Busy Busy!

So it has been a while, so I just wanted to check in and say I'm still here!

This summer I am taking two and a half classes in conjunction with my internship. The first class I took this past spring and I will take a follow-up class in the fall for the Bible internship that follows your Junior year. This is the half class, because there are not many requirements for me to be actually working on . . . however

I am in another internship class based on my communication degree and I have been reading and writing papers for it as well . . . It should hopefully be over by July 5th so I am looking forward to finishing all of the final projects for that class.

The final class was my Maymester course, teaching the good news. I talked some about it before, but it is in conjunction with the World Wide Witness program at ACU. So I am writing papers for it as well and it will hopefully conclude its last assignments July 29!

I also remembered we have a blackboard system here that we also read and make posts online for discussion among interns and leadership here in the Bronx . . . so am I giving lots of excuses for my lack of writing . . . YES! I'm sorry and I will hopefully get on more of a regular system again, there are so many things I want to talk about and am experiencing here in the mega-city!

We had a discussion last week about pluralism and it opened my world yet again the crazy diversity of this place! Hopefully I will be able to discuss it more in full at a later date . . . for now I am about to head to the park, play some basketball and dominoes . . . and finish up with a Bible study over there at the local McDonalds! I hope all is well in your world!

Basketball

Last Thursday I played some ball before a Bible study I had in the area. So what was my first experience playing ball in the Bronx? Well you better believe a 12 year old challenged me to one-on-one! I was slightly amused and then slightly terrified that he might beat me and all my credibility would be gone forever.

But, I prevailed! Ha, he was most definitely a good little player, but I had about a foot on him, so the challenge was too great! The older guys saw me and saw that I was pretty tall and I guess that got them interested enough to ask me to play with them. They were all legit, but I was just happy they invited me into their game! Their skills though mostly consist of the ability to jump higher, make moves quicker, and play stronger than me . . . but you better believe I have old man bball skills that are taken for granted. Practically no one knows how to shoot a ball there, which means my high arching jump shot proves that I am from another planet, which is cool . . . I think.

All this to say, once they invited me on the court I never left because I was either picked up for every game or won. That was pretty exciting to be accepted to that community so quickly. I still have not figured out the system because not everyone gets to play. Someone calls next game, but then they pick the best players available not the ones who have been waiting the longest. Anyways, basketball is fun, I'm glad it exists.

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On Wednesdays and Fridays the interns do a prayer station on the busy intersection in the Bronx. The commute over there takes 40 minutes so I usually take that time to prepare myself and focus. Today, it seemed like God took off with a head start that I was not ready for, but proved once again that God is on a completely different time table than I am, which is wonderful and definitely makes things more exciting and dramatic. As I was sitting on the bus (probably looking tired and uninteresting) a guy asked if I had a free Bibles in the box I was carrying. I mistook him for a prophet, before I saw that "Street Ministry" was written along the side of the box, although it was still a pretty good educated guess. Alfonso has been reading the Bible intently for the past couple of weeks and he has been having trouble because he has the King James version, but sometimes cannot understand it completely, because . . . well it is the King James version. He was excited that I had the NIV and that the words were bigger so he could read more easily. He then proceeded to teach ME about Bible stories he had been reading about.

This discussion sparked another one from the lady sitting next to me named Margie. Margie wanted to know about the church we were working with because she felt like it was time to make a change so she could grow more in her spiritual life. She described needing a Bible based presence in the church and close relationships where she did not just show up Sunday morning and then leave without talking to anyone. It sounds like Margie will pretty much soak up what the Bronx Fellowship is about and we both were really excited about what may be a God orchestrated connection. She lives like half a block from the house church Katie goes to, which was another cool natural connection.

This began another conversation with a man who had been working with a prison ministry who was interested in what we had been doing and he shared his vision of street ministry that he felt God was calling him to.


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My night ended on an encouraging note, I had a Bible study with a man named Solomon. He's a great guy and loves learning. Hopefully I will get the chance to tell you more about him as the summer goes on, but his is another name you can be praying for!

