, while I was praying that the one boy would be guided by the Holy Spirit, he fell over slain, It was amazing to be a part of what God was doing in his life.

-Kyle put the container of juice on one of the food tables (the one with all of the dishes, but none of the food), we didn't have any dishes after that

-I decided to bring out my harmonicas and the kids just couldn't get enough of them. I collected all of them after one of the breaks, but thought I was missing one. When kyle went to the pool after camp was over, he met one of the Kids, and the kid gave him back my harmonica.

And now for a new Feature: Gabby Grammer Where I'll share something that gabby has said-

today Gabby was talking about going to go to the Game Park tomorrow, and the animals that she'd see there, the animal she is most excited to see- Rhinosaurs

Holy Spirit Weekend

October 12, 2009.


This past weekend has been really important for my spiritual walk. For the last while I haven't really been able to connect with worship. I've been trying to figure out what I've been doing that's wrong, but I couldn't, then during Friday night Youth Celebration (once a month all of the youth cells come together for a joint worship service). They played the song Heart of Worship,

“I'm coming back to the heart of worship, It's all about you Jesus”

and that's when it clicked. It doesn't matter what I do, or how silly I look, it's not about me. The only thing that really matters is God. If I just focus on God then everything else just falls into place.
Later that evening, we split into areas, and we prated for the cell leaders, then Hein and his wife, prayed for all of the youth in our areas, and prophesied into our lives. When Hein prayed for me, he told me that God is saying “no excuses,” which really hit me, because I like to make excuses about why something goes wrong, I don't like to be accountable for my actions.
Hein also spoke into my life about my being here, and assured me that I am where God wants me to be, which was really reassuring because that is something that I have struggled with, I mean, I only have a highschool diploma, what good does that mean?
The Final thing Hein told me was that God is going to release into me a passion for the lost, which is good because I used to have a passion for that, but after six years in a school where everyone is either saved (the small minority), or are sick of religion (the vast majority) passion can die out.
The next night we went to prayer, and during it, they played a song which lyrics say

“The more I seek you, the more I find you,
The more I find you, the more I love you”

And that is so true, the more we seek God, the more we love him, and the more he works in our lives.
Then Sunday during Youth Service (there are three service at Breakthru: English, Zulu/English, and Youth), Pastor Russel (the head pastor) spoke about being on fire for christ, and afterwards asked people that haven't spoken in tongues before to come up to the front if they want to. I went up, and he prayed over us, and a lot of us started speaking in tongues which was really amazing. It's amazing because it's our spirits communicating directly with God, without our minds censuring what the spirit says. Then someone laid hands on me (I don't know who, my eyes were closed), and I instantly hit the ground, now I come from a charismatic church and I've felt the holy spirit before, but usually when I end up on the ground, I feel it coming, and I crumple to the ground , after trying to stay standing, this time I didn't have any warning, I was down on my back without warning!
During prayer that night, Pastor Russel again had people come up to the frond to be filled with the holy spirit, before going out this week to do evangelism, and again I went straight back again. But that wasn't the best part of of the prayer meeting, during the worship part, I felt a freedom to move like I've never felt before, and I just jumped, it was one of the most exhilirating feelings I've ever felt. I guess it's true what scripture says “Those who are free, are free indeed”.

Note to any current or former members of River of Life's Youth Ministry: Yes the title of this post was intentional

update

Sorry, that I haven't updated in a while, we only get 2 gigs of internet usage a month, and we ran out by the 8th. So I'm using the church's internet to write this.

After being at convention, we got home, and we bummed around the house for 2 weeks, waiting to find out what we would be doing. then last week, tuesday we had a meeting with Pastor Russel, Hein (The person in charge of the Youth Department), Thandi (runs Breakthru Community Action, Breakthru's NGO, I'll eventually tell you more about this in another post), and Christine (The Mennonite Mission Network worker here in Pietermaritzburg). Where we were given different areas of focus. We will work in the other areas, but these are our main areas)

Kyle and Gabbey are working in BCA
Anna and Connie are working with Missions, and Children's Church/ Catering


and I will be working in the Youth Department. I will be helping to lead a cell in Eastwood (one of the suburbs of Pietermaritzburg), as well as working in the youth office.


