What a week!

This past week has been very full! On Monday, Sarah stopped in Chicago on her way back to Oregon from El Salvador and North Carolina (it was quite a trip!) and we were so happy to be able to make it out to O'Hare for a short visit. Here Sarah is enjoying the smallest ice cream cone ever (this is what it looked like after two licks). I guess airport vendors think they can do whatever they want. The good news is, she only paid $3.22.

Here we are hanging out with the guy in the red vest:

It was also my last week at Instituto del Progreso Latino.... The leaving process was difficult at times, but I am very thankful for the opportunities to connect with people before saying goodbye. A week ago Friday, we had a volunteer appreciation dinner at Cafe Catedral (the same castle-like place where we had our Christmas party), and we invited two of our Citizenship students who have recently passed their interviews with Immigration to help us pass our certificates. It was so fun to hang out with everyone! Here are Maria Guadalupe, who just passed her interview two weeks ago; Jose Luis, a volunteer; Rene, a brand new US citizen; me; Sonia, the citizenship program director; and Candice, a former citizenship instructor:

Coincidentally, in the room next door to us at the Catedral, there was a big press event for some Lucha Libre stars. Lucha Libre is basically Mexican professional wrestling where all the wrestlers were masks. It was wild.

This past Wednesday, my co-workers had an amazing goodbye lunch for me, with so much food we all gave ourselves happy stomach aches. Francisca made cheese empanadas and Edel brough samosas, which we determined are basically Indian empanadas with different stuff as stuffing. We also had an amazing salad with homemade dressing, vegetarian sopes, and a huge fruit-topped chocolate cake from BomBon Cafe, an incredible bakery in Pilsen. Here is Jesus setting up for the meal (you can see some empanadas in the foreground). Unfortuntely, I left my camera in the other room during the meal so I didn't get any pictures of all the food and of the 10 of us squeezed in around the table. It was such a nice time together!

Thursday was my last day at the office and I spent Friday sleeping and cleaning the apartment--it was fabulous!

On another work-related note, Eric has been promoted from server at the Blind Faith Cafe to a management position. He is receiving some training tonight but will continue serving through this coming week. This will mean more regular hours and a stable income--both of which are good things. Plus he won't have to wear the vest every day! Hopefully he will share more about this change sometime soon!

Later Friday, Eric and I volunteered, along with a few other folks from Holy Covenant UMC, with The Night Ministry, a organization that provides services for "people on the nighttime streets of Chicago." The Night Ministry folks take small groups out two nights a week to a specific location in Lakeview (our church's neighborhood--which also happens to be the neighborhood with one of highest number of homeless youth in the country), where they park the van and serve a meal and visit with the folks who come by. It was a very meaningful evening.

My mom had a class in Lombard (a Chicago suburb) on Saturday, so she spent Friday night with us. In the morning, we all went to the Heartland Cafe to meet Brooke and Libby, who were in town from Arkansas and Texas.

Of course, we had to visit the giant jelly bean in Millenium Park:


And then we walked around and explored and enjoyed Isabel, the daughter of a friend of Libby's who was off for a bit, while the city got swallowed up by fog. For a while there, we thought we were in Oregon again! But eventually the buildings reappeared!

We had such a nice time together!

Even though I like the fog, today's weather was a huge improvement! It was 78 degrees and sunny! There was quite a bit of wind, but it was fabulous to be outside without a coat--and in short sleeves!

Could this be the real spring???