Happy Thursday :)

I hope all is well with everyone! I am doing fabulously well here. The weather is a bit dreary today, its been drizzling all day and is about 48 degrees, not too bad though. I think I might be getting used to the cold, not completely but to the point where I have stopped shivering every second of every day. So thats good! Quite a few things have happened since that random snow day...

Lets go back to October 12, 2006. The Thursday night that all the JV houses came over. It actually went surprisingly really really well! There were abuot 28 people staying in our 3 bedroom apartment! It was rather cosy, people were sleeping on the floor, on the couches in the dining room, it was great! Community bonding for sure. After that crazy night we headed out to Dubuque, Iowa for our fall retreat. We were the last car to leave from our house and somehow ended up getting lost and being about 3 hours later than we had anticipated but the journey was fun. Stacey and I were crammed in the back of Kevin's Mustang, not a lot of leg room at all. We were practicing our yoga moves all the way there! I learned how to crochet in the car, Stacey taught me so now I have a new hoby which is great and I love it. Christmas gifts are going to be so much easier this year, and way less costly! I did learn more that that on this retreat though.

This was the social justice retreat and father Jim Collins of Chicago came to give the talks about social justice. He introduced me to a new term, FaithJustice. The terms themselves are not new but to put them into one word was something I had not heard before. FaithJustice is a difficult concept to grasp, it dosen't seem like it would be but it is. It was very interesting to learn about though a lot of things that I learned in Sr. Darlene's class at the Mount were replicated in his talk, a lot about Catholic Social Teaching and the 3 prong approach to CST, which are scripture, tradition and lived experience were talked about a lot and we talked a little bit about scripture and tradition but mostly lived experience and out placements and where they fit on the faithjustice scale, if you will. It was fascinating stuff. I not only learned about faithjustice but i learned more about myself. I realized that I needed to let go of any and all expectations that I have/had about community. our community was struggling a bit before retreat but after we had time to talk to other people and had time to think about things we came back as a community and things have been amazing so far. Thisngs just clicked into place. When you leave somewhere and come back to it, it feel more like you are settled in and that is what happened here for sure. It was a great feeling. I still cannot call Chicago home but it feels right to be here.

A lot has also happened at work. I have officially taken over the home delivery program and this saturday will be the first HD by myself. Everything has gone pretty smoothly so far, we'll see on Sat morning though :) I am contacting the people for the holiday food drives and getting those going and organizing the HD program a bit more. I am really enjoying my work still and embrace everything I come accross with an open mind and open heart.

I have been feeling less and less homesick, this is good, I was really down for a while but that seems to have passed by the grace of God.

This past weekend I got to spend some time with Marianne Cabrera, she is one of my Pi Theta Mu sisters who is attending grad school at Loyola of Chicago and that was amazing. We went to downtown chicago and hung out for the day, there was an amazing amount of people there becuase of the Chicago marathon, it was such a great time! I am so grateful that she is here, I love the way God takes care of us! I am officially coming home for Christmas from Dec 23-30, only a week but I am so so excited! come and visit me in SD!! Next week is our area visit so Marybeth, our area diractoe will be staying at our apartment for 5 days and visiting each of our placements and meeting with our supervisors and each of us one on one, it shoudl be a great time, I'm really looking forward to it. This is getting really long and I had better get back to work for a bit. I miss you all greatly and think about you often. Much love and many blessings,
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo
Shelley

It is currently SNOWING, yes friends, snowing. It is currently about 33 degrees and FREEZING right now :) It's sureal, snow in October, who would have ever thought that I would be seeing snow in October? CRAZY :)

I can't believe that I haven't told you about this yet BUT 6 of the Lost Boys of Sudan live upstairs on the 2nd floor of our apartment building...they are amazing and some of the most genuine, polite and nice people you will ever meet. Last week they invited us to a forum on Darfur and Refugees from Burma to Africa. Stacey and I went and it was amazing. We heard a group of 6 students talk about their experience walking from LA to DC in order to raise awareness about genocide. We heard a Senator speak about the patriot act and the bill that she passed and we heard testimony from a HS student from Sudan who brought her story home to us, she explained how the world we live in is nothing close to the real world she came from and a man from Burma spoke about his experience and still, 15 years later was extremely emotional about it. It was an amazing experience that I wish I could have shared with all of you.

At the end of the forum we were able to view a photo exhibit from Sudan. I have seen Brian Steedle speak and show his photographs from the ground in Sudan but these pictures were different. They spoke to me differently, one picture still lurkes in the back of my mind of a little boy maybe 1-2 years old with a look on his face that little children should never have. I saw terror, fear and horror in this little boys face as he lay sucking his thumb. I saw pictures of some of the most beautiful children laughing and dancing and the same pictures of them starving and dying.

Learn about the Lost boys and about refugees all thoroughout the World, the stories and testimonies and injustices and hate you will learn about will move you and transorm you, I promise you. Dare yourself, challenge yourself, to do something for those who have no voice. I DARE you.

Hi Friends :)

WOW, what a gorgeous weekend it was here! The sun was shinning and everything. I even spent some time at the beach on Saturday which was awesome. It was a bit windy but I didn't care becuase I got to go to the beach :)

The past 2 weeks have been pretty interesting. Work is still pretty much the same. I am driving the van now, which is fun but a bit scary becuase people drive just about as crazy as LA and in an unfamiliar city it makes things a bit more nervewrecking. I am still loving it here at the pantry. This week is a home delievery week so I will be busy with that for most of the week which is good.

