My PCM is OK. Some people do much more, shall we say "interesting" things at their PCM's, but mine is pretty much typical. My friend Erik goes up to 'Boy's Town' and talks to men on the street corners who are stuck in prostitution. Mine isn't anything like that, but I think it still has a lot of purpose. It's definitely not what I am used to, but I like it. I help out at the YMCA with an after school program for kids. I'm not used to the age range, and I'm definitely not used to the inner-city kids. The kids at the Power House live in town, but they are not inner-city. Some of those kids might be a little rough around the edges, whereas these kids are pretty rough all around, but by no means hopeless. There are some that just touch your heart, though. I'm sure that all of them want you to give them affirmation and love, but some of them are just more 'expressive' of it, I guess.

I usually work with one boy, named Amiel. I (try) to help him with his homework, but usually he wants me to give him the answers rather than help him to get them on his own. There are a ton of great kids there (he is one of them), but one little girl just sticks out. Her name is Sarai, and every time we arrive, she gets a big smile on her face and greets us. She can be a stinker, too, but she is a cute kid.

Yesterday I got to read to her. That probably doesn't seem like a big deal, but it's much easier to feel like you're actually doing something there when the kids want you to interact. Usually Amiel wants me to give him the answers or just let him do his own thing. I'm going to keep on working with him, even if he doesn't let me really help him. Sarai had me help her on a couple of questions on her math, and then she got out her "Little House in the Big Woods" book. I was reading it to her, and it was funny, because I was reading about Pa loading his gun and getting ready to shoot animals, and it was really catching the attention of other people in the room. It was a blast, though. Kids like Sarai make it so much fun to help out.

It's about time!

GGRRRRRRR!!!! I just wrote this message a few minutes ago, and blogger.com was having apparent technical difficulties, so I lost it. All of it. So, here we go again.

As I was saying, I just realized how long it has been since our last post. You're probably wondering "What have they been up to this whole time? Did they forget about us?". No, we didn't forget about you. We've just been goofing off. We've been spending time with friends, working, going to school - you know, the usual. But we have also done new things. I got a TB test today, Stephanie made another friend, I sold some stuff on ebay for the really nice peddler down the street that always has stereos in his trunk real cheap (just kidding, it was my stuff), among other things. Oh yeah, and I got deathly ill a couple of weekends ago. So we've been active. Except when we've been sick. This weekend, we spent time with a couple around the corner. I read Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon (whew!), part of which was on Saturday, when Stephanie was at work. And in between I watched Notre Dame chalk up another W ... again ... barely. If you didn't see that game-winning TD, go to nbcsports.com RIGHT NOW. You need to.

So, about the reading - you're probably either thinking "Why is he telling us this?" Truth is, I'm just leading into a story. First some background. I don't get super-stressed out about stuff - basically, if I have too much on my plate, I just don't look at my plate, but soon I need to finish up what I have. Then I start to get stressed out (naturally). But usually I just internalize it, like many men. So I needed to go pick Stephanie up. In case you haven't been up here in a while, the traffic in Chicago is pretty much the same - exciting, put mildly. It's just a tense situation sometimes. It was Thursday, and Stephanie was at student wives, which meets at the school. When I drive to the school, I take the expressway. At night, it isn't that bad, but I'm only on the highway for a couple of miles. To be honest with you, that night I wanted to stay on the expressway much, much longer. The view heading into downtown is simply amazing. The seemingly peaceful, yet intimidating skyline is at the perfect distance to behold, and when you look at it, coasting at the perfect speed down the highway, you just forget whatever you were worried about. It's just one of those moments. I wish I could take pictures, but I don't think I should play photographer while driving, let alone hang the camera out the window on the highway.

My point is that some things about living up here are so cool. It's strange; we still call good old Indiana "home," but, as they say "Home is where you make it." I'm happy to make this place home, and it feels like it. Being here is an experience that we are so fortunate to have, even though we miss all the things about "home." Don't get me wrong, we haven't forgotten about you all - in fact we think about you and wish that we could be there. But I think that we are very happy to be where we are, and we wish we could share more of our "moments" with you. Maybe we'll have more, and you can share them. We'll see.

