How to Come Home (For Beginners):

STEP ONE: WEEP

-Cry when you are packing your bags

-Cry a lot when you are saying goodbye to one of your favorite people at the airport and then it all feels real

-Cry when you see your best friend from home because you don't really know what else to do

-Don't cry for a week because your summer feels like it actually didn't happen to you and you don't want to talk about it

-Cry a week later when you finally watch the slideshow shown on the final night. Then be angry with God and tell Him that  He doesn't know what He is doing because you were really happy and now you're not sure what to do. 

Then read this:

God seems to plant His saints in the most useless places. And then we say "God intends for me to be here because I am so useful to Him." Yet Jesus never measured His life by how or where He was of the greatest use. God places His saints where they will bring the most glory to Him, and we are totally incapable of judging where that might be. Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest

And this:

Crying is all right in its own way while it lasts. But you have to stop sooner or later, and then you still have to decide what to do. C.S. Lewis

Needless to say, I've never had to come home before. I've never had to leave a new place that has become home and leave strangers who have become family. 

It's more difficult than I thought it would be, and honestly I'm not very good at it. 

This isn't to say that I am completely miserable being back or that I haven't had valuable time with my people here because they are too good to my moody self, but it's a weird transition. There is so much I could share about what the Lord has done this summer, but he's still teaching me how to talk about it.

If you supported me at all this summer in prayer or financially or in encouragement, I am eternally grateful for you. God is using people in Chicago to show the love of Christ to that beautiful city, so keep them in your prayers still! I hope to use this blog to still share some of their stories because they re worth hearing. 

THANK YOU!

a wonderful, wonderful week.

What? Two posts in one week. Crazy, I know. But last week was quite possibly one of the best weeks of my life and I should probably write about good things as they come along. I feel like there weren't any ridiculous, extravagant moments in the week, but it was just solid. Here's why.

Sunday started the week off right at a Cubs game. I'm not really that into sports, but baseball games are FUN. Not in the overwhelming kind of way, but in the I'm-going-to-sit-outside-for-a-couple-hours-and- half-heartedly-watch-this-while-talking-to-friends kind of way. And I had a Chicago Dog which was delicious. It was a very American experience.

Perfect Chicago Dog: Poppyseed bun, fresh tomato, relish, peppers, grilled onions. NO KETCHUP.

....and the Cubs won!

This past week my team had the opportunity to serve alongside Bethel House of Prayer as they started off four weeks of VBS. I think VBS is a great way to not only serve the children in your congregation, but provide affordable childcare for everyone in your community. It brings in such a diverse group!

I   L O V E D my group of girls. My teammate, Jessica, and I worked with Primary Girls age six to eight. The first day I was unsure of what to do with all that personality. We went around the table introducing ourselves and saying what we liked to do. Here are some prime examples:

"I'm Serenity and I like to walk the runway." (Poses)

"I'm Jada and I'm a diva."
(Pretends to check her reflection.)

And when one of the leaders, DD, said she liked to shop, a girl responded "You go honey-boo-boo child." Three or four times.

But as the day and week wore on, the sass act quickly wore off to reveal the sweetest and funniest kids. They loved to sing for us (mostly gospel songs and disney) and draw us sweet cards. Everyday I got lots of hugs and big smiles. Everyday was better than the one before.

Yva knows she is cute.

Jessica and I were subbing in for an absent teacher so we got to teach the Bible lessons. It was so fun hearing what they thought about verses and talking to them about Jesus. Especially as the week goes on. You just love them so much that you want them to have a relationship with Christ and to grow up knowing him.

On Thursday, we took a field trip to the park. I was worried the day would drag on, but they are pretty easy to please. I'm telling you, these girls are the best. When they have to wait, they were always patient and loved to talk to each other instead of complaining. However, they did tell me on the two block walk home that their legs were going to fall off. I had no sympathy...

