Thursday, November 30, 2006

Happy Thursday :) A lot has happened since the last time I posted on here.

Lets start with work. Thanksgiving time was insane, but in a very good insane kinda way :) There were all sorts of food drives going on, 2 home delivery weeks in a row and the pantry was open extra days and both pantry's hit record highs. At the east site, which is tha main site we served 440 clients in 3 days and the estimated total of clients served in November alone is 1600, that is amazing. That makes the totaly for the year, by Dec 31 around 20 thousand clients served. It is great that we are serving this many people and providing food for so many but so sad that some many people need food security and the numbers are rising. At the west site, my primary site we were open on the sat and tues before thanksgiving and on sat we served 98 clients and on tues served 99 clients. These are records for this site, on a regular day we serve between 20-40 clients. On tuesday of last week were were at the pantry until 9:15pm, we are usually open from 6:30-8 but ran over due to the amount of people. It was a long day but it was satisfying. On Monday of last week I was able to go a press conference that was happening at a local sou kitchen on the Northside. The Chicago food depository has a produce mobile that goes around to soup kitchens and pantries that request it and the people in the neighbor hood come and take whatever produce they can get. The northside anti hunger network, which lakeview apntry is a part of, hosted theis produce mobile as a press event. The alderman from the neighborhood came out to show support and there was a camera there from channel 7 news and newspaper reports too. The amounts of people who were there receiving food was phenominal. This press conference was amazing. The soup kitchen is part of Good News Community Church and the conference was in a side Chapel. The Pastor of the church led the conference and the vibe she had about alleviating hunger and the vibe in the audience and all those participating was iverwhelming. It was so moving to me to hear these people speak so passionatly about the issue of hunger on a local level. I don't really know how to explain how it felt but it was powerful. The Holy Spirit was alive and moving in that room and anyone who walked in could feel it. That same week, starting right after the press conference I picked up a total of about 12 food drives throughout chicago. It was a great few days, people were in the spirit of giving and were so generous and thoughtful. On wednesday alone I picked up 6 drives, I hauled more that 1000 pounds of food easily mon-wed of last week, needless to say, my body was relieved when Thanksgiving came :)

Thanksgiving was awesome. We have a volunteer house in Detroit and they so kindly hosted Thanksgiving for those of us who did not go home. There were 14 of us there for the weekend. One person from Cleveland, 2 from St. Louis (which is a 10 hr drive), 3 of us from Chicago, 2 from Pontiac and most from the Detroit house were there too. I always have a great time when I am around the JV's. sometimes things can be a bit difficult and I found myself thinking a few times what exactly I was doing there this weekend, wondering where exactly i fit in there. Times like that are tough but then i remember that i am to challenge myself and to trust that this is where I am meant to be. The highlight of that weekend was seeing Gaile Krause, it was amazing. Gaile and chris were so good to me, we had a great time. We went to the automobile hall of fame and to greenfield village, where Henry Ford's stuff is, it was very cool and certainly nothing I would have done any other time so I am thankful for the time I had to spend with them. Gaile brough me a cre package from Mar and that made my weekend even more amazing. Mar wrote a letter that brough tears to my eyes, I miss being there. At the JV house I had som amazing converstaions with people from different communities and that is always great. There were games of wine pong and beer pong and thunderstruck happening but it was a great atmosphere only in JVC will there be drunken(not me) deep philosophical conversations, it was great :)

Community life has been amazing lately. We are a huge support system for eachother and everyone has been there for me lately and I am so so grateful and thankfuland so blesssed that Stacey, Dave and Kev are my roommates, Thank you guys :)

This week has flown by and there are only 3 more weeks until I get to go home...i am so so excited. I will not be able to make a trip up to LA b/c I am only going to be home for a short amount of time but come and visit me and my family in San Diego :) I miss you all and wish you the best this Holiday season.

love, hug, kissed and many many blessings to you XOXOXOXO

Shelley

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hey Shelley, we loved seeing you in Michigan! It was a highlight of our week, too!
Love, Gaile and Chris

1:10 AM  

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