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

Wow...it has been a long time since I have written anything here. I guess things have been pretty busy these past few weeks...

Our area visit was 2 weeks ago. Marybeth, the area director for Chicago, Milwaukee and Detroit came to stay with us for 5 days, it was really a good time. During her visit she observes our community, visits each of our placements has one on one time with each of us she also does some recruitment and has meetings during the week. We also have our regular community stuff going on, community night, spirituality night and "fun night" plus our regular day schedules. Needless to say, it was an extremely busy week. My one on one with Marybeth was really good. I told her about how community was going and about some of the struggles I was having personally withthings and we talked about my job and spirituality and what my plans are for next year. It was great converstation and I really learned a lot from it. I learned a lot, mostly about our community, during her stay. She also facilitated out community night which was on one of the last nights she was here. She had a chance to speak with all of us one on one and to observe our community pretty well by this time and she told us some good things and some things we needed to work on. She told us that we all really have the same ideas as to the direction we want our community to go in, we all want depth. We have been surfacing things for a while now and we are all ready to get to know eachother more deeply and to establish deeper spiritual identity as a community and to be in deeper relationship in all aspets really. It was really great to hear some of the things that she had to say. Stacey and I were told that we have to speak up, this is strange ecause hrdly ever am I told that I don't speak up, this is something new I discpovered and am trying to understand.

During the agency visit I had the chance to sit down with Marybeth and my supervisor, Carrie. I was able to tell how I was feeling about things at work and what I wanted differently. I only had one things to say and it was that I wanted more client one on one time Carrie was really responsive to my request and so was the rest of the staff so now I will be assisiting our director of client services, Jason, with the clients. There is a doctor that comes to the pantry every Monday and sees the clients free of charge and writes referrals and gives prescriptions free of charge, it is a great program, well i get to meet with the clients first and fill out all of the paperwork that is requiered before they see the doctor and eventuall I will be able to meet with clients and writr referals and meet with them one on one. It is going to be great! The home delivery program is still going really well. These past weeks have been busy beacuse I have two delivery weeks in a row because of Thanksgiving but the volunteers have been great and for the most part things have been very smooth. This weekend is home delivery and then I don't have it again utnil December so that will be interesting, it seems like a long time to me. The holiday drives have started. I believe that after I had talked to about 2o people about holding them there are about 11 new ones which is pretty good! That was a huge accomplishment so that was exciting! It will be hectic when I have to go and pick up from all these places but it is great!

2 weekend ago we went Milwaukee to visit the JV's there. It was a blast. We hung out and ate ALOT of food but it was just what we needed. We all piled on their couches and watched love actually, great movie by the way, and talked and were just there being present to each other which was fabulous. WE had one of my fav meals when we got there, tomato soup and grilled cheese, it was amazing. We had great food and company, I could go on and on but it was just awesome! I miss those guys already. This past weekend it was Stacey's b-day so on Fri night we had her fav, peperoni pizza w. xtra cheese, mountain dew and cookie dough and we watch I am Sam, her fav movie. Shannon, and JV from Pontiac, Michigan came down with her friend Mike, who is interested in JVC so on Sat we went to the Art institute. They came into the pantry and helped out a bit with home delivery which was nice and then they went down town and i met them there and then we went to the art institute. We had a picnic in the 40 degree weather, it was cold but fun! The art institute was pretty cool. I am not a big museum person but it was cool. We walked through the impressionist exhibit and they had this minature art section, that part was my favorite. It was a good time. These week have been so so busy though. I have not had time for me, no time to reflect or spend time to myself so this weekend i have scheduled that time. I am going to go to coffee shop and borders or barnes and noble and just sit and read and think and pray and write letters/cards. it is going to be fabulous!

I have a Spiritual Director now and I met with him this morning. It was a bit akward, I think because it was our first meeting but he is a sweet man and I look forward to meeting with him once a month. I am not entirely sure what I would like to get out of Spiritual Direction but when I know I'll let you know!

i hope all is well with everyone out there! I have recieved some really nice gifts from people lately. My aunt sent me a scarf, hat, mitten, ear warmer set, so cute :) My sister sent me a care package which was full of fun stuff and I have received a few cards :) I love it!! Thank you to everyone for the support I truly appreciate it and thank you for thinking of me. I think about all of you very often. I am excited about Thanksgiving, although I will not be home, I will spend it in Detroit with the JV's thereand I will get to see Gaile. I am so excited about that! Gaile is one of my Campus Ministry coordinators from MSMC so that will be fabulous. Whatever you plans are I pray that you are safe and have a great Thanksgiving with the ones you love. Thank you for all your prayers and happy thoughts. Much love, blessings, hugs and kisses
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo
Shelley