There's so much at stake when you take a group of youth anywhere.  Especially when you travel across borders to do so.  This July, we headed to Toronto for our service trip.  It was a bit of a rocky road to get there, with a change in destination. 

We arrived at a church in the East York neighborhood of Toronto and geared up for a week of service and relationship building. We spent the week divided into various service teams - working with kids in neighborhood programming; painting in a poorer neighborhood; serving meals and assisting at a food bank held at the church where we were staying.  And, we got to experience a little bit of Toronto as well - touring Chinatown, walking around Toronto guided by a Anthony, a man who had lived on the streets for over 10 years and battled addiciton, and hanging out a park nearby.  

The highlight of our trip was watching our youth come together as a strong and supportive group.  We went with Grace Lutheran Church (also in Evanston) so there were two churches working together.  At the end of the week, it became tough to tell which youth was from each church.  It was a true testiment to the family of God uniting people.