Hello, readers!
I am taking a group of students to Chicago over Spring Break! The group will probably be 10 to 15 students plus myself. I am very excited and also feeling very inadequate for such an endeavor. I have not been to Chicago before. I have not planned a trip before. I have not led a trip before. Nevertheless, the door opened for us to go, and I thought this would be a great thing for Clemson’s RUF. I don’t think Clemson has taken a missions trip in recent years, and the vision and energy and group bonding that comes from trips like these is an important component of what RUF is about. We believe in missions and evangelism, a Biblical world and life view, growth and grace, and fellowship and service. I cannot think of a better way to revitalize and replentish all of these ideas in our RUF.
We will be working with Sunshine Gospel Ministries (sunshinegospel.org), an inner city missions group. I do not know much about them except that they seem very organized, helpful, and passionate about their work. Sounds good to me.
The plan is to leave Clemson early (as in 6 am) on Saturday, the 17th of March, and drive the 12-14 hour stretch all in one day. Ambitious? Very. Impossible? Maybe. Presumptuous? Yes.
We will hopefully recover that night and spend the majority of the next day touring the city and eating loads of pizza.
Sunday at 5 pm we will being to work with Sunshine. Every person on the trip selects a project from a list to work on for the week. Projects vary from painting in schools, to working with elderly people, to community gardens, to construction projects.
Every day we will go out and work and then come back to headquarters for a Bible lesson taught by an elder from a local PCA church. He (Joel) will discuss what they Bible says about issues like race, poverty, homelessness, the city, and the hungry. He will use Scripture to address these areas, and talk about what being “called to the city” really means. It will be excellent; I can tell.
At night we will ride public transit into the city to visit other missions organizations, getting a glimpse of how God is a work already in Chicago. We will also take food to the homeless and actually sit besides them and eat together. I cannot wait to hear what they have to say.
We will leave early Saturday, the 24th of March, to return to Clemson.
I will certainly have much to post about after the trip. Stay tuned.
Please pray for the trip. My main concerns presently are 1. that my students can get the money (about $500) to go and that they would commit and 2. safety driving up there and back.
I have goofed on the cost, underestimating what I thought it would be. Please pray that my students would not be frustrated, that they will still be excited to go even with the cost change, and that they would commit to coming!
Please pray that we would not break down, get hurt, or be late getting to Chicago. I hope this is the most uneventful and boring ride of my life.
Please pray that the students who go would catch a glimpse of the bigger picture of God’s kingdom. I want them to be changed by this trip. I want them to care about other people. I want them to care about the poor and the hungry. I want them to bring this back to Clemson, and remember it- not in a cheesy, mountain-top kind of way- but in a quiet and faithful way. Please pray for all of this.
P.S. We are going on our Winter Conference this weekend! We will be at Ridge Haven retreat center in North Carolina from Friday to Sunday. I will post on this next week! Pray that people would feel welcome and included, that friendships would be formed, and the Gospel would be understood. Thanks!
April Goes to Clemson 