So long,
Jesse

Missions Week

This week is missions week here at Moody. We don't have classes for the rest of the week, but we are all required to attend 12 hours of sessions about missions. It's pretty cool, and next Monday and Tuesday are study/reading days, or as my Theology professor Dr. Barbieri called them "See how far you can get away from campus days." I do have to use them for study and reading, because I have a reading report due for OT Survey that Thursday and still need to read quite a bit before I can write it.

I wanted to address something, just clear it up for everyone. We're not that busy up here. I realized how many times we had written that we were "so busy" in previous posts, and it's not that dramatic. Are we tired when we get home? Yes. Are we sometimes cranky? Well, Stephanie is, but not me. Do we have goofy schedules? Yes. But we have plenty of free time, it's just not usable for social interaction sometimes. You see, we have large chunks of time when we just sit around and watch TV, or cook, or eat. We even have about 8 hours every day when we just sleep. It's ridiculous, really. Honestly, though, it's not that bad. Stephanie has Thursdays off of work and I have Saturdays off, and we both have Sundays all to ourselves. Just wanted to clear that up.

During chapel this morning, the drama team came up and narrated stories of different Moody graduates who went out into the rest of the world in international missions and became martyrs. It was just incredible to listen to these stories, and the fact that they were true - you could imagine everything so clearly, it was absolutely moving. If you haven't seen the movie End of the Spear, you need to. People act like people only died for their faith in the early church, but today there are huge numbers of Christians around the world being persecuted and even killed. Imagine being killed by the same people you are trying to reach with a message that will change their lives, and nobody is forcing them to accept it. But for the simple opportunity to present it to them, those people are willing to die. The speaker this morning quoted D.L. Moody when someone asked him "Mr. Moody, do you have a martyr's grace?" which means, do you have the grace toward others so that even if they would kill you, you would love them to the very end. He responded in saying "No, I don't, but if God wanted me to be a martyr, He would give me the grace." Think about what that would be like. Could you give up your life like that, willingly, for the sake of the gospel? It's worth thinking about.

And He has said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness." Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. 2 Cor 12:9

Here's an update!

Sorry it's been a while again, we are just so busy! It should help that on Wednesday of this week, we are getting phone service in our apartment, which leads to us getting DSL on Thursday! It will definitely make it easier to post more because we will be able to have internet access at home, instead of having to wait until we go to the laundromat or spending money at the coffeehouse around the corner (where I am right now) to be able to access their wireless!

There's not much to report, just the same old, same old! Jesse's been busy with school and work, and I have definitely been busy at work...I just dread going to work on Saturday because we're so busy all week, and from 3 to 7 (close) on Saturday, it's just me and one other girl at the salon, which is majorly stressful when the lobby is full of people wanting haircuts! I still really like my job, but we are SO busy that by the end of the week, I am just burned out and ready for Sunday, a day to sleep in a little, try out a new church, and relax all afternoon!

Speaking of church, we went to a church just around the corner from our house on Sunday. It's called the Good News Bible Church, and our landlord is an elder there, so that's cool. It's another of the older churches that is really cool, and it was a really good service! The worship time was great, and the pastor was really laid back. He's been preaching from Acts and has a motion for each chapter to help you remember what the chapter is about, and he had everyone get up and do the motions with him, so that was fun! I think maybe we'll go back for a few weeks and get used to it and see what we think. It would be great if we decided to stay because it's so close to our house, we can walk there in like five minutes! There were some other students from Moody there, so that was neat, too.

Saturday night, we went to a choir/orchestra concert at Moody because Michael is in the chorale. It was a really good concert, and for the last number, they had all three choirs sing with the orchestra, and it was absolutely incredible. It made me miss choir so much! Afterwards, we went with Michael and Leeanne to Informal, which is pretty much Moody's version of Saturday Night Live. It was great, they had a bunch of skits and some games similar to what you'd find on Whose Line is it Anyway?, but it was totally clean, so that was great!

Well, I think that's everything, so we'll continue to keep you all updated, please keep commenting because we love to hear from you all!