up and at'em....

well dear blog readers,

first of all good morning. i hope you slept well. i hope you slept on something a bit softer than a moody dorm mattress. and by the way, did you all have pillows? don't ask us about pillows. don't ask why. some things are better left as a little mystery.

you may be wondering "mission trip"????? why aren't doing MISSION work yet???? i sent my kid away for the week... well, because i wanted him away for the week... AND i wanted him to do some mission work so that when i asked him to clean his room it didn't seem like too hard of a task for him to accomplish. and except for rescuing tina off of the wayward elevator on the boys floor, we haven't done much mission work. but today we start to hit it hard (and we hope it doesn't hit back because frankly i fight like a girl....)

we are off to aurora (right outside of chicago) to the aurora rehabilitation center to lead a worship service and then interact with the residents for a while. then onto the association for individual development aid (also in aurora). where we will hopefully receive some individual development aid for some of us... and lead worship and have some share time with the residents also.

and then IF THAT WASN'T ENOUGH YET, we go to the feed my starving children food bank in chicago and spend a couple of hours loading food bags and doing some other projects for them.

up until now there have been lots of fun times that make it easy to "forget myself" in the fun-ness of the great moments that we have experienced... but today will be our first real challenge to "forget myself" in service.

*to forget how tired we are.

*to forget our awkwardness as we talk to people who have very different life experiences than we do.

*to forget to look and act cool as we get down on our knees to talk to someone who cannot stand.

*to forget that we are hungry ourselves as we pack bags of food for those who REALLY do know hunger and starvation on a DAILY basis.

*to forget that our feet hurt, our throats hurt, our heads hurt as we try to show REALLY hurting people that Jesus is real and that He cares and that we are only here because of the Love that He has given to us that is GREATER than all our sins and GREATER than all of our hurts.

pray for us today as we set out to do PURE worship...

James 1:26-27 (The Message)

Anyone who sets himself up as "religious" by talking a good game is self-deceived. This kind of religion is hot air and only hot air. Real religion, the kind that passes muster before God the Father, is this: Reach out to the homeless and loveless in their plight, and guard against corruption from the godless world.

 today we stop "talking the talk" and start "walking the walk" for forgetting ourselves. we do some REAL religion.... hope we pass muster. i have had my flintstone vitamins (thank you erin) and BRING IT ON CHICAGO (but remember that i fight like a girl)...