New York! New York!

Well, now that it's officially Fall, I thought it might be a good time to do a recap of my exciting summer. This would be one seriously long post if I tried to detail everything I did, and my fingers might get numb from typing so much...so I decided to just start with the beginning and hopefully post the rest very shortly.

It all started in New York, New York. My sister had gone on the same trip last summer and loved it so much, she convinced us to take a team. Stuart and I did the pre-trip back in March, which was a crazy, rainy, fun weekend. We were excited to go back with warmer weather and a team of high-schoolers.  Finally, on June 5th, we loaded a bunch of church vans and headed north. Yep, we were "those kids" in a long caravan, taking over Chick-fil-a's and Taco Bell's all along the east coast. Our first destination once in the Empire State: Coney Island. We spent a few hours here and it was very interesting to me. I had no idea it was part of NY that is slowly dying. While several groups are trying to save it, others want to tear it down and build fancy sky-scrapers.  I got to see my dear friend from college, Emily and her boyfriend. They, now official New Yorkers, thought we were crazy for wanting to spend time there, but they came anyway and joined us for some Nathan's hot dogs. Yumm.

From there we headed full-swing into our mission trip. CSM (Center for Student Missions) always does a great job with inner-city trips. The next day was our first ministry day and we went on a 10-mile walking prayer tour. Although it was a long day, it was great to see the big sites of NYC all in one day, and pray for what God had in store for us. The rest of the week we spent riding on the subway, serving at soup kitchens, day cares, community gardens, and homeless shelters. I was paired with one my Georgia Mom's, Christy, (both Stu and I lived in her basement), which was the highlight of my week. Our team did great and really had some eye opening experiences. It's not every day you're serving soup and bread on the streets of Harlem and see two women get in a fight! We were safe though, don't worry.

Another highlight was meeting a woman named Pastor Debbe, (in Coney Island believe it or not..that's where we are in the picture I posted above). She ran an incredible homeless ministry, called Salt and Sea Mission. Since she was once on the streets herself, she knew what it was like to be in their shoes, and she knew what it was like to experience the almighty saving grace of Jesus. As our team shyly stumbled into her office, she immediately scolded us for looking lazy and uninterested. Nice lady, really. She said that sharing God's love with people is the most exciting, important thing we can do in our lives...and we MUST be enthusiastic about it. No yawning. No day dreaming. No slacking off. Despite the fact that most of our team were incoming 9th graders, she held us all to the same standard of excellence. She encouraged me personally to be much more outgoing in my faith. Sure it says "faith without deeds is dead", but what is faith without words?? If people can only see the nice things we do, but never hear the saving words of forgiveness, we have done them no good.

Ironically enough, that afternoon our team split into two and each group did the "cultural plunge". We wandered into a park with a list of questions about the city and came upon a group of homeless people whom we spent the majority of our time talking to. I had the privilege of meeting a woman from Connecticut named Lisa, and sharing the gospel with her. Thanks to Pastor Debbe, I was bold and held nothing back. What if this was the only time Lisa would ever hear the Good News? It's pretty rare that I actually have the opportunity to tell someone, in a personal way, that God cares for them no matter what and that He desperately wants them to put their faith in Him, so that in the end, they will spend eternity in His kingdom. It was an amazing experience and I still pray for Lisa often, and my life has been totally changed because of the two women I met that day. New York was great and I feel honored to have shared those experiences with my team. I was, however, totally exhausted at the end of it, but I can't wait to go back!

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