Category Archives: Chicago II

Chicago Yummy-ness

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I (Melissa) got the chance to attend a luncheon in downtown Chicago with one of our friends in ministry Maggie Martinez.  Maggie runs the Block Club Federation and we partner with her each summer helping out with the YIPEE program.  Maggie is very well networked in the non-profit community in Chicago and it was an honor to be her guest at this incredible event.   It was also a blessing to enjoy this fancy food! 

God is at work in Chicago

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Today was an abundance of community engagement and blessings for me….let me share with ya’ll just what it looks like to be caring for friends in our communities and to have great consistency.

Today I met with a multitude of folks, but I want to share a few experiences with you.  I spent the morning with Pastor Tomas, a long standing partner of ours.  My time with him looks much the same every time I come to visit.  He takes me on a walk around the block while updating me on the neighborhood and whats going on.  He knows my favorite place to stop is the Paseo Boricua a local Puerto Rican place that sells basic amazing sandwiches and Café con leche.  J  So as we were walking upon it he says to me as he puts his hand on my shoulder…..”Melissa, I have a surprise for you that you are not going to like.”  I said, what’s that.  He says “The Paseo Boricua was a part of the raids that happened in September, they are closed.”  He proceeded to tell me that apparently somebody was selling drugs out of the back of this location….it’s bizarre though, because the folks at this place are amazing and I’ve really enjoyed seeing them when I walk in….not to mention there were always police hanging out in there and eating….how life can change for people so quickly.  I hope they are doing okay and that they are able to recover from whatever happened in September.  We continued to talk and walk and reached a small convenience store that I would have thought was closed and boarded up.  Pastor Tomas says “This is Mohammad’s place” we walk in and Mohamed isn’t there but Luiz is who is the other worker there.  Luiz speaks very broken English but we engage in an amazing conversation about Luiz and his family and his faith in God and how he’s trying to represent Christ to Mohamed who is muslim.  Luiz shared two stories where he was faced at gunpoint in this specific store and will tell you that God saved him and it’s because his faith in God that he is still here today.  He(Luiz) is an amazing witness to Muhamed and I’m blessed to say that I was able to become friends with Luiz today.  I will stop back in there often and spend time in his presence.  I found out today that Muhameds store allows our students to use the restroom there during the summer, get cold water from there and shop there.  What our students don’t know is that they are a part of the witness to Muhamed! WOW!!  Did I really get to experience this today????  And my story doesn’t do justice to what I experienced with Pastor Tomas.

Next, I was with Rebecca Gonzales from Casa Central another ministry of ours.  Usually our meetings consist of quick business interactions about what the dates are for next summer and how the past summer went.  Today was different though, Rebecca and I talked about refining things and organizations.  What Casa Central was going through and how it was changing and thinking through how to do it better.  We shared thoughts about liabilities and having large workloads because they can’t fill a job.  Rebecca and I shared a meal together today, not only for business purposes…in fact, we talked about YouthWorks only because one of her interns was an old YW volunteer that came through the Chicago two site and volunteered at Casa Central only to go to school at DePaul and randomly get an internship with Casa Central.  Small world!! Rebecca and I became more than business acquaintances today, we became invested in each other.  Thank God for small things today.

While I was with Rebecca I received a phone call from Maggie Martinez an amazing woman who runs through volunteering/founded and fundraises for an organization called Yipee that we volunteer with in the summer.  She called to let me know that she double booked herself and she is supposed to go to a large business luncheon downtown for business ministries.  She called because she wanted me to be her guest and eat with her and hear about God’s work in ministries throughout the Chicago area.  WOW.  What you don’t know about a Maggie is she is DEEPLY networked in Chicago.  I can’t wait to see who I am able to meet Thursday.  It will be a blessing to be in the presence of them.  God is so faithful.

The first day I was here, I meet with Mr. Howard who runs Eden Place a ministry with us as well.  He told me among other things that he had tea with the first lady recently and was talking about YouthWorks and what we do for him and how we make it possible for him to do his work. ….really, Mr. Howard…the first lady!

Gosh, how faithful is our God to be at work when we are not around and when we think otherwise.

Romans 12:12
Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.

MELISSA BONETTI