Habakkuk 1:5

Wow. It's only been three weeks in Chicago and so much has happened. To everyone out there, I'm sorry I won't be able to fill you in on everything that has happened. However, I will fill you in on the most important events in the last two trips and what God is doing in my life as an individual.

Trip 1
Church: Faithbridge Methodist from Houston, TX
Location: La Villita Community Church, Little Village, Chicago, IL

This being the first trip of the summer, I thought that I was going to get eased into the summer and into what God is doing in Chicago. Key word there is thought. Our work project for these two weeks was to put up dry wall in a church across the street from La Villita. Dry wall sounds like such an easy project in theory, but when you're working on a building that was built in 1891, and has been remodeled and had amateur hands working on it all throughout the years of the building, it's far from easy. There were a lot of obstacles that had to be overcome in the process of taking down old drywall, cutting the new pieces, and putting those up. The kicker is that the students had to navigate all of those obstacles pretty much by themselves with the supervision of all of the adults on the trip and myself. The students found ways to get through all of the problems that they encountered throughout the whole two weeks and made those two rooms very pretty.

The work project isn't what made this trip so special. On this trip, the students genuinely cared about each other. They wanted to know each other's stories, their struggles, and celebrate with each other! It was fun for me to be a part of such a tight knit community and seeing such a cool environment for Christ to flourish. Being able to step back from the group and look at how people were being transformed was one of my favorite parts of the trip for me. There were a number of people of the team that were rather quiet at the beginning of the trip. I heard stories over and over of these students "not talking at Bible study" or comments something along the lines of "I've never heard you talk before..." So often we get caught up in what's going on and we're so into the moment here and now. We spend so much time looking and gawking at what's going on that we forget about God. We look at the situation that we're going through and we just see it as something that's happening, not "This is God." That's what I had the opportunity to see this trip. I saw the Holy Spirit just doing work in these students. Some people say that it's so hard to see the Holy Spirit working. After this week, I think that it's the most noticeable of the Holy Trinity. He can convict people on what they're doing or how their acting, they can open them up to possibilities in their lives, or even give them strength to do what they never saw possible. All of these things I saw or even experienced myself during this trip. God is moving.

Coming into this summer, I had a few things in mind that God was going to show me: how I can better serve the poverty in Milwaukee this coming year, what I should do with school and how I can use that to better the Kingdom, how more effectively share the Gospel and how it has effected my life, and how to handle a large amount of responsibility. During this trip I had the opportunity to get to know our missionary partners at La Villita: Victor, Greater Zion Missionary Baptist Church (the church we did work in): "the Charles-es", and Young Men Educational Network (YMEN): Marcus. I was informed of the neighborhood and how God is moving within Little Village. I was privileged enough to hear a few testimonies from the people that I was so blessed to meet during these two weeks. What was really cool about all of these stories is that most of them had something in common: trusting God. So far in my walk with Christ, I have struggled quite a bit with that. I'm just starting to learn that God is bigger than me. There's no possible way that I'm going to overcome God's plan for me with my puny self. I'm starting to understand that God wants me with Him and on His side and the only way that I will get away from that plan is... well... I can't get away from His plan. No matter what I do, no matter how hard I try, God is going to pull me in. So why is it so hard for me to trust Him and go with Him willingly?

I would say that I can relate to Saul right now. After he's blinded on the road to Damascus, he spends 3 days in Damascus praying. Just saying to God, "Dude, what're you doing with me?! I've persecuted you so much and turned against you every chance I had! Why me?" This is the mentality that I'm having right now. I don't know what God is doing in my life right now. I don't know what He's preparing me for. I don't know why I'm going through all of this challenge and struggle this summer. But all I need to do is stay faithful through it all, and God will provide and everything will turn out. I mean, just look at Saul. After his conversion, he ended up writing most of the new testament. God will have His way with me. I will be a weapon on the side of God. I just pray that I will take the easy route. Not the route to Damascus.

