It's been a whirlwind few weeks here.

Last week Rachel, and I (along with Captains, Hank, Ruth & Al) were at the CCDA NAtional Conference in downtown Chicago. We brought Hannah along as well as my mom who was our nanny for the trip. We arrived on Tuesday and stayed through Friday. The conference focuses on Christian Community Development, which is basically about Christians trying to make a difference in urban and often times impoverished cities. We all split up and attended various sessions on networking, after school/education, youth involvement in vision casting and leadership. Rachel and I even attended a session on the effects on the family life of those who work/live in the inner city doing ministry work. One cool part of the conference was the lack of conversation about the importance of living in the city/living where in the area you work. It was assumed that you were already doing so.

We cut out a little early on Friday and took Hannah to the Lincoln Park Zoo in downtown Chicago. She had a pretty fun time, but might have been a little young to really appreciate it. We'll come back again when she is older.

Working backwards even more, two weeks ago Dave Mantel moved into our house and started the Ignite program. Dave came to us from Chicago where he has gained a lot of ministry experience. I hope that in this pilot year, we have a lot to offer him that he can use throughout his life. So far Dave has seen the neighborhood, helped flyer, worked a table at the UM Flint NEw Student Welcome Day, worked in the after school program, and attened some neighborhood meetings. Rachel also put him through our orientation process which included a spiritual gift inventory, some discipleship materials, some SA 101 materials, and more. Dave is also helping to lead the worship band which we are reforming this year.

This week is equally as busy as we have the neighborhood family fest on Sunday, a concert on Friday, another UM Flint Student Fair event on Thursday, a PARKing day event on Wednesday, and our weekly youth programs start up this week as well. So we're running around flyering and picking up items for the fest, and putting together the materials for PARKing Day.

We've also been talking about launching some new ministries, specifically one working with our neighborhood's large adult foster care population. Andy, Rachel, Dave, and I have been talking about showing some movies, nothing special, but just good movies as a form of leisure and recreation. This population is often left alone to waste the day away with little or no recreation or interaction with people outside of their houses.

It's been enjoyable having more people in our house too. Andy has been very helpful in helping to get some problem areas cleaned up and sorted. The house looks remarkably cleaner. I have started gutting out rooms down to the studs getting ready to rewire, insulate, and drywall the rooms. We've decided to make an effort to have people over for lunch on Sundays instead of going out to eat. We're going to invite people from the corps and/or neighborhood over. I think it will be a good time.

Well that's all for now.