Monday's and Tuesday's

I wanted to take a second and talk about our typical Mondays and Tuesdays.

On Mondays we begin the day at different locations all over New York City in a time of group reflection. We reflect on theological ideas such as the Kingdom of God, which was Jesus' primary message and we think about cultural issues as well as the thinking behind what/how/why/etc the Bronx Fellowship. After this we spread out within the city and take a good chunk of time for individual reflection in solitude. Last week I went to a large church on 42nd street, which was great! This is an obvious and natural time to connect with God and to rethink over the past week and begin to think about the week ahead of us. However, as we reflect on those two items - both past and future - I try and focus on the present moment and connect with God. I am reading a book by Henry Nowen right now and he says that it is in the solitude moments that we intensely discover our need for God and turn to him. (PS there is a lot of time to read or listen to music on public transportation, which has been incredible for me!).

Then Tuesdays are our play days! Last week, like I said we went to the Metropolitan Museum which was absolutely ridiculous because of its size and spectacularness! This week, Katie and I will be heading to Coney Island!

This week has once again brought many adventures and taught me much about myself, the culture, and the church! Sometime soon I will also post about my African experience! Yes I have now successfully encountered every culture I have ever been a part of in the Bronx! (I actually take that back because Nathan and his family are from Liberia and not from Uganda, but we/I often classify Africa as a single place when that is of course absurd! Nathan and I talked about that yesterday and I'll work on that). Until next time.

Power Hour!!

Friday the 13^th!

So cool. It’s Friday the 13^th, I just realized this.

It’s about this time the past three years that I begin getting the Champs Camp itch. This may actually be the last day of Champs Camp in Round Rock and I hope it all went well. I heard there is a crazy man by the name of Luke Marrs that is taking the duty of song leader and I am most definitely jealous of his job!

Here in the Bronx, however, I have been able to have a great time with a little thing we call Power Hour! Every Friday at 5 pm we go to a park in one of the local projects and put on a little get together for the kids.

We generally begin with a game of some sort, hangman was our first game, but we may have to throw in some Simon Says and other various starter games . . . we’ll see. Then I get to lead songs with some great kids! It is an interesting group because they are obviously from all parts of the world, ethnically, and they are a good range of ages. I was very curious the first time to see whether or not the older kids would participate, and much to my surprise they began to get into as we sang songs. (I may have heard later from one of the older girls that there is a crush thing going on, but I guess I must deal with the consequences, smile). It has been so great to be a part of an event like Power Hour though and does make me miss Champs Camp even more, but makes me appreciate how I have learned to interact with kids through Champs Camp and the Round Rock church in general.

After this we teach a lesson and then play an organized game and finish everything off with giving them a snack and drink. The parents were really involved and even volunteered to bring the snack this week. Of course, we would love for them to take ownership of Power Hour in this way and so we’ll see if they bring something this afternoon. We were also given a broad number of how many we could expect to come the first time. They said their number last year was as small as 5 kids sometimes but we may expect up to 20. Of course, God decided to prepare some kid’s and parent’s hearts before hand and blow us away when we got there and there was definitely over 30 kids hanging out with us! It was so great!

Last week I was amazed at the answers the kids gave to my questions and they all seemed really excited about what we were doing! I love the energy kids bring and it is one of the most encouraging things I do during the entire week. This afternoon will only be our second Power Hour, but we plan on doing it all summer and going to the park randomly to hang out with the kids when we have a little extra time. Please pray for Power Hour, that God can use us to show his kids how much he loves them and pray that the parents will desire to be actively involved in some way with their kids and their spirituality whether it be taking their kids to a church somewhere, joining one of our house churches, or even bringing snacks to Power Hour so that the kids will enjoy the fellowship even more!

Tents, Stars, and Paint

June 10^th

Should playing at the best paintball field in America be a required job description of a missionary? I think so!