Quick Recap of Trip 2:

Church: Emmanuel Lutheran, Dayton, OH

Location: Brickyard Bible Church, Chicago, IL

Sadly, I don't have time to go into as much detail as I did on the last trip but I'll try to give you a quick rundown:

This small church on the Northwest side of Chicago has a member that came to the church a couple years ago. The reason that she came to the church was to die. She was pregnant with her 5th kid and she had a fatal case of cancer. She came to the church to get her relationship with God right. The members of the congregation then prayed over her for pretty much a day straight. Then, she went home after that for a couple days. She went into the doctor then to get a check up on the progress of the cancer and a miracle had occurred. The cancer was gone. SAY WHAT??!?! Yeah. God did that. He just said "No, I'm not done with you yet," and snatched that cancer out of her body. She then proceeded to have her 5th child with a husband addicted to drugs. Soon after the baby was born, the father decided to go to rehab and give his life to Christ as well. Insane in the membrane. 

Even though the family is now apart of the church, they still don't have the funds to fix the house that they have had pretty much their entire lives. Words seriously can't describe the massive amounts of work in this house. Literally, everywhere you look there is something that needs to be worked on. They have been praying for the energy, manpower, and resources to make this work happen around their house for years. A couple days before this team from Dayton comes in, Ryan, the trip leader, called the church we were staying at and asked the pastor if they had any families in the congregation that needed any work done around the house. Obviously, he thought of this family first. Prayers were answered. God is awesome. Energy, manpower, and resources were brought to the house on Monday, June 27th, 2011. 

Oh, I forgot to tell you that they were about to go into foreclosure. If they didn't have four main things done in that house, then they wouldn't be able to live there anymore. Those four things included fixing concrete stairs in for the front porch and putting in new wooden ones, tearing out flooring in the bathroom and putting brand new flooring in, putting water seal on the back porch steps, and putting a new ceiling up in the basement of the house. Wow. That's a lot of work to have to have done in any house and for this house, it was just the beginning. The hardworking team from Dayton did work on this house during the 5 days that they worked there. They either finished or nearly finished all of the four projects that they had to to bring them out of foreclosure. Talk about God providing. 

Another thing that was cool about this trip was that this church helped plant a LeaderTreks site in Dayton. This summer LeaderTreks had 3 weeks in the Dayton area. Emmanuel Lutheran saw the need that was in Dayton at the time and they acted on it. The only thing that I've heard about the Dayton site thus far is that it's awesome. God is moving in Dayton so much from what I heard from the team that was here and what I've heard from the group that was in Dayton. The Dayton site has been SO successful that they want to expand the trip next year from 3 weeks to 10 weeks. God is moving. 

Prayers

The first third of trips, I've learned so much about God and who He is. He's been teaching me so much through the students, the community I'm submerged in, and the stories that I've heard. He's been making me think through why I'm here also. I had a conversation about community and what it is with a person recently. That one conversation flipped my perception of serving upside down. We were talking about the concept of intentional community. The idea of living submerged in the areas that need serving. He said that the people in those areas don't want to feel like a charity case (who does?). While trying to piece what I'm going to be doing in Milwaukee this next year together and hearing this life changing stuff, I realized that that's what I'm supposed to do in Milwaukee. Live life with the poverty. Make the homeless feel like they're needed. Help the broken hearted gain hope again. But this isn't just by going to a soup kitchen once a week or once a month, but it's by living with them. What does that look like though? That's the question that I need to look to God for now. 

As the summer goes on, and the trips begin to mesh together a little bit, my energy will begin to diminish. I'm starting to get worn out. Physically and spiritually. I can't do this alone. If I want to make the biggest impact here in Chicago then I'm going to have to be ready to fight in battle. I need help. As this summer goes on, please continue to pray for me that I can have as much energy needed to fulfill God's plan for me this summer. Also, please pray for patience for me this summer. We have four weeks where we are moving around Chicago from church to church. This is extremely tiring. I have less free time than I thought that I would and expending more energy during the weekends than I would like. During these next 3 weeks please be praying for patience because I'm already annoyed with all of this moving around. Doing it 3 more times is going to be even more frustrating. 

Also, if you want to be apart of God moving in Chicago this week, and want to partner with me financially still, there's still time! Up to the end of July you can help support me by sending a check made out to LeaderTreks to:

LeaderTreks

Attn:Donnie Bogle

25W560 Geneva Rd. Suite 30

Carol Stream, IL 60188

Or if you have a PayPal account then you can help that way by clicking the following link:

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_donations&business=WC5DYEAEHS87Y&lc=US&item_name=LeaderTreks&currency_code=USD&bn=PP%2dDonationsBF%3abtn_donateCC_LG%2egif%3aNonHosted