First Day Here!!

So this is my blog for while I'm in Chicago!!
If you're following, thanks for reading! I hope you guys will enjoy keeping up with me. I'll be mostly in-general updating, and sharing what God does in my life and in this city through our team. If you don't already know the specifics, this is a 10-week mission project through Campus Crusade for Christ and we will be helping to develop Crusade-like groups on college campuses here in Chicago, all while getting some of the best evangelism training possible for students like us and learning how to be better spiritual leaders on our own campuses. We all are required to have day jobs while we're here, and while a lot of the people here don't have jobs yet and will be searching starting Monday, God has so graciously provided mine already! I will be a "singing hostess" on the Spirit of Chicago cruise ship which does lunch and dinner cruises on Lake Michigan. Hence the "cruising" part of my blog name. :) But more about that later.

So I'm nearing the end of my first day on Chicago Summer Project! Phew! It's been a fun day. I'm pretty exhausted, so I hope that this entry ends up being relatively coherent. Haha.

I spent all of yesterday evening and until 3am finishing up everything. My best friend from high school came over to my house and surprised me with Starbucks which was so sweet of her! We hung out while I packed. Then after she left I spent the rest of the night/morning finishing packing, writing thank yous, trying not to get distracted, getting distracted, being excited, and packing some more. Then I slept for 4 hours and woke up again to pack the car and get ready to leave. We left around 8:30 and I was officially off to Chicago!
I slept a lot in the car so the ride didn't seem very long at all. Needless to say, I was pretty tired from getting relatively no sleep the night before.

We arrived in Chicago and pulled up to the Automatic Lofts around 12pm. Right away we were greeted by staff members with large carts to help unload our car... it took about .25 seconds to unload everything and soon we were headed inside to do all our checking in. Right off the bat I met a lot of people who I had already talked to through email or by phone, and everyone else who was helping with my check in process was also very welcoming. In a whirlwind I had gotten my apt. keycard, room key and had my picture taken for who knows what reason. We went upstairs to the apartment which is awesome & spacious and I met a couple of my roommates who had recently arrived as well. They were both so nice and I can tell I'm gonna get along with them really well! Originally we were supposed to have four people (including me) in our room, because it's a four bedroom apt. But it turned out that some people who had bigger apartments would need to house an extra person, since we have so many people on the project. So I'll be sharing a room with a totally sweet girl named Ashley. She used to be an art major as well, and has a great fashion sense! I think we'll be getting along fine :) hahah.

My other roommates are fabulous as well! There's Sarah C., who just graduated from college and reminds me of my friend Missy Hannah. That won't mean much to but a few of you may be reading this, but lets just say she's fantastic. The last one who is already here is another Sarah (N.), and she is a graphic design student! (We have a lot of artsy people in room 526! There's a coloring contest going on in the apartments, and we've decided that we have to win!! lol) She is the only other girl in our apt who also just finished freshman year, so it's fun to have someone else my age. There is one more girl who will be coming, named Katharine. Don't know anything about her yet, but we all can't wait to meet her.

Today all we really did was settle into our apartment, and then Sarah N., Ashley, and I walked to Starbucks a few blocks down to grab coffee so we could stay awake after all our car-riding. I actually had it easy -- Sarah had to drive 9 hours to get here! There was a pizza dinner at 6:30 with everyone in the lobby, and I got to meet a few more great people and received an "Orientation Weekend" schedule. Tomorrow we will be participating in a lot of random training and orientation activities which I don't remember off the top of my head, but it's gonna be a blast. Then on Sunday there's church and then the biggest thing I remember is that there will be a scavenger hunt which will take us all over the city and help us learn how to effectively use the public transportation. I'm super excited!! I'm pretty confident already with certain "L" lines since I've stayed in Chicago a few times before (like when I auditioned to get the Spirit of Chicago job), but I'm hoping I'll get to go on lines that I've never been on and ride the buses, since I've only ridden the L and walked places so far. Should be an absolutely fun weekend! Plus tomorrow (actually today, now) is my 19th birthday!!! And that just somehow makes tomorrow seem even more like something to look forward to for some reason :) If nothing else, because I'll get Happy Birthdays on Facebook and that just makes my day!

I'm already connecting really well with my roommates and I can tell this is going to be a great time of spiritual growth for me. My roommates are all such women of the Lord and just after having some good conversations tonight I can tell I will be challenged and encouraged by them for the duration of this project.

So yay for a successful first day! Time to get in bed, because I have to be up early tomorrow.
If there's anything you can be praying for right now, it's just that God would continue to prepare my heart and mind for this project (that He would help me to focus on the fact that I'm here for HIM and not for some adventure in the city as it could so easily be disguised as), and that my support would continue to come in. I still have about $900 left to pay. But the fact that God has provided so much already is astounding!!! $2,500. I literally was so fearful about the support raising process back in April, and God has really provided the support in so many different ways. Even though $900 is a big number in my mind, it's nothing to God. If I don't actually end up raising that money and need to go on a payment plan using my salary, I still feel like I can't be worried because I know God will provide all that I need. I'm so thankful for that kind of peace. And all that said, it be great if you could still be praying that the support would come in so that I can use my salary on groceries. :)

I'm so glad to be here!!
Until later,
Jordan