This weekend is our fall retreat in Dubuque, Iowa. The communities from Pontiac and Detroit and some of Milwaukee and maybe Cleveland are coming on Thursday night to stay and then we are all going to caravan to the retreat. It cuts most of their drives in half so we decided to host all of these amazing people. It should be very, very interesting. I am excited to see everyone though. We have seen the Milwaukee community only once since orientation and have been in touch with the Pontiac community but that is about it so it will be great to see everyone. I am really excited for the retreat too. It is the Social Jusitce retreat led by Jesuit Jim! He is a great guy and I am really looking forward to learning from him. Please keep us all in your prayers as we share this time together!

This weekend Stacey and I went to a Loyola of Chicago Vollyball game. Stac played volleyball all through HS and College and she was so excited to go and see a game. We had a lot of fun! Loyola is only about 5 blocks East of our apartment so Shane, our Jesuit support person, was able to get us passes to the rec center at Loyola so now I will have some where to work out! I am so excited! On Sunday Stacey and I woke up early and went to Mass at St. Gertrude's which was nice but a tad bit too early, we went to 8:00 Mass. Stacey isn't Catholic, she grew up Lutheran and went to a non-denominational college and she found a community church which is only a few blocks away called the Devon Church. I went with her 2 weeks ago and loved it. It was the equaivalent of a praise and worship to me and that was great so I went with her again this Sunday and met more of the congregation and praised and worshiped, it was great! I have decided that I want to get involved at St. Gerturude's with their youth program so after we get back from retreat I'm going to see what I can do to get that set up. I feel that after the retreat it will be really official that Chicago is my new home. I don't know why it feels like that, but it does! I am going to start volunteering at a local soup kitchen too, its going to be great!

I have been reading a lot lately due to all of my down time and have discovered 2 amazing books that I have recently finished that I would like to share with you. One is called, Left to Tell. It is about Imaculee's time experiencing the genocide in Rwanda. It is a very moving book, the faith she has in God is incredible and powerful, it will inspire you, I guarantee it. Another one I finished this weekend is called, Under the Overpass, Stacey recommended it to me and I am so glad she did. It is about Mike and Sam from California who decide that they want to experince what it is like to be homeless. This is another powerful faith journey that these two young men take together, it too will insipre you. If you have any spare time (HAHA, i know!) I really recommend them to you, you will be changed and your heart and mind will be opened.

I am so grateful that I get to share my experience with you, if there is anything in particular you would like to hear about or know about please let me know, you can email me at shelley0817@gmail.com and let me know!

I was blessed with some amazing conversations this weekend with Melissa, a good high school friend, Mar-my peanut butter and Joe, my rock...thank you for being amazing people and being there for me and praying for me. I love you all!

I miss everyone so much and would love to hear from you :) Keep us in your prayers as the days get colder and on our retreat this weekend,

With Love and Blessings always,
Shelley
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

*From September 27, 2006*

Oh, how I miss you all so much! I hope everyone is happy and healthy! It has been a busy 2 weeks or so here in Chi-Town.

Well, lets start with work. It is still going well! As I am learning and having trouble accepting, down time is a good thing! This past Saturday was the first Home Delivery Saturday that I had a pretty big hand in running. All went smoothly except we had a few people call and thought they ordered food but didn't and then we had some wrong addresses but all went well besides that so I was happy! I have also been doing more intake at the desk during distribution times at both of the pantry's and this is one of my favorite times of the day. I love to see, meet and talk to theclients one on one, I thrive on the times I get to interact with the clients. I went to an agency conference at the Greater Chicago Food Depository, which is a massive place, and Lakeview Pantry won an award for Quality Performance, it was exciting. I also attended workshops for volunteer management and getting your name out there so people know who you are. It was pretty cool. I am currently working on food and fund raising for the upcoming Holidays. I have to research 10 new places to ask to hold drives which really means 20 or 30 because if I pick10 and ask only 10, about 2 or 3 will actually do it! It has been a bit of a project becuase I don't really know places that are around yet but it is a learning experience. Still loving it though!

As for the community, it has got to be the most difficult of the 4 values of JVC. Actually the 2nd most, Spirituality is extremely challenging but community is a very close second. we had our JVC: Chicago potluck on Sunday. We had to invite about 200 people but only about 50 showed up. We decided to send the invites in postcard form and Stacey and I, of course, ended up being the ones to cut them and take them to a postoffice and get them sent. So, just and fyi, in Chicago they apparently do not have self-adhesive postcard stamps so we licked 166 stamps...needless to say, the boys heard about it for days and will never hear the end of it! But the potluck went really well. It was nice to meet new people, the JVC world is so small. I met someone who did a year in LA and worked on Skid Row so we chatted for a bit and I met someone else from Cali I met so many amazing people, it was just great and not to mention our fridge is no longer bare! We have So many left-overs which is absolutley fabulous, even better, we don't have to cook this week!! The weather is slowly getting chilly here, fall is beautiful though. The trees are slowly changing and the sun is out all the time although it is windy the air is so crisp and clean, i'm loving it! I hear about the weather there though and am jealous! We have Spirituality night tonight, I always look forward to it but have yet to be fulfilled by our Spirituality nights. you are all in my thoughts and prayers daily. I wish you the best for the rest of this week and weekend. Many blessings and much love, send your warm thoughts this way :) XOXOXO