Break Out 2008!

It was our last retreat with the jr. highers for the year - hard to believe, isn't it? This time we were back in our old turf of NPU living in none other than Anderson Hall. And let me tell you, it hasn't changed a bit. The idea and theme of the weekend is for all of us to 'Break Out' of the familiar and actually DO something to be the hands and heart of Christ.
Our group was assigned to go to the south side of Chicago to do house and yard work for the families living in the neighborhood of 82nd and Kingston. We were working with Neighborhood Housing Services which is an organization that helps to allow people to buy, keep, and beautify homes. They have been doing this since 1975! See this for more information: http://www.nhschicago.org/content/index.php.
Within our youth group, we were split up by a boy and girl group. Our boys had to clear out a piece of land that had been infested with overgrown weeds and other debris. After doing that, the soil had to be treated and then later covered with fresh sod (which I didn't not realize needed to be watered SO much in order for it to 'take' to the soil).



Our ladies, on the other hand had the job of helping next door neighbors with their porches, one of whom also wanted us to pick out rocks, MANY rocks from underneath her bushes and weed her garden along the front and side of the house. Our girls worked hard scraping off all of the old paint from the railings and painting them while Greta and I were in charge of the rocks (we picked up enough to fill two huge trash bags of rocks by the end of our time there!). Cam worked with a rotation of ladies in taking out pesky plants, and Hannah was there to help him with 'the beast' of a plant that needed to be excavated with a shovel and several rounds of tough pulling. In the midst of the working, there were several paint/handprint fights which were wiped off by hand-sanitizer soon after.





We brought lunches (and had some other options upon our arrival) and ate under a lovely shady tent while people around the neighborhood struck up conversations with us either about what we were doing or how they could help too, or how they could have help with their homes. It was outside of our comfort zones to do this, but I really feel like it opened my eyes at least more to the city that I lived in. And, I ended up meeting some cool people and learning a small piece of their story.


How proud we were of our kids and the many things that they did to break out this weekend! Way to go, guys!