As a prayer request- I'm going out evangelising tonight for the first time, please pray that the people we share with have receptive hearts, and that Hein and I are able to communicate the gospel fairly.

convention

so this past weekend, I went to New Zion Ministry's (the group of churches that Breakthru is a part of) annual convention, I'd write a blog about it, but the other's on my team did such a great job, I'll just link to their posts

Connie's: http://conniesradicaljourney.blogspot.com/2009/09/convention.html

Kyle's: http://kyleberg1.blogspot.com/2009/09/sleep-is-my-worst-friend.html

Gabby's: http://gabby-southafrica.blogspot.com/2009/09/convention-at-bloumfontein.html

(yes I know I didn't link one of Anna's posts, but that's because she doesn't have one about convention)

Destination- South Africa

I woke up to say goodbye to the Paraguay team Sunday morning at 5:30. When we arrived here in August, I don't think anyone really realized how hard it would be to say goodbye at the end of the month. After a tearful goodbye, everyone went back to bed. Next we said goodbye to england around 10 O'clock. At noon, it was South Africa's turn to leave. we drove to the airport, checked our bags, and were about to go through security, when a couple from Anna's church stopped us. They took us to the foodcourt, and bought us deep dish pizza (we were in chicago, we had to have some...).

then we flew to amsterdam, where we had a three hour layover, kind of boring.

then we flew to Johannesburg (during which time I watched the new star trek movie, as well as several comedic tvshows), where we discovered that we didn't have the money we were supposed to have transferred to our account, so we couldn't afford to go to the guest house where we were supposed to spend our 8 hour layover. so we had to spend the night in the Johannesburg Airport, which was exhausting (I think I had the most sleep at an hour and 45 minutes).

then we flew from there to Pietermaritzburg where we were picked up by Christine, and driven to her house where we met her husband Phil, they are the Mennonite Mission Network Workers here in south africa. They then took us to the Manse, the house where we will be staying for our 10 months. That night they hosted a braai (it means roasted meat in afrikaans, it's like a barbecue, but with just meat). and we met the staff of breakthru church international, where we will be posted.

We were exhausted from our 3 days of traveling, and when we got back to the manse, we slept untill 2 in the afternoon the next day.

Volunteer work

On Tuesday, the Radical Journey group was split into three teams, and sent to various organizations in the city to volunteer for the day. My group was sent to Cornerstone Community Outreach, a shelter ran by Jesus People for single women and children.

Since it was so close, I got to sleep in, which was really nice. When we got there nobody knew that we were coming and after calling around to figure out where we were supposed to be, they eventually just sent us to the kitchen. Where they set us to work opening cans of vegetables. After the vegetables, we did everything from cleaning out freezers to cutting bread, to cutting meat, to unloading a truck to doing dishes, whatever it was that they needed us to do.

I helped to clean the freezer, and then helped to fill it up with new food, it reminded me of working at bestbuy and loading truck.

overall it was great to be helping out, and doing some of the work that Jesus People USA (my host for this past month) does within the community.

Routine

Ok, so I realised that I've been sharing the special things that have been happening, but that unless you are from the program, you don't really know what I do on a day to day basis, hopefully this post will change that

6:30- 7:15-

somewhere in this time, I'll wake up, the alarm in our room is set for 7:30, but i've literally only waken to it once. I like to spend this time before everyone else is up to either read my novel (which i've finished now, so I'll need to find something else), read scripture, or do devotions.

8:00-

Around eight o'clock, everyone is pretty much awake. And we start heading over for breakfast. We have to cross the alley to Jesus People USA's (Shortened to JPUSA, pronounced Jepusa) main building. where we eat, usually the options are oatmeal, some type of meat, some type of grain (like pancakes or french toast, or bagels), and fruit. There is also a small selection of regular cereal as well.

9:00-

usually at nine, we go to morning prayers with some of the people from JPUSA. This starts with a few songs, led by Ruth and Rebecca, usually a combination of hymns and worship songs. Then one of the JPUSAns will talk about a piece of scripture, or a theme, such as Integrety, or matthew 25. this has been a really good time to reflect about God's word, and I really appreciate it.

9:45- 10:00ish-

we head back to the Flat, and meet in the common room, where we either have a bunch of "youth room" couches and chairs. Where either Krista, Darrell, or a guest speaker will talk to us about something or we get our stuff ready to head out to whatever location, or object lesson we are going to get for the day. This is where most of the teaching time happens

11:30-

We break for lunch at 11:30, and have some sort of sandwich, or pasta meal

1:00-

we reconvene for the rest of our lesson or speaker's presentation, or possibly a new subject alltogether. We've talked about everything from Journaling, to poverty, to Evangelism (possibly have a break part way through)

5:00-

we wrap up whatever we are doing and go for supper, usually a meat, salad, and side

6:00-7:30-

we meet again if there is anything left to talk about, or if there is something special that's going to happen that evening, else we spend the evening either hanging out, reading, watching a movie or going out either to downtown, or dallop depending on the person.

9:30-12:00-

Sometime in this time period, I get my shower, and go to bed. Ready to start the whole thing over again the next day.

Free Hugs

So today, we learned about hospitality as a spiritual discipline. The bible says to do onto others as you would want them to do to you, and the second greatest commandmant, is to love your neighbour.

in the morning we went to Union park, where we had birthday cake (it was my birthday yesterday), and Krista talked for a bit, then gave us our assignment. To be hospitable to others in a new way. So after going back to Jesus People (see other entries) for a quick lunch, Kyle and I headed down town.

When we got there, we pulled out 2 signs that I had made, and walked around the busier areas. There we gave out free Hugs. We hugged a variety of people, from a guy in a wheelchair, to a Crossing Guard, to a Man working on building the set for Oprah's Season opener (that was for you mom).

A lot of people commented on it, talking about how they thought it was a neat idea. We got into a conversation with a trolley driver, who liked it because it reminded him of the compassion he used to see before the city took away free trolley rides. We also got a couple of people that said things like "That's just creepy"

For a little bit, I was just standing there, and on the other side of the sidewalk was a group of teenaged guys, trying to pressure eachother into hugging me (it was a big sidewalk). One guy actually offered another guy (Seen in the above picture) 5 bucks if he'd hug me, but sadly nothing happened).

While we were walking, Amp Representatives were offering free Amp Energy Drinks (energy drinks based on Mountain Dew), which I liked, but Kyle didn't. We offered to give them a hug, but they said no.

In the end, after 2 hours of walking around, we started to head back because our arms were sore from carrying the sign, and our feet hurt, so we decided to head home through Millenium Park. Where we gave some of our last hugs (the only other hug was to a woman in a military uniform). before heading home.

Final Count:

Kyle: 29 (with additional bonus marks for hugging a girl fresh out of the water park)

me:31 (with additional marks for hugging a homeless man, a pat on the back, and a wierd handshake)

Enneagrams

So we've been doing Enneagrams (pronounced Any-a-grams), which is a tool used to help us learn more about who we are, and how we can work togther as a group. There are 9 different personality types, numbered between one and nine. Each type had a name which described what that personality type was focused on such a “Helper” or “Achiever”. Everybody has a little bit of each of the types within their personality, but had one that was more central to who they are.
Our first experience with the Enneagram was a quick online test which we took before we left that told us that we were probably one of three types, but couldn't tell us which one. When I got here I did 2 more tests to figure out which type I was, and I finally decided that I was a six. A six, or Loyalist, is someone who sees everything that can go wrong, and tries to fix things. We feel the need to be dependable for everyone, because to us it's only when we can count on something that we feel secure. We are also Ambiverts, being both introverted and extroverted depending on the situation, this is because we'll try one thing, and if it doesn't work we'll overcompensate.
Being a six helps me to understand why I can be so, i don't know... intense, when I commit to something, I commit to it, 110 percent, but that something has to be stable because I am trying to find something that I can trust to be stable in my life, an example could be that time when I identified as communist, I was doing so, because I thought that communism offered a stability, but when I learned more about how communism had failed in the soviet union, and how it had failed the little man, I realised that it wasn't something that I could trust in, and therefore as a six something that I can't commit to.

One of the things that I've been learning lately is that I can't trust in outside forces because outside forces are always going to fall, this is a world of impermanence, and things change. There are only two things that I can trust in, I can trust in myself to do my best, and be there for others, and that I can trust in God, who will always be there for me, that I need to build my life on him because when the storms come, I know I'll fail, but, God will never, ever fail, and will always be there for me.

Therefore these Enneagrams have been really helpful to me in helping me to understand myself better, and I would highly recommend that people check it out.

Bible Study

Bible Study,

As a group, we've decided that we wanted to do twice weekly bible studies on top of the scheduled list of events/ discussions/ morning prayers, etc. This has been a nice time of refreshing, and community building. This past week, we had some issues getting bible study together. We guys (there are four of us) decided that we wanted to lead it on Wednesday,.
When Wednesday rolled around, we found out that the vicar from the Anglican Church where the England Team will be working, was here and wanted to go out to dinner with them, which resulted in it not happening on it's usual date. Then tonight we didn't get to do it during the regular time because we has something in the evening, but when we got back, we were able to do Bible Studies anyways.
We started it off by reading the scripture that we were basing it on, and then we read something that I had found online about identity and being part of the Body of Christ. Then when we finished reading that, we had some discussion questions, which brought out some interesting ideas about how we view ourselves, and each other.
Since we are all part of Christ's body, we then served Communion, to remind us of how Christ broke his body for us, and poured out his blood. We then sang two songs before ending it.
Overall tonight's Bible Study went off really well, and I can't wait to see what the next group does.

originally written September 3rd, 2009

roamings

This past week we have been given various challenges to complete in order to familiarize ourselves with Chicago. These challenges served the dual purpose of helping us to bond with our fellow participants.

On Wednesday, we were split up into “Neighbourhood Groups” we were split up and given the name of one of Chicago's 70 odd neighbourhoods. My group was called Austin.
The first time we had to go to various locations around the Downtown area, and complete various tasks such as getting library cards (quite easy), and figuring out what happened at a particular site (a ferry tipped over killing over 800 people, and resulting in a rethinking of the safety requirements for ferries). My group was the first group to the end location, and therefore got a prize. The second time we went out, it was more observational this time. We went to Little Village, one of the spanish areas, and had to find various things such as where people hang out, and what parks are near bye. Then we had to find something to eat on a dollar per person. Because we were short on time, we found a restaurant, and we split 2 tacos between four people. This taught me the importance of not rushing decisions, because when we got back, we found out that other had had pitas and peanut butter.
The third time we went out we were in different groups. This time we just had to follow directions, and end up at the conservatory where we would meet and go to a center for green technology, unfortunately all the other groups didn't follow the directions, and they went straight to the center.
On Saturday, we were split into our country groups (the people on our team for the immersion part of radical journey). We were blindfolded and driven to random locations around the city. My group was able to find an a train stop 2 blocks from where we were, and were home within an hour and a half from the beginning of the excursion. Then since it was our turn to clean, we cleaned the house.
Once the cleaning was done, Gabriella and I decided we need to do laundry, so we went to the laundromat. Unfortunately we didn't realise that there were actual laundry machines availible and so we used the SIX DOLLAR industrial machines. Once we got the machines going, we walked a little bit farther, and found regular use machines 2 rows down, which was dissappointing and reminded me that you need to be more observational and to look before you leap.

Possibly Intelligent Conversation?

I really appreciate my fellow Radical Journey Participants. I finally have a group of believers roughly my age, that I can talk about my openly and honestly about my beliefs, feelings, questions, opinions every day. I can bounce ideas off them and not have to worry about them thinking I'm a freak or something. Last night I spent at least an hour talking with Nebraska (her real name is Rebecca, but we have 2 Rebeccas, and she comes from Nebraska) about church sizes, baptism, and Mennonite history and other things which I haven't had a chance to talk about in a long time.
Peace,
Tim
Originally written August 27, 2009, 10:24 pm

Greetings from chicago!

Hi everyone,

I'm here in Chicago, I got in on Sunday. We are staying at Jesus People USA, an intentional community here in Chicago with over 450 members. We are staying in the short term visitor dormitory, The People at Jesus People say that we are a very unusual group because we are staying there for a month while most people only stay for a couple days.
As of 6:30 Thursday night, we still do not have internet, we've had some confusion about the codes the Tech guy needs from us, but we hope to have it figured out tonight, and hopefully have internet by Saturday morning.
Today we had to go to different communities within the city where we had to find certain information about the community. My Group was sent to Little Village. Once we got there, it was easy to ask someone the questions we needed to answer. The next part of our task was to eat on a dollar per person, we had to do it really fast or else we would have been late, so each person in my group only got half a taco each. This highlighted the importance of being smart about how we spent our money and not rushing because when we got home to the flat, we found out that some of the other groups had eaten flat bed and peanut butter, which would definitely have been more filling.
If anyone wants to write to me, my address is:

Tim Wenger
c/o Visiting Group Coordinator
JPUSA
920 W. Wilson
Chicago, IL
60640

Please keep praying about me, it`s greatly appreciated,
Thanks,
Tim


originally written on August 27, 2008 7:30pm CST

final prep

So I'm putting my final touches on packing. Tomorrow at three o'clock, I get in the car for bufallo, from there I board the midnight train, and at 9:45, I arrive in Chicago.

if anyone knows how to record video from a compaq presario laptop's built in webcam, if they could tell me, that would be great! If not I will use the digital camera I am bringing for my video updates.

Funny stories so far

- my mom get's a phone call asking if she wants a visa... now she just hears a foreign accent and assumes it's some guy in india or something selling credit cards, so she say's she's not interested. He then get's confused and is like "not interested? this is your visa for south africa!"

- The first thing I grabbed when I was at the store getting suplies for my trip was duct tape, because as most of you know, I love my duct tape. I for some reason don't get all of my e-mails when they go to my live account, so I missed the packing list the first time it went out, but I got it 2 days ago, and what was the first thing on the list?

You Guessed it... Duct tape

visa

it took us weeks, it resulted in a stressfull night, and a few tears, but we finally got all of my visa stuff put together. Tomorrow, while I'm at work, my mom is going to the post office to send it off, please pray that I have everything done right.

Thanks, Tim

Greetings

This is my first blog entry, I am busy preparing for a year long experience called Radical Journey with Mennonite Church Canada, and Mennonite Missions Network. I will be in Chicago for a month, and then off to South Africa. I will be working with Breakthru International Church and Breakthru Community Action doing administration and Community Development work.