NYC Serving Jesus Day 2

This morning we woke up at 7:30am. John Long's famous baked oat meal was served for breakfast at 8:30am. It was delish! After breakfast I shared a brief word of encouragement with the group, and then they were off for their ministry assignments. We split the team into two groups. One group remained here at the church and ran the church's sports program for kids and the other team went a few blocks up the street and worked on the New York City Relief Bus.

The team that stayed here at the church played various games including basketball and dodge ball and had a lot of fun. They were expecting younger kids, but were blessed when many older children showed up. They tried to teach them the game wink, but that bombed. Lacey also shared a short devotional with the kids and they all heeded her exhortation and prayed for one another. That was awesome!

The team that went to work on the Relief Bus worked from 10am-2pm serving soup, bread, and juice to whomever had need of a meal. They actually serve until all of the food is gone. One half of the group worked on the bus rotating through duties such as pouring soup into cups, handing out bread, passing out drinks. The other half of the team was in charge of entertaining children with face painting, writing with chalk on the side walks, and blowing bubbles. They also manned a table with tracts, informational literature, etc.

Since the group that was working at the church completed their ministry before the other group, they went out to the bus and relieved the Relief bus workers (pun intended). By 2pm everyone was pretty whooped and hungry, so they came back to the church for some lunch that John Long had prepared. After lunch everyone headed out to do a bit of sight-seeing. After a fun ordeal on the subway due to some construction that had caused some of the stops on the R-line (including the one the team needed to get to), they re-routed and ended up at the South Ferry where they enjoyed a relaxing ride to Staten Island and back, taking pictures of the Statue of Liberty in particular. The other great site was Nick falling asleep. Unfortunately, he did so in the presence of his brother and his friends, and he mysteriously woke up with a random tattoo of some sort on his arm that said "I Love Jeff." Weird! It's a mystery!

After the ferry ride the team returned to the church where John had a hot dinner waiting for them. As we debriefed, it was great to hear the students unpack whet they had seen and learned throughout the day - the people they had met, the joy they had discovered in serving, and what they felt the Lord was speaking to them as they served Him.

Until tomorrow,

PK

NYC Serving Jesus Day 2