From the Poor to the Rich of Christianity....

Right now I am sitting at the cafeteria at Willow Creek Community Church in Chicago, Ill. I'm not sure what I'm more impressed with, the 25,000 people that come here every Sunday, the campus being more like a resort, or the fact that this place has a work-out gym and large cafeteria. It's like a mall mixed with a hospital with a concert hall in the middle. Anyway, this is one extreme that we have encountered in the last 2 days. The other extreme was in St. Louis where we helped out with some inner-city kids at a VBS.

The connection that led me to North City Missions in St. Louis is reminiscent of 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon. I was dating Sara when we went to Oxford together. At Oxford I became friends with Daniel Townsend. On a road trip with Daniel to Atlanta we stopped in St. Louis and met some of his friends. His friend, Alaina Bearden, was a fellow traveler who wowed me with her stories of Israel. I was looking at Daniel's facebook just a few days ago when I saw Alaina's name. I told her we started our trip and needed some help finding a ministry. Her father knows of Matt Chandler from North City Missions. Alaina then gave me his number. So it goes Sara to Daniel to Alaina to Alaina's Dad to Matt Chandler. Weird.

We figured out that the organization in St. Louis needs a lot of help next week. They run a VBS every week for the inner city kids around their church. They are in the heart of a bad part of St. Louis and always need help. Normally they have 3 interns and a week long short term missions trip from CIY or another organization coming in to help them out. Next week, they don't have either. Where 15 people usually are there to help with the program, they only have 4 next week. So Mike and I were quite the saviors for them. Next week we will be going back to St. Louis after we travel through Chicago and Indianapolis to help them with their VBS.

Next stop, Sears Tower, Shedd Aquarium, and Wrigley Field....