We had a wonderful time of picnicing and watching fireworks on the westside the evening of July 4th. Our church family was joined by the team from Highland Baptist Church (New Iberia LA) and the team from Pike Baptist Association (McComb MS). We got sprinkled on at the end of the evening, but it was a good time together.
The week of July 2-8, we had 42 volunteers here and we did everything from prayer walking, trash pick up, serving meals at 2 different soup kitchens, teaching Wii games at 2 homeless shelters, weeding at DeWitt Clinton park, cleaning and organizing apartments for 2 of our church family, doing various clean up work and painting for a neighbor in our building, praying for and with firemen and police precincts, and much more. We got hot, sweaty, dirty and had a great time!!! Two lovely ladies from the MS team sewed 2 HUGE curtains for the stage in the theatre. A couple from the LA team worked on my laptop computer to help to heal it. It's not well yet, but is surviving in hospice mode and I'm very thankful to Julie and Gannon for their TLC over 2 whole days with it. One small group went over to Brooklyn to prayer walk and map out the area around the David Dean Mission House. It's a NAMB owned mission house that serves as housing for SBC teams coming to NYC to serve with churches here. Everyone's hard work was very much appreciated. (and the boxes of LA food items for the staff will be very much enjoyed!)
The week of July 12-19, we were blessed with 42 people from my home church of First Baptist Church in Rogers AR. This team divided up into smaller work teams and did more serving meals at the soup kitchens, prayer walking, trash pick up, a performance at one of the senior centers, visited firestations and police precincts, helped clean up here at the space, worked on hundreds of beads and prep for jewelry classes, and tons more work. (Thanks Joey for putting up our newly donated ceiling fan in the Lounge!) By the way, a big thank you to my home church for sending me lots of care package items. I will think of you everytime I eat something yummy from my stash!The Rogers team started off their week with a scavenger hunt throughout some of the different neighborhoods in NYC. It gave them a taste of traveling around town, looking for locations, problemsolving transportation issues, asking New Yorkers for help and just having fun. Besides getting very tired and hot, they got to talk about the differences in the neighborhoods that they saw. The scavenger will be improved and used for a lot of teams in the future.
One of the girls from the MS team, Brittani Clark, had planned to stay the rest of the month of July with me and be my intern for the month. We shared my one-room apartment and things went pretty well. It was great to have Britt here to help me get teams to different locations at the same time. During the week of July 20-26, Brittani and I and a few others from Parable Church stepped in to serve at some soup kitchens and classes that were supposed to be served by a team that had to postpone their trip. We were scurring all over day and night for part of that week and finished on Saturday evening. We were tired, but had a lot of fun.
This week, July 28-31, we have a team here from Mt Airy NC. It's their 3rd trip in 12 months. We love having them here to work with us. It was a kind of last minute thing since the place they were supposed to work had to cancel, so Stewart called and asked if they could work with us in any way. They are busy prayer walking, serving meals at the 2 soup kitchens, helping out at the Space and a couple of the ladies helped a new friend with some apartment cleaning and organizing. They are having a good time and we can't wait to have them back here in December.This Friday, August 1, I will go to an all day CPR/First Aid class. (I always let my certification expire and then have to take the whole class again...oh well) I look forward to it. This will be a good thing to put on my resume for the Babysitting service that I've registered with. Then Saturday will be my first day with no responsibilities to anyone for over a month! I'm ready to just lay around and relax! I have tons of letters and cards to write and a book I want to finish and so many things I want to do, I know I'll fill the day up pretty quickly.
Emilee, a friend who has spent the last 2 summers living in NYC while her husband interned at a law firm, was back in the city for the last few days while Matt took the NY bar exam. They currently live in St Louis and are moving to Grand Rapids MI for Matt to clerk for a Federal Judge. I was blessed to have lunch and visit with Emilee today. I sure do miss them. Maybe someday God will move them to NYC. They love it here, but God needs to use them in MI for a while. It was good to give her five or six hugs before she left today.
Another friend, Anna Beth, and I are going to get together Sunday afternoon for a chat and walk through Central Park. We haven't had time to see each other in months, so this will be very enjoyable.
While Britt was here, we tried to do and see a lot of things that she was interested in. She got the chance to ride a bike in Central Park, have lunch at Tavern on the Green, lead teams over the Brooklyn Bridge and other places, eat in various restaurants, be guided by some of the different friends here at Parable Church, see the premiere of the Dark Night moving at midnight with some of the crazy Parable people who stay up way too late, eat numerous cupcakes from Magnolia bakery, hang out with her home team, hang out with some of the kids from the Rogers team, visit the Brooklyn Tabernacle, and other things. We had a very full month and it was fun to have her here to do some of these things with.The month of August will be a quiet one. Many people leave the city in the summer. That goes for a lot of our church family, too. It will be just me and Mike here in the office for part of the month. We plan to get a lot of 'thinking and writing' done while it's relatively quiet. There is a lot to catch up on since July was so crazy.
A group of guys (and some gals) from Mike's home church in PA have driven over for a few Saturdays to do some work in the theatre. The improvements will allow for a better stage floor, seating area, more lighting and more curtains. We surely appreciate their hard work. Artie, one of the guys, was in the midst of the towers when they came crashing down. It was very moving to hear his story. We appreciate these teams so much.
Remember Kenneth, the Lincoln Center guard that I speak to each morning? Well, he wasn't around for many weeks. I was hoping that nothing had happened to him. I finally asked a replacement guard one day if he knew him. He said yes, that Kenneth had been on vacation to see family in Jamaica. (I think the guy thought I was weird asking about a guard) Anyway, Kenneth was back to work a few days later. I walked over to say hi and he gave me a really big hug! It was nice to be missed by a friend. He's been at his post every day since then. He even noticed when I was really early one morning. It's nice to see his smiling face.
I met some interesting people at Grand Central Neighborhood, the soup kitchen and homeless shelter we volunteer at. I got to help a guy named Carl with his resume. He is quite a character. He was the topic of conversation with one of the team yesterday who helped served meals there. Since Britt and I were at that location for 3 days in a row, we got familiar with a few of the people. It was nice not to just be a shot in the dark, but to be there enough to really make contact. I heard through the grapevine that Carl may have gotten a job offer. I hope so! He is a sous chef and I plan on going to where ever he gets a job and eating! yum!
God has been answering prayers right and left here. He is bringing in people to the Space and to the Church who are just needing some attention and loving. It's great to be here and be available to talk and start relationships with them. Sometimes you wonder if all the hard work of just being here is paying off, and He is faithful to give us the gift of seeing a seed planted and sometimes letting us water it. I've been meeting lots of people from other churches here in the city that are involved in missions - or social justice, as it's called here - and it's so wonderful to work beside them. It's funny how small the world of God's workers can be in a city this size. We run into each other all the time as we volunteer in different places. It's quite a blessing.
Last Sunday evening during our service, we had an 'affirmation' exercise, which is where one person is picked and everyone says something affirming to that person. I was the recipient of all the wonderful words of love. I was bragging on the folks at my home church for how much they love on me. It is the same here at Parable Church. I am so blessed to have loving Christian friends at both churches that I call 'home'. God is endless in His blessings and the ingenious ways that He finds to show His love to someone through other people. It's never the same for everyone. It's always special to that person. All these people in the world for Him to know and love and bless, and He gets it right everytime... What a Father!!!
Well, I'll go for now and I'll try to add some pics when I can.
Be Sweet!
