Chicago Mission 2010

Signing up for missions was the hardest thing for me this year because I have gone on the Mexico mission trip for three years. And this year I felt God telling me "No, Nicole you are actually not going to MX this summer, you are going to help out the middle school group and go on Chicago." I was extremely hesitant for multiple reasons to sign up for Chicago, but who was I to deny God's plan for me. So I signed up. Johnny told me in person that I would be one of the many leaders going on this trip, but he also wanted to talk to me about possible complications/problems that could happen on the trip. And honestly after that little meeting, I knew 100% that I was supposed to be going on this trip. We had 3 boy students & 6 girl students and the rest were all leaders (we had 23 people on our team.) so I knew it would be a little strange since there were so little middle schoolers but man did those few middle schoolers SHINE! I have never seen students, let alone middle school students work that hard, have that amazing of attitudes and shine for Christ that much. I'm not going to talk about every single thing we did, you can find that at the teams blog www.gsmchicago.blogspot.com. The thing that amazed me the most was our teams ability to get along & work together. There was not one fight, there was absolutely NO drama, we honestly all just bonded so much and got along so well! This was by far the most tight group of teammates I have ever been apart of. I call myself EXTREMELY blessed to have been apart of such a team. Blessed to have witnessed absolutely astounding leadership, both from our trip leader & from all the other leaders. But also blessed to have been able to witness God so up close and personal in every single student on the trip. After the trip was over I remember just falling to my knees thanking God for placing me on this trip with this team, because I grew an unmeasurable amount from this trip! We changed lives on this trip, whether it was feeding the homeless, working on work projects or walking into a Hindu temple in Little India. Not only the lives of the people in Chicago, but our own lives. God wrecked each and everyone of our worlds in the most miraculous ways. That trip changed my life and I will never forget it. I can't wait to see what God will do when we take everything we learned and experienced in Chicago and bring it back home and apply it to our lives here. Praise Jesus!