North Park Church

We made it to Iglesia Bautista Erie about 5:00! After unloading our stuff, we walked to dinner at Fatso's Last Stand. It was a fun restaurant with hamburgers, hotdogs, and fried shrimp! After dinner we met Pastor Marvin at the church and he shared with us about the church and community and some of what we would be doing this week. We ended the night with a team meeting and some free time. We are excited to join the church for worship in the park in the morning!

This morning we got to worship with the members here at Erie Baptist Church. Some of the group even got to help lead us worship! We sang in both Spanish and english, and Pastor Marvin did a great job of preaching in both languages as well.

The whole group even got up to sing their special version of Amazing Grace.

Before dinner tonight we went and spent some time at Lake Michigan.

We ended the night by eating Chicago style pizza at Lou Malnati's and it was delicious!

We started out the day with half the group going to a community garden at Mitchell Elementary to weed and clean up the area. The other half used their professional painting skills to paint a room at the host church.

Some of the crew painting at the church.

We had a great time putting on VBS at the park this afternoon! The park district sent their kids over in two groups so we got to do everything twice! We had crafts, games, music, and a short lesson time.

We ended our day by going to serve at La Casa Norte. They serve the homeless youth population in several ways, and we got the opportunity to help at one of their emergency overnight shelters. Part of the group prepared dinner and dessert for the youth that would be coming in and the other half worked on doing some cleaning in the shelter for women with children. They also got to make signs to put on the doors for the moms and kids to encourage them and let them know they are loved.

Tuesday, we were able to work on lots of different things. We started out the morning at the Columbus School, which is another elementary school near the church. We did some cleaning and moving of classroom furniture so that janitors could wax the floors. Some of us also got to go work at Superior Park in the morning. We pulled weeds out of garden beds, picked up trash, raked the wood chips on the playground, swept the sidewalks, painted benches, and more! After lunch, part of the group did some more painting at the church and Brian continued working on the shower he has been fixing this week. Pastor Marvin is so excited to finally have a shower at the church! We also had a small group go out to the park later in the afternoon to try to meet some more people and tell them about VBS on Wednesday. Some of the guys ended up playing a pick up game of football with three guys they met, and we all got to talk with different people. We are really excited for our last day of VBS at the park!! We spent time filling up water balloons for the kids to play with, and we have hundreds of them! We ended our day with a terrific dinner prepared by a member of the church. We had plantains, rice and beans, a spaghetti like pasta, incredible chicken, salad, and flan for dessert.

Mark and Matthew got to help scrape and prepare the benches to be painted. They even stayed at the park and worked through lunch to get the job done!

This morning we are back at Columbus School helping them get ready for the students' return! We have people spread out all over the building cleaning trash cans, painting, moving furniture, and doing yard work.

These guys have done a great job painting all week!

These guys are working hard and moving furniture in and out of rooms as needed.

Today was the final day for our VBS in the park. The team had promised to bring water balloons and a balloon launcher as one of the activities. Yesterday they filled over 700 balloons for the kids to launch! Needless to say there was not a dry kid at the park. The craft of the day was witness bracelets which allowed the youth to share the gospel message with several students. The day has been a great success.

This was an amazing team. They offered to take up some of their fun day to finish working at Columbus Elementary.

One group decided they would spend their day at the Chicago Aquarium while the others explored the sites of Chicago.

The second group enjoyed playing at the park. We enjoyed looking at the enormous bean , walking through the gardens , playing on the adult play ground, and cooling off at the Buckingham Fountian.

We all hopped on the bus and headed to the pier where we enjoyed seeing the ships and walking around the amusement park.

The team still had some energy left in them so we got back on the bus and headed to the zoo. Their favorite exhibits were the apes and giraffes. After a full day exploring the sites and sounds of Chicago, we met the other group at Portillo's restaurant They are known for their Chicago hot dogs and Italian beef sandwiches.