Hey everybody this is the team blog for the GSM CHICAGO 12 mission team! We're so excited to be taking off on our trip in just a few short days! We'll be posting daily recaps of our trip as well as photo galleries so you can get a glimpse of all that God is doing through this team! We'd also encourage you to leave comments on the blog posts that we'll share with the team during evening debrief!
Friday, July 6, 2012
CHICAGO 12 Coming Soon...
Hey everybody this is the team blog for the GSM CHICAGO 12 mission team! We're so excited to be taking off on our trip in just a few short days! We'll be posting daily recaps of our trip as well as photo galleries so you can get a glimpse of all that God is doing through this team! We'd also encourage you to leave comments on the blog posts that we'll share with the team during evening debrief!
Saturday, July 16, 2011
SATURDAY RECAP!
Last workday today and the team got after it! We challenged the team to leave it all out there on the work projects so they could leave with no regrets on how hard they had worked and they rose to that challenge!
Today the team helped clean the whole camp and prepare it for the next week of camp! The team helped clean everything top to bottom and the camp staff was amazed at how clean the camp was. (apparently there is a group of students who enjoys cleaning bathrooms-just some helpful info for all you parents, it just may be your kid!) the team also helped finish several mulching projects, varnishing projects, woodworking projects and also helped crank out a large mailing for Riverwoods!
After getting all cleaned up we headed downtown for some Giordanos Pizza! We also went up the Willis (sears) Tower Skydeck and had an opportunity to look out over the city that we've spent the last 5 days serving! From the sky deck we were able to see all the places we had prayed over and fed the homeless. It was a cool experience and the team enjoyed some great food and great time together.
Tomorrow were off to church at Willow Creek which is sure to be an eye-opening experience for many and after some time doing an overall trip debrief well begin the treck back home! Were estimating an arrival of 7 pm, but well update the twitter (@gsmlive) and Facebook (Granger Student Ministries) pages if were early/late!
Today the team helped clean the whole camp and prepare it for the next week of camp! The team helped clean everything top to bottom and the camp staff was amazed at how clean the camp was. (apparently there is a group of students who enjoys cleaning bathrooms-just some helpful info for all you parents, it just may be your kid!) the team also helped finish several mulching projects, varnishing projects, woodworking projects and also helped crank out a large mailing for Riverwoods!
After getting all cleaned up we headed downtown for some Giordanos Pizza! We also went up the Willis (sears) Tower Skydeck and had an opportunity to look out over the city that we've spent the last 5 days serving! From the sky deck we were able to see all the places we had prayed over and fed the homeless. It was a cool experience and the team enjoyed some great food and great time together.
Tomorrow were off to church at Willow Creek which is sure to be an eye-opening experience for many and after some time doing an overall trip debrief well begin the treck back home! Were estimating an arrival of 7 pm, but well update the twitter (@gsmlive) and Facebook (Granger Student Ministries) pages if were early/late!
Friday, July 15, 2011
Photo's from Day 4
Here are some shots from our work site today. There's sooo many pictures of Whirly-Ball that I'll have to look through those another day. Enjoy!
FRIDAY RECAP!
Hey ya'll! Nicole again, today we continued to work at Riverwood, and we received a list of brand new projects. As soon as we got there we were split up into our small groups (hotel rooms) and given our tasks. Some groups continued to do LOTS of weeding in different areas again, which were spotless when they were finished. Others mulched around the campus, and there was also a lot of cleaning up done. The groups that cut the wood yesterday were the ones who spent most of the day sanding it. After that, a few groups varnished the wood, and finally when I asked Brinn what her group did she said "we made the wood shiny," I knew I couldn't put it any better. One group was able to start building a wall to help protect the amphitheater in the future. Finally, my group cleaned all the grassy areas of rocks and sticks and finished by clearing a part of the woods where a team building activity for the kids would be.
