Thursday, March 17, 2005
Thursday, March 03, 2005
Well, I'm off. Sort of.
I now have a job. Emmaus Ministries invited me to join them. I will be moving to Uptown (neighborhood on the North side of Chicago) on March 21st. I'm very excited about going. I will be living in an apartment with other people that are part of the Kaio community program of Emmaus, which is what I'll be doing. Kaio is a 1 year internship with Emmaus. Although I'm not sure of my day to day schedules and responsabilities yet, in general the two main areas of ministry I will be working with are the ministry center and street outreach.
The ministry center is in the basement of our building. It is a place where guys can come to get showers, do laundry, eat a meal, and get help with life building skills. We have Bible studies with them, and help them work on getting out of that lifestyle, which means things like getting IDs, getting tested for deseases, and helping them look for jobs and or apartments.
Street outreach is everynight some of the people from Emmaus go out and just hang out with the guys on the street. We try to build relationships with the guys, and let them know that we really care about them. For some of the guys, this is the only contact we have with them. This is where the name Emmaus comes from: after he rose again, Jesus walked beside some disciples on the road to Emmaus. We try to walk along side these guys right where they are.
I will be putting together a letter with prayer requests sometime in the future. If you feel strongly one way or the other about receiving it, let me know. I know that I will need prayer support while I'm there: this is going to be outside my realm of comfort by a large margin.
Later.