PICTURE BLOG!!

I have a few pics to share this week.  Nothing too special, just pics from my trip to downtown Chicago.  Also, some pics of Baptism weekend, which was this weekend.

This is Buckingham fountain.  It's pretty awesome, and its located along the lake.

This is the "Big Bean" in Millennium Park.  It's a solid, polished steel structure that reflects everything around it in this cool distorted way.

This isn't a very good pic, but it's me reflected in the "Big Bean"

This is a picture of the park with the big bean from the Sears Tower.  The fountain is a little further to the right.  (You can't see either of them in this picture.)  The sears tower was pretty expensive.  15 bucks for an elevator ride.  They didn't even have the top floor open that day.  But it was only four floors, and I figure 40 feet doesn't make much difference at this point.

That pretty much wraps up my visit to Chicago.  I did that about 2 weeks ago.  This weekend was Baptism week at Willow.  It was pretty incredible.  They baptized people outside in their pond.  Hundreds of people showed up just to watch.

This is the crowd gathering on the hill to watch.  The people would enter the water off the brown docks there, and would be baptized by one of the pastors.  Elevate held their baptisms on the furthest dock to the right.

Here's Scott Jason getting their baptism on.  Over 60 students from Elevate were baptized, and over 700 people all together from the congregation.  It was pretty incredible.  Lots of celebrating. It couldn't have been any nicer outside either.  It was sunny, near 80 with a nice breeze to cool everybody down.  

To wrap up the weekend, Matt (Elevate's worship leader) and I headed to Greek Fest in Palatine.  We had Gyros and Baklava (soo good!).  I got a slight sun burn from being outside so much, but nothing too bad.  All in all it was another good weekend.  

Next weekend, I plan on being home for the 4th since we don't have Elevate for the weekend, and we get Friday and Monday off.  So if anybody is interested in seeing me, and who wouldn't be, just look me up. 

Until next time,

Peace,

Jake

A Good Weekend

As promised, I am trying to stay more up to date with my blog posts.  These past four days have been very good, and I thought that you would be interested in hearing about them.

To begin with, we finished our series about Doubt here at elevate.  It was called Doubt it out.  For the past four weeks they have been discussing how doubt is not a bad thing when it is dealt with properly.  We decided that for the last week of the series we would do a little workshop.  The students got to pick from one of 3 common doubts that Christians have about their faith.  They then split up into groups and each had their own session.  

For the workshop, we went through the process with the students and taught them how to research and dig deeper with their question whenever they have a doubt.  We started the process by teaching them how to look up specific passages in Scripture.  Their Bibles had concordances, so this was a huge help.  I had the opportunity to teach them what a concordance was, and how to use it.  We then gave them the chance to use the concordance to find their own verse.  

Saturday's group seemed to have a difficult time understanding how to use it.  This was mostly our fault because the students didn't seem to understand that this was an interactive workshop.  But, we got through it, and I'm sure the students learned a little from the experience.

Saturday night my family arrived in the area.  They had just been to one of my brother's basketball games near South Bend, and they were heading up to the Wisconsin Dells to watch some more of my brother's basketball games.  I took them to a restaurant nearby called Jersey's.  (And by took, I mean let them pay for and drive us there.  I just showed them how to get there.)  It was really good.  I stayed with them in their hotel room Saturday night, and left for church from there on Sunday.  

First service on Saturday went really well.  The kids really seemed to like the game I had taught them.  For our workshop, the students did really well with the activities we led them through.  It was a really awesome moment.  It's always good to know that you are being effective, and it was evident during this service that they were getting it.  

My family came to Elevate for the second service on Sunday.  It was cool to have them there so they could see how we run things here.  The workshop went ok, not as well as first service, but I think it went well all-in-all.  After service, my family and I headed to the Wisconsin Dells.  It took about 3 hours to get there, then we arrived at the hotel, and I got some much needed rest.

Sunday evening we went to see the Tommy Bartlett Ski Show.  Some cool tricks, but really cheesy entertainment.  Also, one of the performers almost died!!  For real, ask me about it.  Also, one of the coolest things at the show was this guy called Dave the Horn Guy.  It was really awesome.  Check him out at www.davethehornguy.com!

On Monday we went out to breakfast, and rode the Ducks with Ben's Basketball team.  It was fun, but I got wet.  We waited around for the rest of the morning, until Ben's team had their game.  We were only able to watch one game because we had the schedule confused.  After the game, my family and I headed back.  They dropped me off at Willow, and headed home.

All-in-all it was a really good weekend.  A lot happened, but it was great to see my family, and some familiar faces.  When I got back to the Swofford's I was super tired, so I crashed and took a 3-hour nap.  That was also good.

It's only been a few days since my last blog post, so prayer requests haven't really changed that much.  I do have one praise though.  Darah finally has found a job!  She is currently employed at Target, and she loves it so far.  I will try to post every Tuesday or Wednesday, but no promises.

Peace,

Jake

Week One

Ok so I keep meaning to post on this blog and I start writing and then I'm overwhelmed with all that I have to cover every time.  So then I put it off for another day, and then more needs to be added.  So this is what I plan to do for my first blog post. (I just started every sentence of my blog with the word so.)  I am going to go over the past two weeks in bullet points.  Sound fair?  This way I can cover everything that happened so far.  

Tuesday, May 26:

• Took Darah to the Airport
• Said goodbye to Darah for the summer :(
• Miss Darah

Saturday, May 30:

• Packed almost all day
• Left home around 2 or 3
• Got to Chicago around 7:30 or 8:00
• Family and I went out to eat at Macaroni Grill
• Went back to hotel and watched Yes Man.