It was really tough to leave on Friday. My hardest goodbye was Shiniya. She was so quiet at the beginning of the week and my goal was for her to open up. Jessica and I gave her lots of attention, and by the end of the week she was dancing and joking and laughing with us. Her laugh was my favorite because it sounded too big to come from her little body and it took over her face.

Shiniya & I

When it was time to go, she hugged me really tight around my neck and I spun her around, but when I put her down she wouldn't move her arms. It was all I could do not to straight up weep when she told me in her quiet voice that she didn't want me to leave.

"This sign means deuces." Thanks, girl. 

"Let me take the picture!"

When the three year old takes over the camera.

I miss these kids a lot already. Please pray for them and the other team that gets to serve at the Bethel VBS this week. And for my team as we get to serve at the Pui Tak Center!

Other great things that happened this week:

COW APPRECIATION DAY.
Should really be a National Holiday. We left home at 6:15 am to get some free chicken before we had to be at our sites. When we first arrived, no one knew it was Cow Appreciation, including most of the employees. People were really amazed by us and random customers were taking our picture. And THERE WAS NO CHICKEN. I sat there like a cow for a while until I was able to order.

Eventually, we got our chicken biscuits and all was well.

Anything for the free chicken.

 

 BEAUTIFUL WARM WEATHER.

On Saturday morning, we handed out water bottles at the Taste of Chicago and got to meet lots of cool people and have solid conversations. For dinner we ate some really good tacos in Wicker Park and walked along the Magnificent Mile. The weather was GLORIOUS and Chicago was really showing off how pretty she is.

I have two and half weeks left here and that's too hard to think about right now. On Thursday, I briefly go home for a Teaching Fellows Conference and so my time has been shortened even more. However, there is still a lot of time left for wonderful things to happen! I hope your week gets off to a great start!

BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS:

Same Kind of Different as Me by Ron Hall and Denver Moore 

The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer

UPDATE: wow. i am bad at this blogging thing.

If a person has grasped the meaning of God's grace in his heart, he will do justice. If he doesn't live justly, then he may say with his lips that he is grateful for God's grace, but in his heart he is far from him. If he doesn't care about the poor, it reveals that at best he doesn't understand the grace he has experienced, and at worst he has not really encountered the saving mercy of God. Grace should make you just. -tim keller.

Chicago!

I have been here five weeks. WOW. It has gone by extremely fast, but in some ways I feel like I have been here forever. I love this city. The architecture. The unique parks & fun things. The food. 

Most of all, I love the people. (I know that was cheesy and you could probably tell that was coming...)

Honestly, I haven't written on this here blog because I don't know how to write this down wisely. I am still learning a lot and I don't want to write down words that I might see as kind of foolish later. Or that someone else with greater knowledge or experience would read offensively. 

And I know that I can't fully put into words what I have learned because most of it has been done through intense teachings that result in a changed worldview as I have experienced the city.

I'll try to stick with just pictures and brief explanations of what is going on for now :) 

The roomie & me at Navy Pier!

I wrapped up my great trip with my mom and sister. They dropped me off and got to meet my excellent roommate Christina. She really has been so wonderful on this trip. We have found a lot of similarities and we have been super compatible roommates. It's too perfect, really. (Hopefully this isn't one sided... Christina...) 

Our first week felt extremely long. It was a lot of information and we were taking in countless environments. Chicago is divided into over seventy neighborhoods, each one with its own culture. They are pretty segregated when it comes to race, socioeconomic status, and nationality. The city literally transforms block to block. You will be walking in a pretty and populated area, then all of sudden things get sketchy... then the next block is different once again. 

Here's Life Inner City (who I am here with) works with churches and ministries to meet their needs. So it isn't necessarily our organization tackling a project, but us being sent out to help these churches and ministries with whatever they need. And that looks different everywhere. It also includes them sending us to places where we can learn and gather more knowledge about cross-cultural ministry. 

Team: Me, Naomi, Jessica, Hannah, & Felicia

My team is wonderful. I am with four other girls (women?) who are each unique and have taught me a lot. These are the people I am going to sites with every week, which means we share similar struggles and frustrations, but that comes with the opportunity to consistently encourage each other. 

