Orientation has begun

Hello everyone, and thank you for taking the time to read this blog! I really appreciate your interest and support! I will try to write fairly regularly in the coming year to keep you all informed about my experience in Paraguay. 

Today was our first full day of orientation here in Chicago. There are eight youth and three Mennonite Mission Network staff staying at Chicago Community Mennonite Church in Garfield Park. It has been great to meet all of these people that I will be spending the next ten days with. Everyone is very nice and fun and I think we will have a great time together for orientation.

So far we have been introduced to Garfield Park, practiced getting to know new neighborhoods by being given directions to a random neighborhood that we were to then explore (we went to Paseo Boricua, a neighborhood of mostly Puerto Ricans), and talked about Enneagram, a system for learning about personality types. Later in the week we will focus on faith and spirituality things, team building, serving inter-culturally, and more specific things to prep us for leaving for Paraguay.

I'll try to post once more before we leave to let you know how this week went.

Thanks for reading!

Ben