I arrived yesterday here in New York City around 5pm. I had a gig on Friday and Saturday in N. Augusta, SC, therefore I didn't get the pleasure of riding up here with the team of 50 who made the trek via 15 passenger vans on Saturday. The trip ONLY took them....O'.....17 hours. From what I understand there were no engine problems, flat tires, transmission blow outs, just simply small blatters. You get the drift. After arriving the team hit the bed at the Hostel International (our home for the week). It's awesome because there are people from all over the globe and all walks of life staying here.
Sunday, everyone took in the sounds and sermons of some local church plants here in the city. (The Gallery Church, Origins, The Journey, The Village Church, Redeemer Pres...all different in style, but all missional in nature) The afternoon was free time and everyone did there own thing within smaller groups. (naps, Little Italy, Ground Zero, China Town, Time Square, New York Style Pizza, Learning the Subway and more) At dinner we ALL ate together and shared communion together here at our home away from home...we always should start anything we do with the reason we live and the reason we serve...Jesus.
Today....breakfast @ 7am...Worship through Music (Brett Younker led...USC Grad...worship leader at The Gallery) and teaching by Jon Tyson (Native of Australia...Lead Pastor of Origins)...9am, time alone with God (many went to Central Park...I went to Starbucks)...11am Teams headed to Ministry Sites. Ministry Teams Include: Prayer Team, Kids Team, Homelessness Team, & Construction Team. Tonight we ate dinner with our teams. As a team we ate in China Town at The House of Peking Duck, an awesome...awesome China Bistro...good stuff.
NUGGETS OF THOUGHTS FROM MONDAY:
I am on the prayer team. We walked the city and prayed for the people of this city and the local churches that God has place here as missionaries to this crazy city. For me walking around praying all day is honestly very stretching, but I loved it. It is amazing how many times Jesus will allow our conversations with him to be interrupted with people who simply are in need of prayer and attention. (little sarcism there) I am blown away by what God points out to us when we are in a constant state of communion with him. Today, alone just with the prayer team the following happened....a number of people in grand central station were prayed for, many meals were shared with strangers, new boots for a man without decent shoes, pants for a man who's pants were on it's last day, and one guy asking why in the world would someone so young be so generous with what they had.....and the answer...."Well, Jesus was extremely generous to the world when he went to cross and then conquered death." The tears in the 52 year old mans eyes were enough that we will again arise to serve a great God in the morning.
Please pray for the people of this city.....it amazes me that there are so many lonely people in our nations most populated city. Thanks for your prayers and look for another update tomorrow night sometime. Back to our sites tomorrow and a little Mute Math tomorrow night at Gramercy Theatre.
I'm happy you're doing this dustin!
It's great to hear what's going on!
Posted by: alison! | March 13, 2007 at 02:37 PM
ps - nice typing skills. capital letters, punctuation and all!
Posted by: alison! | March 14, 2007 at 02:35 PM