About half way through the day I headed back to get the supplies we needed for our new projects and I had the privilege of walking past most groups as they were working. Never (not an exaggeration) did I ever see anyone standing around or even taking much of a break. I have never been more proud of our team than I was when I saw them working today. We knew before we all started we had a ton to do today, and that we also had another list of things to do tomorrow IF we finished our work today. No one on our team thought that 'if' was an option, not finishing never crossed their minds. As we were getting on the bus, Johnny told us how proud he was because everyone absolutely killed it today! I know the Riverwood directors were shocked by how much was accomplished! Now sitting on the bus, as I'm writing this everyone is sharing stories of what their group did today to other groups. I love that even though most people are split up during the day, we always come back together in the end remembering we are one phenomenal team! Seriously these kids and leaders are incredible! Now we are headed back to the hotel to clean up before heading off to the food court for dinner, then... Team fun night!! But it's a surprise, so you will hear all about it tomorrow! :)
About half way through the day I headed back to get the supplies we needed for our new projects and I had the privilege of walking past most groups as they were working. Never (not an exaggeration) did I ever see anyone standing around or even taking much of a break. I have never been more proud of our team than I was when I saw them working today. We knew before we all started we had a ton to do today, and that we also had another list of things to do tomorrow IF we finished our work today. No one on our team thought that 'if' was an option, not finishing never crossed their minds. As we were getting on the bus, Johnny told us how proud he was because everyone absolutely killed it today! I know the Riverwood directors were shocked by how much was accomplished! Now sitting on the bus, as I'm writing this everyone is sharing stories of what their group did today to other groups. I love that even though most people are split up during the day, we always come back together in the end remembering we are one phenomenal team! Seriously these kids and leaders are incredible! Now we are headed back to the hotel to clean up before heading off to the food court for dinner, then... Team fun night!! But it's a surprise, so you will hear all about it tomorrow! :)
Thursday Recap
Hey everyone back home! Nicole here, and today we kind of switched gears and headed into our first work day with tons of excitement. This year we are partnering with an organization called Riverwood, which is a camp for kids and teens who live in government owned and subsidized housing. The awesome thing is everyone is able to go to this camp entirely for free! The camp holds kids all the way from elementary ages to high schoolers. So after hearing a little bit about the camp and their vision from one of their directors, Dennis, we split up and jumped right into working. Different projects were assigned, which ranged from pulling weeds, mulching, planting and re-planting trees, clearing out fields, cleaning trash up along the shoreline of the lake and cutting/sanding wood, (which will be used for future bunks for campers.) I had the task of working with my team to first dig up some trees and pull some weeds, then switched to re-planting the trees we pulled. While doing this my group had some amazing conversations about our day in the city yesterday and talked about some other ways we have been impacted on this trip, of course while still very hard at work.
At debrief we heard some stories about what other groups saw while working today. There were some really awesome ones that I want to share with you all back home. Tuff was in charge of the boys in the wood shop, and they shared about how when they were all doing different things, it looked like chaos but within the chaos there was organization when they thought about the end product. They compared it to our relationship with Jesus, how when everything looks like chaos to us, all Jesus sees is organization. We heard other stories about how without teamwork, the task at hand would not have been able to be accomplished. In all, our amazing students shared some valuable things they learned today, all while sweating plenty from working so hard.
The rest of the night was spent with some team bonding time in the hotel. It's amazing how much fun this team is having while pretty much doing anything! Tomorrow we are back at Riverwood to start a whole new list of work projects! Bring it on! :)
At debrief we heard some stories about what other groups saw while working today. There were some really awesome ones that I want to share with you all back home. Tuff was in charge of the boys in the wood shop, and they shared about how when they were all doing different things, it looked like chaos but within the chaos there was organization when they thought about the end product. They compared it to our relationship with Jesus, how when everything looks like chaos to us, all Jesus sees is organization. We heard other stories about how without teamwork, the task at hand would not have been able to be accomplished. In all, our amazing students shared some valuable things they learned today, all while sweating plenty from working so hard.
The rest of the night was spent with some team bonding time in the hotel. It's amazing how much fun this team is having while pretty much doing anything! Tomorrow we are back at Riverwood to start a whole new list of work projects! Bring it on! :)
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Thursday Debrief Notes
What are things you saw today:
- Teamwork - "if you only had one person doing all the jobs it would have taken forever!"
- "We wouldn't give up and kept going!"
- Little kids were walking by as a group were picking up sticks and one little girl said, "What are they doing?" and another little girl said "I think they're helping nature!"
- Team bonding while digging holes.
- Flexibility
- "We basically mowed the lawn with our fingers" (They were weeding a huge area)
- Helping each other - people helping each other helping carry things that were too heavy for just one person.
- "We saw something messy being made pretty while varnishing wood that will soon be built into beds."
- Our team was told we got done "a full weeks worth of work done in an hour and a half"
- Beauty in the chaos
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