Aurora - Thursday, September 17

Today was a unique and fulfilling day for the PVs in Aurora. Today we worked with World Relief - Aurora/Dupage, which includes 104 staff joining with 75 churches and 750 volunteers to serve 5,500 refugees and immigrants each year. World Relief began offering services in DuPage County in 1979 and then opened an additional office in Aurora in 1999. Their strategy is to create, lead and continually improve services in partnership with local churches and the community to help the most vulnerable be transformed economically, socially and spiritually. A large part of their funding comes from donations and their biggest fundraiser of the year is tomorrow. This is where the PV volunteers comes in... We were asked to help move items to the banquet hall, drive a large truck and set up for the big dinner. We helped to set up the tables and also to set up two displays in the back of the room depicting a refuge tent and then the apartment that a new refuge would move into once they come to the states. It was great to lend a hand to such a great organization!

 Since we have some folks that wouldn't be able to join us for an end of the week dinner out, we decided to have a dinner out tonight, in Aurora. We shared a great meal and great fellowship, after which we returned home for the night's reflection and jobsites for the last day.