It Was a Quiet Week Along the Shore of Lake Michigan--Playdate: Chicago

Last week I traveled with my son for orientation at North Park University in Chicago, where he will begin attending college in the fall. We flew to Chicago from Providence, Rhode Island, but the truth is I’m not entirely sure how we arrived at this school. A year ago, plans for my son’s future looked very different.

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While on campus, I bought my North Park University mom hoodie sweatshirt. I splurged for the thick, athletic one with embroidered letters. I believe I earned it.

North Park is the denominational college of the Evangelical Covenant Church, founded by Swedish immigrants. My son and I ate breakfast at Tre Kronor Restaurant, just across the street from campus. Painted on its walls was a mural filled with Swedish trolls, and its menu offered an assortment of foods both pickled and covered in cream sauce. On a bulletin board near the restrooms was a flyer advertising a golf tournament--The Lutefisk Open. I kid you not.

Next to the restaurant was The Sweden Shop. There, I bought my husband a t-shirt which reads:

Kӧttbulle

(shut-bhuu-leh)

Which means Swedish meatballs.

Buildings on campus are named Magnusson, Anderson, Hanson, Wilson, and Carlson. The school’s football stadium is named after Super Bowl champion head coach Mike Holmgren. He’s one of their tribe. North Park’s teams are The Vikings.

Of course.

As I walked around campus, words like maraud and pillage kept running through my mind.

While in the campus center, I looked through an information display about study abroad options for North Park students. The school offers programs in: Sweden, Kenya, Sweden, Iceland, Denmark, Sweden, Greece, China, Norway, Finland, Sweden, and Sweden. Oh, and Nashville which, I guess if one is Swedish, seems a country unto itself.

During one of the orientation sessions, university staff spoke about services the school has to offer. Those speaking were Hispanic, African, African American, and Swedish. Seated next to me were a mother and daughter in full African dress. They had come from Kenya; the mother was originally from Uganda. I wondered about their stories and the journey they had taken to reach this school in Chicago.

I glanced back toward my son sitting in a row surrounded by other incoming freshman. Seated in Anderson Chapel near my son born in the Philippines and having a Scandinavian name were more Asian students, as well as those who were African American, bi-racial, and Hispanic.

And in that chapel located on the park-like grounds of a university within the city of Chicago, I caught a glimpse of the world which began in a garden and ends in the city which lies foursquare, where multitudes from every tribe, nation, language, and tongue will surround God's throne:

After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, "Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!" And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying, "Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.

Revelation 7:9-12, ESV

My son leaves for college in just a few weeks. There he will meet his roommate Johann, from Sweden.

Joining with Laura, sharing the God-joy I found in this playdate with my son:

And with L.L. Barkat: