| Saturday, September 8, 2007 |
| Brightest Firefly |
Yesterday was our first real day at our assignments here in Chicago. We are each assigned to a certain charity or outreach of some kind while we are here in the states. Jon and I both were assigned to work at a place called Catholic Charities. Catholic Charities is an outreach mission which is designed to help people who are struggling too make ends meet for one reason or another. The organization tries to help in everything from basic food supplies to helping pay thats months rent.
Both Jon and I's main job at the catholic charities as of now seems to be mainly helping them with simple data entry into there computer system. I am alright with this of course what with the fact that I have done it before and computers are something I seem to excel at. However Jon and I both wish that they would give us something to do to help break the monotony of just entering in card after card of data. I don't think data entry is permanent thankfully at least I hope it isn't and I can't wait to help out the charity in other ways as well.
Today was a Saturday the only day of the week we really have all to ourselves. While the rest of the team headed out too a German festival, I took some time for myself and headed out to Chinatown. I spent most of the day there just wandering the streets and exploring all the different shops both the tourist based ones and the authentic Chinese markets. It was quite fascinating to say the least, I definitely can freely admit I like Chinese culture alot, and hope to someday be able to speak/read mandarin Chinese. |
posted by Kevin Gray @ 10:50 PM  |
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| Thursday, September 6, 2007 |
| Closing Time |
| Change of plans everyone, because of a few problems with obtaining a visa we have to make sudden and drastic changes to our destination this year. Instead of going to Sweden it looks like we will be headed to Northern Ireland to help out at a urban youth out reach and ministry there. I still don't know all the details but I will let you all know here as soon as possible. I must admit though that I am a bit sad about not being able to go to Sweden for a year as are other members of my team, yet we are to look for good in all things God gives us. With that in mind and when this was all up in the air I prayed about it earnestly and I truly believe God would not have let this change of plans happen unless it was his doing. I believe we will have alot of surprises when we get to Northern Ireland but I believe God is working for the good here and I am happy with His choice and look forward to arriving there. |
| posted by Kevin Gray @ 1:24 AM |
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| Monday, September 3, 2007 |
| Midnight Sonata |
Last night we had a free evening so we were able to head out into downtown and enjoyed the Chicago Jazz Festival that was held in Millennium park. We listened to several great bands play but probably the greatest highlight was listening to the Charles Mingus Big Band play several numbers composed by the great Charles Mingus.
Today we told our life stories / journeys of faith to each other, and there was much rejoicing. It was good to get to know people in deeper ways and get a greater appreciation of our differences and similarities. We put on our wall a little plaque that states a certain goal we have here, we desire to celebrate each others differences. |
| posted by Kevin Gray @ 7:22 PM |
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| Saturday, September 1, 2007 |
| The Kyoto Protocol |
The past two days have been interesting for me here at RAD to say the least. For starters a few days ago we headed down to help at a small local Mennonite grade school that had a sewage line break. Thankfully the majority of it was cleaned up when we got there so we didn't get too dirty. We did however help them clean up some of there back storage rooms and did some reorganizing to make things easier for them.
We also recently given our final test of navigating the city. We were split up into groups of two and then dropped off at various locations throughout the city, we then had to find our way back home with our partner. Thankfully much to my relief I was paired with someone who actually knew about directions, personally I am bad when it comes to directions and finding my way around. I tend more to learn by experience, but after only about a hour or two we finally found our way back home. |
| posted by Kevin Gray @ 2:08 PM |
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| About Me |
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Name: Kevin Gray
Home: Newcastle, Ireland
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