It's been too long since I've written, but I honestly don't feel like much of interest has happened lately. I can't believe its March already! I still feel as if I just stepped off the plane from Chicago, but that was 7 months ago!

We in Roanoke finally got our first good snow... yesterday. It threatened to snow many times throughout the past 3 months, but never did, even when cities as close as 30 minutes away were covered. But yesterday it finally came, and its gorgeous! Great packing snow too! Lots of snowmen around...

Actually, now that I think about it, a lot has happened since my last post! My sister and brother-in-law, who used to live in Ohio, now live with us. I also have my first real, paying job! I work for the Town of Vinton, supervising parties and events, and occasionally working in the office at the War Memorial. Its not very many hours, but its good experience and I work with great people.

Other than that, I'm now halfway through my second semester of Grad School. Only 2 more after this (maybe...). This week is officially Spring Break, but I still have homework. :( But I like it, so its okay. I'm learning a lot about different writing styles and techniques. This week I'm writing a memoir.

Well, I should go... 24 starts in 3 minutes. I try not to wait 7 months before I post again... for my sake and my readers sake... when I wait so long I forget what's happened in my own life - never a good thing!

I've been wanting to blog for quite some time, but either have been too busy or too tired most of the time. I have been in Chicago for a month and can already tell I won't want to leave. The first 10 days of project was orientation, and then we were broken into teams and started working at various ministries throughout Chicago. My ministry team is me, Mike, Akeelah, Stephanie, Meredith, and Katie. So far we have worked at By the Hand Club for Kids and Salvation Army. This week we worked at Pui Tak, a Chinese Christian School in Chinatown and will continue working there next week. The whole project has been amazing so far, but the past few days have been particularly exciting. When we arrived at Pui Tak on Monday, we were all sent to different classrooms to serve as Teacher's Assistants. I am in Music. Although I have a talent for music and love it, I felt that all the skills I learned as an elementary ed major would best be utilized in another class. However, I was able to teach the last few classes on Thursday and most of the day on Friday as well.

On Friday evening all of us on project played games outside the Adler Planetarium. It was a beautiful night and we all had a lot of fun. After a small group of us decided to go get ice cream. We met a man in need of food, so we took him in with us. Once inside, we also met 4 middle school boys. Due to a conflict with the owner, the man we brought in and the boys were all asked to leave the store, which they did. Most of us decided not to buy anything after that, but went outside to talk to the people who had been asked to leave. We ended up going back in to get them ice cream and food. To make a long story short, one of the boys accepted Christ!! We then took them to the grocery store across the street to buy them dinner and helped them pay for their bus fare home. We also invited them to come to The House, a Hip-Hop Worship Service, with us the next night (Saturday). They all said they wanted to come, so we agreed to meet at 5:00 to get them dinner beforehand. When we got to our dorm we were all so excited we did not want to sleep and had an amazing time of worship in our lounge.

Yesterday (Saturday), was a completely free day, which does happen much on project. I slept in for a long time and did not really do much in general. At 4:30 we let to meet the boys and 3 of the 4 showed up. They said the other boy was on his way, but we never found him. We took them to dinner and then made our way across town to The House. They had to leave early, but seemed to enjoy it. While we were waiting for our train, we were able to show Lamont, the boy who accepted Christ, how to use the Bible we gave him. I just hope he will read it and grow in his new faith. This weekend was such an amazing example of how God's plans are often different and better than ours. We thought we were done for the day and went for ice cream just for fun, but God had other plans!


 

- Write the third installment of my fiction story
- Do Chapter 15 Homework
- Do Chapter 16 Homework
- Give a presentation about Appalachian poet Don Johnson
- Sing in a choir concert
- Prepare for a debate about the War on Drugs
- Finish reading a book about Fidel Castro
- Write a 4-5 page paper on the Castro book
- Write a 2 page essay summing up what I've learned in my Linguistics class
- Give comments on 2 fiction pieces written by follow students
- Teach a 10 minute lesson about something grammar related
- Write a 6 page paper on Gap Creek

And that's just this week, and its only school related! Needless to say, I could use some prayer!