Sunday, May 31:

• Went to Willow regular service at 9:00 (Awesome)
• Went to Elevate service at 11:30
• Met the Elevate staff (Also Awesome)
• Went to lunch with my family
• Headed to the Swofford's (Great Family)
• Moved in
• Had Dessert with Swoffords, Raitz, and my family
• Said goodbye to my family
• Settled in to new home

Monday, June 1:

• Elevate Day off
• Steve Swofford gave me a map of the area with significant locations marked
• Drove to all locations to get a feel for the area

Tuesday, June 2:

• Didn't have to go in to Elevate because it was a half day and my mentor was in meetings all day.
• Saw Pixar's UP!  (Awesome Movie)

Wednesday, June 3:

• Officially began my internship at Elevate
• Set up my cubicle
• Staff Meeting (Met the staff again, they are great)
• Spent the day getting to know staff and the building

Thursday, June 4:

• Elevate hired new staff member
• Helped develop game for upcoming weekend

Friday, June 5:

• Started getting ready for the weekend
• Got materials for the game
• Marked off playing field for the game

Saturday, June 6:

• First Service!!  (It went great!  It was really cool to see all of the work we had done come together finally.)
• Helped run the game.
• Was introduced to the students, and joined a group students.

Sunday, June 7:

• Sunday's services went a lot like Saturday's just 2 more times.
• I spent the rest of the afternoon recovering.  It is amazing how much it can wear you out.

Monday, June 8:

• This was another rest day, because it is Elevate's day off.

Tuesday, June 9:

• Today I got the opportunity to go to 6 Flags with the Swoffords.  It's about an hour away from where I am living, and they had some good deals for season tickets (I think it's because they are going bankrupt).  So I am now a season pass holder for 6 flags, if anyone wants to go.

Wednesday, June 10:

• Back to work
• Staff Meeting
• Started developing game for the weekend.

Thursday, June 11:

• Had a meeting for the group life team.  They are in the process of sorting through their small groups this summer, so I will get to see the organization process.

Friday, June 12:

• Set up for the game we had picked.
• Had my one on one meeting with Jason.
• After work, one of the staff members were gracious enough to invite me to their house.  I went, and it was a lot of fun.

Saturday, June 13:

• Kids got to try out the game I had picked, and they loved it.
• Got the opportunity to sit with some students during the small group time.
• After the service I went to one of the staff member's house to watch a movie.

Sunday, June 14:

• Similar to Saturday.  Students had a harder time understanding the game, but I think they had fun.
• Spent the rest of the day recovering.

Ok, I know that is all really vague, but I want to keep you posted, and there is so much going on and it comes and goes in a blur.  If I went through all the details I would have a post that was the length of a novel, and nobody would want to read it. I will try to be better about posting from now on.  

Things to pray about:

-Darah and I being apart

-I'm still trying to find my place here, both friend-wise and at the office.

-A friend of the family I am staying with just found out that he has Leukemia.  Please pray for him and his family.

-Also, pray that it doesn't rain for our big event in July.  It would really be a disaster if it rained.

Preliminaries/ Welcome to My PRIME Blog

Hello, and welcome to my PRIME blog.  Here I will be trying to keep everybody up to date with my PRIME experience.  For those of you who don't know, PRIME is a 6 month internship that is part of the Huntington University Ministry program.  This internship counts as my Fall semester, and is probably the most unique part of the program.  

For my PRIME I am interning at Willow Creek Community Church's junior high ministry called Elevate.  My mentor is a man by the name of Jason Raitz.  I'm really excited to be going.  I have really enjoyed talking to Jason on the phone and kind of getting to know him.  He seems like a great guy, and I know there is a lot he will be able to teach me.  You can check out Jason's blog at http://raitz.blogspot.com/.  WCCC is located in South Barrington, IL which is just outside Chicago.  

For housing, I was blessed to have Jason help me to find a family to stay with.  The Swofford family has been generous enough to allow me to stay with them for the first half of my internship.  I have spoken to Carolyn Swofford over the phone, and they seem like a very nice and generous family, and I can probably learn just as much from living with them as I will from Jason.  In the Fall I will be staying with the Korizon family.  I have not met them yet, but Jason has told me a lot about them, and I am very excited to meet them as well.

I am really excited for this opportunity because I think it will be a great growing experience for me.  All I have ever known is small town Indiana, and now I have the opportunity to try out living in a bigger city.  Hopefully this will open my mind about bigger cities.  I also am looking forward to learning from such a revolutionary ministry.  Not many people get such an awesome opportunity, and I couldn't be more thrilled to be interning with Elevate.

Interning with Elevate is not without its difficulties, though.  For one thing, Elevate will not be able to support me, so I will have to be raising my own support.  (Some of you will be getting letters from me soon.)  The hardest thing for me is the fact that I will have to be away from my fiancee for 3 months straight.  Because she is from Maine, and is heading there for the summer, we won't be able to see each other until we go to our friends' wedding in August.  She leaves for Maine tomorrow, and my heart is aching just thinking about it.  (I know that sounds cheesy, but it's true).  

If all of you could please be praying for me on this journey, it would be much appreciated.  Please pray that I will grow and learn on this experience, and that I continue to grow closer to Christ.  Also, be praying for Darah and I as we go through this difficult time of separation. 

Thanks for everything, and check back often to see what is going on with my PRIME experience.

Until Next Time,

Peace,

Jake