just catching you up quickly...

i have a VERY brief window of blogging time due to coming back late because of traffic and we are heading out to navy pier very soon to have dinner (i am hoping for bubba gump shrimp) and watch fireworks.

and let me just say that today was AWESOME! Praise God for His faithfulness and His sense of humor because...

...the second concert was held outside (due to nowhere large enough inside to hold all of us AND all of the people that wanted to hear us sing) SO pam had a BRILLIANT idea for the residents to stay inside and open their windows to hear the youth sing. it was pretty funny to be singing to a wall and some open windows. but it was BEAUTIFUL outside and the kids sang so loudly that all could hear just fine with that set up. 

the "feed my starving children" ministry was so meaningful for all of us. and it all started with us ALL having to put on hairnets... oh yes i have photos... lots of photos.

we learned that every 4 seconds someone dies of starvation. and we saw photos of kids who were starving and then photos of how they looked just WEEKS after starting to receive a steady diet of food prepared by "feed my starving children". what a difference! and we were so blessed to be able to make a small difference today. our group bagged enough food to feed 48 children for a YEAR! and we did it while singing and dancing to "i will survive" and "fill me up buttercup" and other oldie hits. very fun. very poignant. very special. 

i don't think i can upload the 400 photos that i took today before we have to leave, so look for some photos to come your way later this evening... any by later i mean in the wee hours of tomorrow morning most likely. 

quote of the day... said by a middle school girl to another middle school girl (who had a beautiful french braid in her hair)... "STOP TOUCHING ME OR I WILL TAKE YOUR BRAID OUT". wow.

happy sixteenth birthday to this boy!

samuel (or as the waitress last night called him "sammy") spends his birthday on choir tour EVERY year! what a guy. he thinks it is all one big birthday party for him (and we don't tell him any different because we don't EVER want him to not be here with us)...

we LOVE you SAMMY. i especially loved the rendition you did last night mocking me for spilling my little sundaes. you are a funny guy. and you are now also on my REVENGE IS MINE SAITH THE LORD AND LEA MARSHALL LOVES TO HELP THE LORD list.

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)...

the WINDY city (key word: WINDY)

here are LOTS of photos (i try to give the readers what they really want!) and if you keep up the good comments we will be posting LOTS more photos... we will do ALMOST anything for comments.... we might even get up early again.... might....

hey, did you know that today is grady and june's anniversary (featured in photo above as the unibomber couple)? they argued all day whether it was 8 or 9 years... and tonight they celebrated (either 8 or 9 years of wedded bliss) with a cruise along the chicago river with 60 of their favorite church friends and then a lovely little dinner at a diner... oh, and separate rooms too. no rooms for couples at moody Bible institute. how romantic... that grady really knows how to treat a gal...

did i mention in my previous post that it was chilly and windy? let me clarify that for you.... IT IS FREEZING and there is a NOR'EASTERLY WIND that is going to pick up and carry away some of our skinny middle schoolers.... andrew stahl it was so nice knowing you....

but we huddled together on the cruise and it was O'mazing.... this is a beautiful city and the kids were very impressed with all of the architecture. no one even mentioned that it reminded them of tallahassee..

then onto dinner at ed debevics. it is an old fashioned diner where the waiters insult all of the customers. my children said it was just like dinner at my house. john isaacs had the HUGEST hotdog that i had ever seen. and i had the "world's smallest sundae" for dessert. thank you matt nichols for taking that photo of me so i can be in ONE picture from this whole trip...

though NO ONE was surprised when our waiter referred to becky liner as "ms. high maintenance". guess her reputation precedes her even this far north.....

we had a little song for samuel mason's 16th birthday, which is TOMORROW! whoo hoo. hope he is ready to drive.... the bus home.

we are back at moody for showers and a prayer time (those are occurring at a separate location and time period) and then BEDTIME. 

true funny moments (as opposed to the made up funny moments of which there are none because with this group WHO NEEDS TO MAKE UP STUFF??????)....

