I've officially been in Illinois a week! It's been amazing so far, and totally crazy. After training was over I moved into my apartment which is great. I have a room all to myself which is great, but it's right underneath the stairs which makes me feel a little like Harry Potter. I got to walk around the neighborhood I live in and got some general information. I live in Avondale which is a neighborhood in Chicago that is mainly Polish and Latin American. I used to think that the days of immigrants who didn't speak English were over, but being here only a week I know that to be false. We had a kid's bible club in the park on Tuesday night and there were children speaking Spanish and Polish to each other which was so interesting to see. We're going through the wordless book which basically is a story including the colors in the salvation bracelet. This week we went over the Gold color which talks about Heaven. We told them about how there are mansions made of gold and how Jesus lives up there and one of the children asked "How much did he have to pay to get there?" What a crazy awesome question! In a neighborhood where families don't have a whole lot of money the cost of things is very important, and it allowed us to lead into how Jesus had to give everything, but we get in for free. The rest of the week I've spent at the pastor's house next to the church with his wife. We work so well together and she is so sweet! The pastor is Indian, so there's a lot of culture around me which is amazing! On Wednesday night I was able to meet some of the church members at the Prayer meeting/Bible study. Then yesterday afternoon/last night I met up with some of the other summer missionaries I met at orientation and went to downtown Chicago which was amazing! The city is such a great place to be if you have the right shoes :) Seriously, though, I love it. Something that's come to my attention though is that I'm ridiculously selfish. One of my goals for the summer is to witness to 10 people, and I haven't even started! I'm so scared for absolutely no reason and I'm putting my comfort over the advancement of the Gospel! My prayer is that God would lead me to to situations where it would be very clear I'm supposed to witness to them, and not only that, but for Him to give me a spirit of boldness so that I will be able to do His work. I'm not here for me, I'm here for Him.

So prayer requests: that God would lead me into Christ-sharing conversations, that I would have the wisdom and boldness to lead those conversations, the Avondale neighborhood, Jennah- that baby Joshua would enter the world soon, and the city of Chicago- which is so so lost.