This summer has been so
good and God has done some amazing things in Chicago! He was able to use the
teams from Texas, Missouri, and Iowa to do some awesome things and reach out to
a lot of people, especially the kids in the Safe Haven program. It was really
cool to see that bonds that were made between the mission teams and the Safe
Haven kids and how they were in tears when they had to leave. The Safe Haven
kids who once used to be closed off are now opening up their lives to the
missions teams and some are even opening their hearts to Jesus which is
awesome!
Unfortunately, I don’t have a lot of good
stories to share about last week because the first half of the week I spent in
our apartment being sick. I had some kind of really bad cold with all the
symptoms in the book, but God is good and I started feeling better around
Wednesday.
One story that I would like to share is
about last Friday at the laundry mat. We go to the local laundry mat every
Friday around 9:30am to do our laundry, but this week we didn’t get there until
12:30pm. When we were finishing up and folding our clothes I was standing next
to an older black lady who noticed my t-shirt and made a comment that it was a
unique shirt and that she loves collecting unique t-shirts. At that time I was
looking for an opportunity to bring spiritual matters into the conversation and
she set it up for me by telling me that she had just recently gone to Hawaii
with her husband (who is a bowler!) and got some unique shirts there. I told
her that one of my good friends Nick Willke and his wife had just moved to
Hawaii to minister to youth through a church. She thought that was really cool
and began to talk about her own relationship with Christ! During that time I
was folding a t-shirt of mine that has my friend Jonathan Pound on the front
and the word “HOPE” on the back. She only saw the back and she told me she
thought that was a cool shirt. Well I showed her the front and was able to tell
her the story about my friend Jonathan and how he struggled with cancer for
almost a year and half and passed away in March, but through all of his
struggles he was able to love people more than he ever had before and God
taught him so much about life that he shared with everyone he knew. After I
told her about Jonathan she told me that she is a breast cancer survivor and
during that whole time she had cancer she was able to rely on God for strength
and was never once worried about her cancer because she knew that the Lord was
going to take care of her. She reassured me that Jonathan is in a much better
place than this earth and he is living with Jesus.
Before I left she told me that she saw
things in me that I couldn’t see myself and that God is going to use me in some
great ways. Her name was Mrs. Johnson, she was 70 years old, and was about to
celebrate her and her husband’s 50th wedding anniversary. This woman
was an angel and encouraged my soul very much.
Even though the beginning of my week
wasn’t fun when I was sick, the Lord blessed me at the end of the week with
much encouragement from Mrs. Johnson. Continue to pray for our team as it is
our last week in Chicago. We are going to miss this place tremendously, but we
know that the Lord is going to continue to use us as we go to Alabama and we are
looking forward to seeing all of our friends there!
In Him,
Jonathan Oliveras
