DEARBORN - building relationships

Hello family and friends! It's thursday and God is doing amazing things!

Work Project
Today our site went to go help out the Assembly of God church in Dearborn. They are currently constructing a church to draw muslims in the community to God. The building itself is composed of 4 classrooms where they will host Bible classes and ESL (english as a second language) classes. The church has also been turning a greenhouse(attached to the building)into a coffee shop. Coffee is very popular in the muslim culture so the church hopes to draw people to the church in that way. They will also be providing dinners occasionally as well to people in the community.

Park Experiences
Our site went back to the Hemlock park with the mission of sharing the gospel and building relationships. We are hosting a BBQ this friday(today) and providing Hallah meat(the only meat that muslims can eat) with the hope of attracting people to our group so that they may ask questions and we can make Jesus' name known. Kristen W and I got the chance to talk with a woman named Hyatt. We began to buld a relationship with her talking about fun things to do in Dearborn, fun things to do in Chicago, and about our family lives. She is 24 and happily married to her husband Mo (Muhammad) and is 6 months pregnant. She's naming her child Alli and is currently decorating his room :) It was fun to really connect with her and and to see the loving relationship that she and her husband have. Other people from our site have shared different experiences in which the woman is abused but fortunately this was not the case for Hyatt. It was really funny to see little prayers anwsered. Before we talked to Hyatt Kristen W and I saw her walking her dog and thought "what a great way to start a conversation" ("Hi can i pet your dog? I really miss mine in Chicago"... oh your from Chicago?..." etc.). Kristen W and I prayed that the dog would pee so we could catch up with her and it did 3 times:) haha! God answers prayers! Elle spent the time reaching out to children who came to her wanting to hear her play guitar and many of our site spent time connecting with people in sports games. It was really encouraging and many people said that they would come back for the BBQ.

ESL (english as a second language)
Half way through our time at the park some of the students headed back to the church we were staying at to help with the ESL class. Karin, Reilly, and I had worked with the same class on tuesday and had really gotten to know the people. I spent the majority of my time in the class helping two lebanese women, Mae and Fadia. Karin spent most of her time helping Mr. and Mrs.Wang (the family that invited Karin, Reilly, Mrs. Worrell, and I over to their house on wednesday- that's another story :] ) and Reilly took Jun Kai (Mr. and Mrs. Wang's son) out to the hallway because apparently he was a distraction. I gained a new respect for teachers and realized how hard it was to explain english. We said our goodbyes and exchanged emails. It was bitter sweet. "I will see you again insh'allah (Lord willing)". I really hope I can continue a relationship with them when I come home.

Encouragement web
Our group ended the day with a time of worship and encouragement. The encouragement web is a project serve tradition in which the groups gets around to every person passing around a ball of yarn making a web to lift someone up at the end. We attempted to lift Karin- we failed. It really brought our group even closer and yes many of us cried (especially meghan- go figure :] ).

We're so excited for the BBQ please keep our site in your prayers!!!!!

<3 Kristen MacDonald (sowwy four eny speeling mestakes eye dident hav tyme two prof reed)