Week 1: My team with our masterpiece, and the VBS director, Victoria

Week Two: Our team helped Edgewater Baptist Church prepare for their VBS. The church is in the Northside and is extremely diverse. The week involved a lot of gardening, cleaning, and crafting. I loved the staff there. They were genuine people whose main goal was to share the love of Christ with kids. It didn't seem forced or ritualistic. Other teams from HLIC have gone and helped with the VBS and they absolutely love what is going on there. It was cool to be a part of the preparation stages and then hear how well everything is going. 

Week Three:  We mostly worked with Salvation Army's Mobile Outreach Team. We traveled with them to hand out soup and bread and make new friends. The truck travels with two counselors that can assist clients with rehabilitation and figuring out financial situations. Most of the time my team was hanging out with Gil and BJ, who drove the truck and managed it all. BJ, for all his silence, had a heart of gold. And Gil was both charming and hilarious. He loves to tell people his story and how God has worked in his life. On Wednesday they treated us to to some Puerto Rican food and good conversation. Every human should eat sweet plantains at least once a day. It was hard to say goodbye to these people!

Yvette, Me, Naomi, Gil, Felicia, & Jessica 

These past couple weeks have been wonderful as well, but if I wrote about them now it wouldn't do it justice. I didn't realize how much I actually had to share until I started writing! I have another early morning tomorrow, otherwise I could write for hours. Tomorrow will be a hard day as I leave some beautiful children behind.

Thanks for reading this and for your prayers and support! Please continue to pray for us!

Pretty, right?

My discipler, Brittnee 

an obsession with sea salt.

I have always loved baking and cooking and discovering new recipes. When I'm cooking, I always try to find the best seasonings to make my food spicy hot or give anything a more distinct taste. Then I tried a chocolate brownie with sea salt and it was a GAME. CHANGER.

I became obsessed with sea salt.

Every recipe, whether it was dessert or dinner, was given a pinch of sea salt. It brings out the flavor without completely turning it in to something else. The coarser the salt the better. Its ended up in soups, puddings, vegetables, ice cream. My sweet friend Ashley B is often with me when I'm making my messes and would point out my consistent use of the stuff. So I started pointing it out too. 

Always with sea salt, I would say.

She told me it would be a great blog name and I thought she was wrong. And I had already decided that I would never have a blog.

Then I applied and was accepted to go to Chicago, IL this summer with Here's Life Inner City. I wanted to have a place where I could share what God was doing and all that, and I knew that a blog was the best place for it all. This was the only name that kept coming back to me.

I was extremely hesitant to use it because it sounds like a little cooking blog and I'm not really qualified to make one of those (which doesn't mean I won't try...), but then I remembered Jesus's words in Matthew:

You are the salt of the earth. But what good is salt if it has lost its flavor? Can you make it salty again? It will be thrown out and trampled underfoot as worthless. You are the light of the world-like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden.

Matthew 5:13-14

 Salt draws out the subtle good flavors in food and preserves what would otherwise spoil (The Voice Bible). The Message translates it as Jesus saying we are here to bring out the God-flavors of the earth.

What would it look like to bring out the flavors of God? To let the Lord use you to show:

His beauty

His goodness

His love for justice

His wisdom

His truthfulness

What would my daily life be like? How would this help me actively communicate with God? How would I treat all of His kids? How would this help me cultivate thankfulness?

So I decided that yes, the name is appropriate. I don't want a life that is bland and lacks meaning. I want each day to be filled with little adventures. I want to create because I'm able. I want to be bold and honest. I want to be selfless and loving. I want a life of beauty, prayer, drive, generosity, faith, joy, purpose, and flavor. 

Here is my humble attempt!

Clearwater, FL 

Emily and Me

SB2K13

P.S. This doesn't mean I won't take the flavor part literally sometimes. I love feeding other people and myself tasty things, and I don't think Instagram cares...  and at least here I will be less aware of social media's approval ;)