day ten

As the day come to a start, it was another day full of discussion about life and the adventures that we have had with God on our side. As I sat listening, I heard questions about religion and life that many friends and I have discussed at college, as well as even some of the same thoughts that I have wrestled with in my walk. I started noticing (I had noticed earlier, but never really thought about it) that my entire group is at a stage in life I was in 6 years ago as I was entering college. I realized that the year, with the group, will be more of a year of helping others compared to be the one learning. Of course I will learn from these individuals as well, but, at this point it is hard to see this part.

For an evening activity, we went to a local nonprofit that helps male prostitutes and heard some of their stories about life on the street and having to sell themselves to other men for money just to "stay alive." It was a very interesting evening, and made me realize something I never had been exposed to in this crazy world! At the end, they passed out business cards and books of matches that had their name, logo and address all over them. Now lets think about this, what happens when you give 12 20-year olds a book of matches each? Nothing good comes from it. We wasted almost every pack we had trying to light every match and get a quality picture of someone holding it in their mouth! Of course I had to join in...

day nine

I once heard it is hard to know where you are going, unless you know where you have been. (pretty sure it was from the movie HITCH. who would have known will smith could actually teach a good life lesson huh?) I feel that this really came to use, as Radical Journey requires us to share our life and faith stories and adventures in front on the people on our country team. This has always been something that is hard for me to do. Not physically hard, but emotionally. I have no problem talking, which I am sure that most of you know, but, the hard part comes when I try to hide my emotional side that I feel is a weakness! It was good to let these emotions out and letting my group know that I am not the "hardass" that I am sure my personality has led on. Just the other day the group was talking about crying, and the last time they had. Darrell, the director, looked at me and made some comment close to the following. "I bet it takes quite a bit to get you to cry, huh?" If he only knew!

As my story started pouring out of my mouth, my adventures in Miami and memories started coming into my thoughts about my boys down there sand where they are at today, and how they are living in such a place that most cant even imagine. As the words came, so did the tears, and then I looked up in the back of the room and saw some artwork that I had not noticed yet since being here at JPUSA. And as I looked at this artwork, I noticed that the lamps said "Love," "Faith" and "Hope," and then had the trinity symbol cut out of the bottom. Just below them were the two paintings that were bursting with color and seemed to be shouting stories! I dont know exactly what it was, if anything, that God was trying to say, but it gave me such a peace for the coming year as I just sat and stared at these paintings while my eyes dried up and continued on with sharing my journey!

day eight

The first day of sleeping in and really relaxing. After becoming full conscious about noon and hitting up some rice and beans for lunch, a group was walking down the street a few blocks to the beach. Who woulda ever known that there was a beach in Chicago? I have known it was on a HUGE lake since the first time I saw it on a map, HOWEVER, I just never really thought about a city in the middle of the country, no where near an ocean, having a beach.

Each group was supposed to go to a designated church that spoke the language that would be spoke in their future immersion location. China started at 10:30 AM and England started at 4 PM. Bolivia was unaware of what time we went to church so instead of looking, I just decided to go to the beach with England. I was there just enough time to take a picture of the 34532 dogs in attendance and then receive a phone call saying out church started in and hour and took longer than that to get there.

Basically, I ran back to the house, quickly showered and the team bolted as fast as we could to our church and made it only five minutes late. The service is usually only in Spanish, but, due to five caucasian English speakers walking in to a church of 12 people, one of them decided to translate for us. I was glad, because my Spanish is not quite to the point it needs to be for the coming year, but soon it will be there!

day seven

As everyone was getting ready in the morning, were was a silent chill in the air. Settling in is over as this is starting to feel more like a permanent home. We are starting to just go about life only in a new place which is awesome!

Or maybe it was the man none of us knew sitting on our couch awkwardly playing a game on his iPod touch. When a group is comfortable together and you throw in a new variable such as this, it always takes away the original comfort. This particular man was the man who was going to blindfold us all, lock us in his van, and drive us to a part of the city that we had no idea where it was. And the sick part of this, is that we knew he was there to do this and we ALL were going to go along with this. He was the husband of one of the directors and it was his role to test our ability to get around this city using public transportation. As country teams, we were going to be dropped off after being drove around the city while wearing a t-shirt around our head covering our eyes. After being in the car for an hour, feeling like I would puke at any moment from not being able to see, the said we were at our "location" and we were free to get out and get home. And he left. As our blindfolds came off Jacob took 5 seconds and said, "Awesome, I know right where we are. We are REAL far away, but this is easy, lets go!"

They can try and trick team Bolivia, but must realize, you have to try and drop us somewhere other than 3o feet from a bus stop WITH a map on the sign...

day six

Mennonite Mission Network was very well represented today in our house, as 3 people (other than our leaders) came to finally meet the people that they have been emailing with. We had continuous meetings today from 10 AM until about 3 PM about how to openly communicate with each other as a complete group. While quite boring, it was good to have an open time with everyone on a neutral level about group living.

In the afternoon, they gave us advice on how to write a blog that keeps people interested. I think I might start that tomorrow, as I would rather just write tonight what I had planned. When free time finally started, after supper, as a group we decided to go downtown and see Paramount Pictures filming their new hit, Transformers 3. We saw a few famous people, as well as a few awesome cars! I have never seen any of these movies, so it was like seeing a random person in a sweet car in Chicago. No big deal.

