Saturday morning at 10am, 23 Planet Impacters met at the Smithtown train station and headed into New York City for a week-long adventure of serving Jesus and growing in God. We to the Long Island Rail Road to Jamaica, then took the subway to Dekalb Ave. in Brooklyn where we disembarked and walked two blocks to our host church, Living Waters Fellowship. We were blessed to have chef John Long welcome us with a hot lunch. We then quickly jumped back on the train and headed all the way up to Hunts Point in the Bronx where we met Pastor Reggie Stutzman, a friend of Pastor Kevin, who is planting a church in the area. Hunts Point is an area of the Bronx that desperately needs the message of hope, the good news of Jesus.
A cool thing happened when we got off the train. Pastor Reggie instructed us to walk up the street while he parked the car and he would meet up with us. Pastor Kevin led the team up a few blocks and then stopped in front of an vacant building to call Pastor Reggie. At that moment Pastor Reggie walked up and said, "I't really interesting that you stopped in front of THIS building. We have been praying over this building for a while now - that God would open a door for us to make this our permanent church location. Wow!
After a briefing and a time of prayer, our team walked the area for about 45-minutes and handed out 300 flyers inviting people to the service tomorrow. A group pic, goodbyes to Pastor Reggie, and we were back on the train heading down to Manhattan where we took the team to The Top of the Rock - the top of Rockefeller Center. Today was brutally cold with strong, whipping winds, so you can imagine what it felt like 70 floors in the air. We got a group pic and enjoyed the fantastic views of the city. Back downstairs we had some coffee and snacks, then took the train back to Brooklyn.
Dinner was followed by an orientation by Pastor Ron and Anna - the pastors of Living Waters. We then got settled into our rooms, PK met with the leaders, then we had our small groups. Our theme today (which tied in with the trip to Rockefeller) was human potential. We studied the story of the tower of Babel in Genesis 11 and had some terrific conversations about the good things people can accomplish together as well as the potential negative consequences of human achievement. We then worked on our first memory verse of the week (2 Corinthians 4:7) and prayed together. A great start to this adventure!
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