*last night in the hotel, one of the girls' rooms opened their $4.00 water bottle offered in the room and when they realized that it cost money they REFILLED the bottle thinking that would save them the cost.... we told them that wouldn't help and we paid the fee for them (we are all about grace here people and the little teachable moments).

*and another girl (someone NEAR and DEAR to this blogger's heart) looked in the mirror yesterday and saw herself wearing her "forget myself" shirt and exclaimed, "oh my! the writing on my shirt is backwards!!!!!!!!!!!!" she gets that from her father....

oh and since SO many of you asked about col. sanders featured in the photos from earlier today... i will never tell.... until i get 20 comments on ONE post... then i will sing like a canary...

good night, God bless and may He sing all of our little angels to sleep tonight... like RIGHT NOW...

we have arrived!

in the BIG and WINDY city of chicago...

and it is big and it is windy and a little bit chilly. that cruise on the river tonight should be snugglishious....

travel day was good. we played lots of games and i think i have lost my voice leading those games on the bus. good thing my typing fingers were not injured at all! 

moody Bible institute is very dorm like and seems very safe and well protected. tina mason already set off the alarm on the elevator by trying to go to the boys' floor... BIG NO NO at moody.

we had a HUGE breakfast at the hotel in bowling green (that seems like WEEKS ago and it was just this morning) and we stopped once for lunch. we arrived a little bit early so we had a few minutes of free time to blog and post a few photos from the day....

by the way, you canNOT imagine how THRILLED erin (my blogging computer source) and i were to see EIGHT comments on our last post. it made waking up at 4:45 a.m. worth it....

almost...

not quite...

but it might make us try to blog later tonight with cruise photos since we have FANS!!!!!! we are all about the applause... oh, and the service to our Lord and King.

yup, all about that...

we are off to "forget ourselves" and yet remember to carry our room keys....

should we start a poll of how many of the 6th grade boys will forget their room keys EVERY time they leave their room?????????????

and we are up and ready for day 2

it is 5:42 bowling green time. which is early no matter what time it is. 

erin just said to me, "have you looked outside? it looks like kentucky."

and i looked and it DID look like kentucky. as if i knew what kentucky was supposed to look like... at 5:42 a.m.

we are going to have breakfast, load the bus, and get on the road again.

today we travel to chicago. we get a tour of moody Bible institute where we are staying (learn all the moody rules by heart) and then we are schedule to go an a architectural cruise on the chicago river however that will depend on the weather. 

i think there will be a lot of sleeping on the bus today. that is my plan. i know the Lord has plans for me... and i hope His plans include me sleeping... because that would be a plan for good and not for evil. that would be a plan to prosper me and not to do me harm. or for me not to do harm to others who have other plans that might include pokemon movies....

on the road...

we are at the hotel in bowling green kentucky (i just had to ask erin where we were, i really had NO idea)...

my favorite quote of the day... said by pam cooke was "i love people who can sing. i mean i love all people but i really love people who can sing." nice. too bad i can't sing. if only she really loved people who can blog...

and take photos. which i did and am trying to upload. let me assure you there are some CUTE photos and even if they aren't uploaded you are going to have to take it on faith that they are CUTE... ooh, and i did upload them and they are in the post under this. but don't stop reading...

good travel day. we played some fun bus games and the boys FORCED us all to watch a pokemom movie and it made me want to POKEmon my eyes out. really, that movie was the low point of my day.

but seeing the youth lead worship at the nursing home tonight was the highlight. i sat with a 98 year old man (hope you are reading the blog leroy) and he just LOVED the kids singing and the message that they brought and i hope he thought i was really cool too.

of course after the service, michael mcquire came up to me and asked me if i liked the show and how long i had been living at the nursing home.... funny michael and just know it will be a long week and revenge is a dish best served cold.

okay that is all i can write tonight because we have an EARLY morning wake up call. like 5 a.m. which is painful for me to type. but not as painful as the pokemon movie... well, it might be....

tomorrow on to chicago. hope chicago is ready for us...