We also took time to go back to a favorite spot of the group, the bean, and take a few night photos of what people experience with this awesome place down town. This particular picture was taken by JD Nafziger, one of the group members going to Bolivia with me.

day five

Finding ourselves lost in a place more like the one that we are about to be immersed in, each group was to experience a day exploring a similar neighborhood. Going to Bolivia, we were given directions to a neighborhood known as "Little Village," a local Mexican neighborhood. This particular area reminded me a lot of m days in Miami living on Calle Ocho in Little Havanah. Everything here was in Spanish, giving us our first day of being culturally "lost." While we walked through the streets, I took the opportunity to look at the signs and start learning a bit of Spanish, trying to translate them into English, or just figure out what they were trying to say. It was a bit tricky at first, but with the group, we never found a sign we couldn't read.

We ate lunch at a local Mexican restaurant, decked out in all sorts of Mexican decorations, especially the colors of the flag: red, white and green. We sat outside the restaurant for just a bit to decide if we were going to talk in Spanish or English, but as we walked in, everyone greeted us in English not giving us a chance to practice up. I stuffed myself with chips, salsa and tamales then headed out for a little more exploring, then home for a much needed siesta!

day four

Today was another day of scavenger hunts, however, we brought along another member with our group, The Bible. Our goal was to read Psalm 30 in three different spots in the city: an El station, a local public park, and a federal building (ours was a huge on downtown). This exercise put us in a different setting for publicly being "Christian" than we have ever really experienced. Afterwards, we had a day of free time in which most of the group decided to catch the El back downtown to a local tourist-trap known as "Navy Pier." Here there are many rides, restaurants and stores for people to venture to. Tonight they also had fireworks to celebrate us being in town! :) This is a picture of the enormous Ferris Wheel they have that takes you above everything with a great view of the skyline of downtown Chicago. A view I was not about to pay $9 to see!

day three

Getting out, getting lost and finding out way is almost a theme for the following year for each group participating. Finding our own way once or twice is inevitable. To help us out with is, the directors have put together a list of destinations throughout the city that we were supposed to find. Having Jacob, the Chicago native, in our group, it really helps us out for this month and getting around as we do everything in our country groups. Keeping this in mind, we usually finish our "scavenger hunts" of the city quite quickly and allow ourselves free time to explore the city. Being downtown, we figured we may as well explore the sights that everyone tags with Chicago. This is actually one of my favorite spots in Chicago. While lots of friends would suggest Wrigley Field (cubs), U.S. Cellular field (white sox), United Center (bulls and blackhawks) or maybe the Sears Tower (which now has some other unknown name), I would suggest this area to anyone as it is in the middle of the art district. Chicago Art Institute is right next door, and the Contemporary Art Museum is just up the road. This particular sculpture is known around the world as "the bean" (Cloud Gate) and is in Millineum Park. Millions of people have taken their picture in the reflection, which is naturally distorted due to the bend of the sculpture. So, like every other tourist, we did the same!

day two

Today was a day of just getting to know the community we are living in. While it is considered "Chicago" to the world, we are in a part called Uptown. I wish I could give the demographics of everything around here, but to be 100% honest, I didn't pay that much attention as I would rather focus my time on learning about Bolivia. The following picture is of our flat behind JPUSA. The bottom level is ours. The second and third floor is for the single men that are a part of the community here in Chicago. As we have rode the El (elevated train) around Chicago, I have noticed that this is the particular style of building for apartments that are around the area. However, they are much closer together than shown in this particular picture.

day one

We are all shacked up together at Jesus People USA, and intentional community North of downtown Chicago. There are about 400 people living here who all live, eat and work together day to day. They have been based out of Chicago, and successfully (yet, not always easily) living together for around 30 years here.

Radical Journey and its 12 participants are all living together in a flat behind the "hotel" that houses JPUSA. This is a part of the group all sitting in our living room getting accustomed with each other and living in our own community.

the journey begins

As my cousins dropped me off outside a large, shady looking building just North of downtown Chicago, I see a fellow Bolivia member that I "met" on facebook and know I am at the right place. Not quite the "hotel" I was thinking, and no sign indicating that I was at Jesus People USA, however, this is a year of unknown experiences, so why not go with it?

The journey in Chicago is off at full speed, jammed packed with so much learning and expectations that I now see why I have to be here a full month compared to just a week before I head to Bolivia. (not) I feel this is the most unnecessary month of my life so far, as we have had nothing but a few activities, and HOURS of free time each day to get to know the city of Chicago (which I will be leaving in less than a month, so why not use this month getting to know Santa Cruz that much better?) However, maybe it is more vital to those who have not been away from home as much as I have, and need a boost start in a city more comfortable compared to just kicking them out from under moms wing to the streets of Santa Cruz.

Speaking of this, my group consists of four 18 year olds, straight off the graduation stage of High School, and me. I was worried about that when I came, not knowing what to expect on maturity levels, however, I have been more than impressed with these four that I will be traveling with for a year.

Jacob Putnam is a Laotian guy who has spent his entire life just 10 minutes North of here. Great guy who is almost as funny as me. He will get there after I influence him for the next year.

JD Nafsiger just graduated from Bethany High School and is a younger brother of a friend from college. It will be fun to get to know him better as he is very outgoing.

Karsten Hess graduated with JD from Bethany. He is a more quiet individual but we are already getting comfortable together and I am persuading him to the dark side already. This guy is going to be awesome to have with me.

Gloria Showalter is straight from Pennsylvania, which I am trying not to hold against her! At first I expected her to be shy, but she is proving to be able to hang out with four guys and do it just fine.

Altogether, we are by far the best group in Radical Journey, as team China and team England cant quite seem to keep up with us. If this were a reality TV show, we would simply be "voting them off the island" one by one by one! No competition.

Hopefully this will introduce you a bit to my life for the next year. I will continue to update the blog, but I am going to try to do more of a photo based blog, actually SHOWING people life, compared to writing it. After all, I do have a degree in art compared to writing. This doesn't mean I won't try to show off my writing skills every once and a while.

So for the next year, sit back, relax, and come along with me to Bolivia!!!