Spring Break 2012 :: Chicago

This spring students from the CSC will travel to Chicago for their spring break mission trip. This will be our fourth year working with Center for Student Missions (CSM). Previous trips have taken us to Nashville, and Washington D.C. This year we will be heading north to the well known city of Chicago, Illinois.

We will leave Lafayette on Sunday March 11th after 2nd service and return Thursday March 15th in the early evening. If you are a college aged student please consider joining us! Contact Phil for more details!

We also wanted to leave you with some facts about Chicago. Please consider praying for those who will go on the trip and the people we will meet while there.

Chicago Facts and Figures

• Chicago houses nearly 3,000,000 residents over its 228.5 square miles (that’s approximately 25 miles long by 15 miles wide). The greater Chicagoland area contains nearly 10,000,000 residents. Chicago’s population is 27% Hispanic, 36% African-American, 33% Anglo-American, 4% Asian, and 1% other races.
• The Chicagoland area is home to some of America’s largest corporations, including Boeing, Motarola, United Airlines, Aon, Allstate, Kraft Foods, Walgreens, and McDonald’s (including the Golden Arches’ famous Hamburger University).
• Chicago contains 16,500 public housing units for seniors and families across the city. Chicago public housing is currently undergoing “the plan for transformation,” the largest and most ambitious redevelopment effort of public housing in the history of the United States.
• Chicago’s Wrigley Field is home for baseball’s most beloved losers – the Cubs (or “Da Cubbies”, as locals call them). The team draws capacity crowds year after year, despite its decades–long record of futility.

Did You Know That…

• Chicago has 28 sister cities including Warsaw, Poland. Osaka, Japan. Casablanca, Morocco. Bogotá, Columbia. Delhi, India.
• Chicago loves its food. It is known for deep dish pizza, Italian Beef, and the Chicago style hot dog. Chicago’s love for food reaches its pinnacle every June with, “The Taste of Chicago”. Over 3.5 million people will attend this 10 day event. This is the largest free food festival in the world.
• Chicago is known as “The Neighborhood City”. The metropolis is divided into 77 distinct neighborhoods, each with its own name and identity.
• The Cubs haven’t won a World Series title since 1908, the longest such run of frustration in major sports history.

People, Problems, Issues

• The Chicago public school system is one of the nation’s poorest. There are over 400,000 students in the public school system and 84% of them live at or below the poverty line. 12,000 students attending school in Chicago are classified as homeless. For the students that start high school about 50% will graduate.
• The number one cause of homelessness in Chicago is lack of affordable housing. Chicago is tearing down over 22,000 public housing units and replacing them with only 7,500 units. The average rent for a 2-bedroom apartment is $1,736 a month. A person would need to work over 52 hours per week at a minimum wage job in order to only pay the rent of an apartment at that cost.
• Women with children comprise 34% of Chicago’s homeless population. Most often, they’re fleeing domestic violence they suffered in their former residences.

Chicago :: Spring Break :: 2012

Welcome Back!

Welcome back to Purdue, Classes, and the CSC!
The new semester and the new year offers an opportunity to make fresh decisions, trends and habits in your life. The choices you make in the next two weeks will shape the rest of your semester, so I hope you will allow me to offer a few suggestions:

• Make time for Personal, quiet time with God everyday (start with 5 minutes)
• Choose carefully what you say "yes" to
• Think about planning on getting your homework done before Sunday night so you can try out LIFE groups... that is a really special opportunity!
• Know the story you want to write with your life. Make decisions accordingly!
• Don't forget to have some (wholesome :) ) fun!

We will have Encounter on Wednesday at 7.30pm Come on out, bring a friend, and enjoy cake and ice cream for December birthdays afterward!

Fall Bible Studies

Hey all,
Bible Studies for the Fall begin tonight at 8pm. We have both a Men's Bible Study and a Women's Bible Study meeting concurrently at the CSC. We will meet every week (with few exceptions) on Tuesday at 8 for the remainder of the semester. Hope to see you there!

August is Here!

Welcome to the first day of August. Campus is coming alive again, with more and more students and staff arriving back on campus each day. The construction projects are wrapping up and the buses are making more rounds.

Here are a few things to make on your calendar for the CSC!

August 16th :: Booth at Boiler Gold Rush from 11am-1pm in the Armory on campus

August 20th :: CSC Clean Up Day from 9am-11am at the CSC. Come help us clean and organize the CSC for a new school year.

August 21st :: CSC Prayer Night at Elmwood at 6pm

August 22 :: Welcome week kickoff cookout at the CSC at 6pm

We are looking forward to your arrival!

Mission Trip :: Washington D.C

Tomorrow we will depart for our spring break mission trip to Washington D.C. We will travel 12 hours via church van to our final destination in the north part of the city. We will stay at a church in the evenings and spend our days immersed in the urban culture of D.C. We will work with various organizations and ministries that are already established in the community. We are excited for God to use us in big ways this week. We ask that you lift us up in prayer as we travel and spend time sharing the Good news with the people of D.C. Please also pray for God to be working in the hearts of those that we meet. Pray that their hearts will be softened and that they will be blessed by our presence in their lives and ultimately that they will see the light of Jesus shining through us and our actions. Please pray for our students, Alyssa, Alex, Foo and Nick as they venture out of their comfort zones and prepare to love on the people of D.C. We are excited to grow together with them and we look forward to sharing our experiences with all of you when we return.

Here are some facts from the Center for Student Missions website about Washington D.C.

• Washington, DC is home to 530,000 people, 66% of whom are African-American and an additional 16% are persons of color. The homeless population in
• Washington, DC is a southern city. Culturally, D.C. is “southern” in its atmosphere, politics, interests and relationships.
• Washington, DC has struggled with the issue of homelessness since the 1880’s. Between 1860 and 1880, D.C.’s population soared from 40,000 to 120,000. Completely overwhelming the city’s infrastructure, these new arrivals, mostly freed slaves from the former Confederacy, subsisted in severely overcrowded, disease-ridden, and impoverished conditions. D.C.’s first building and health codes were written in 1880 to cope with this crisis.
• D.C. is currently estimated between 15,000 and 40,000.
• Since 1989, nearly 100,000 people have moved out of the District. Left behind are the most impoverished segment of the population--with the exception of the high-income residents of the trendy Georgetown neighborhood.
• D.C. has a small tax base for its size, due to the fact that the federal government owns much of the land in the district—all of it tax-exempt. This shrunken tax base, combined with the flight of more affluent people to the suburbs, poor management by many district agencies, and other factors, has resulted in D.C. being on the verge of economic meltdown.
• Washington, DC spends more money per student than most school districts in the U.S., yet has one of the poorest rates of return on its investment. In the 8th Ward (Anacostia), of every 100 students that start high school, only 13 will graduate on time. They’ll depart with a diploma and an average 4th to 5th-grade reading level.

Heroes of Faith

Hey all,
This week we will begin a new study looking at the "Heroes of Faith" from Hebrews chapter 11.
We begin this week with the story of Abel.

Winter Welcome Back Luau

On Friday evening several students joined us at the CSC for a Welcome Back Winter Luau. Elizabeth and Rebecca did a great job planning this Hawaiian themed evening. The CSC was decorated with island decor and the guests were able to enjoy some delicious island themed treats. We even played games - coconut stomp and the limbo. Stay tuned for videos of your campus minister participating in the Limbo!

Thanks to all who came out and joined in the fun!