This weekend we took a van load of Bronx kids out to a state park in Pennsylvania. This in itself was a wonderful event to witness. First, because these kids are obviously from the city, they do not do so well in the vast, dark, quiet void. It was funny that they almost did not know what it meant to be dark because the city lights are constantly on and you can forget about the word quiet, but of course they were trying as hard as they could to jinx that one. At one point we went out to look at the stars and I pointed the big dipper out to a guy . . . and he exclaimed, “I see it! I see it! I’ve never seen the big dipper!” I was flabbergasted. We also had a great Bible study in four small groups and two guys, Gavin and Josh, both had TONS of questions about anything and everything, which reminded me of me at that age . . . asking Spence and Jason anything and everything about Bible/God questions. It was really great.

Then we dominated in paintball.

For 8 straight hours. Nuff said.

We got home exhausted and ready to crash Sunday night and thankfully had a semi-restful Monday and Tuesday. Mondays are our official reflection day. We begin our day with a group reflection where we talk about theology, house church, new ideas, old ideas, questions about the Bronx, etc and then we do some individual reflection and prayer time. It was great, this week I was able to go to a church on 42^nd street. Tuesdays are our official day off! This week four of us went to the Metropolitan museum and enjoyed some of the best art of all time from the entire world.

Finally, New York public schools have been out the past two days from excessive heat. Yeah I know, I go to New York for a summer to get away from the Texas heat and it follows me . . . today the heat index was 104 to 107 and some of the schools do not have air conditioning so they have to let them go home . . . its so bizarre and it has been like this the past 3 days! It’s nuts, but one of the interns just informed me that there is a TORNADO watch right now and the wind is going crazy so hopefully cooler weather is in the near future. We definitely do not have air conditioning so it is difficult to sleep at night and for the first time in a long while I look forward to really cold showers at night right before bed!

Well I think that’s all for now, I am going to hopefully enjoy game 3 of the NBA finals here in a sec. if I can steal the TV away from Maximo and Yolanda (our gracious hosts) and their precious Yankee’s ball game. I hope everyone is well and enjoying their summers!

Net - Casting

June 5^th

If our efforts this summer could be summed up in a single word it would be net-casting. Let me tell you, net-casting can be extremely uncomfortable! It can also be surprisingly rewarding! What I may like about it most is that it is completely dependent and reliant on the power of God.

Today we set up a prayer station at a busy intersection of town (Fordham and Grand Concourse). We had no clue as to what we were doing and how we should best do it, but we were available, willing, and dependent on God. As weird as it sounds, this is a good formula for God showing up. So anyways, we set up our little prayer station that had a few flyers on it talking about a youth group type thing called CTA (call to arms led by George one of the gametime church members), free Bibles, Friendspeak/LST type material that we will be doing with people, and Camp Shiloh info (for low income kids). With these things we had a triangle white board that we set atop our little vendor table. On it simply read – “can we pray for you?” and “write your prayers”. As this was going on 3 of the 5 of us began to walk around the area praying, which is becoming a much beloved and frequent activity connected with everything we do that we simply refer to as prayer walking.

We found that using the slightly more creative means of accepting prayers on the white board a lot less threatening to people and over the course of an hour a good handful of people responded. This allowed us to lead in to ask follow-up questions like well what does that mean, or how are you related to that person you want us to pray for? In one case a woman asked for a free Bible and gave us her contact information. She even inquired about a Bible study and asked if it would be possible if we could come to her house! She also called the church number a few hours later. It seems as if God has been actively working in her life from the obvious receptiveness and hospitality we were shown today! It was extremely uplifting and energizing and we hope to continue to be a presence every so often on that piece of the street and using new and creative ideas to help people connect with God. (One way we thought of is to get a threefold board thing and put a map on it and have people take a push pin and place in the country/state/city they would like us to pray for – whether it be where some of their family lives, or their country of origin, or whatever the case may be). So if you have ideas of cool things you have seen or anything like that send them our way and you can be praying for this specific ministry!

We hope to creatively connect people lives and stories with God’s story and show them that he has been a part of their story all along (that may have been a little too many stories there). We hope to actively embrace all the culture and history and people around us and take what they know and make God relevant to those things. We hope to net-cast to an entire sea of hurting people, which can be frustrating, awkward, boring, exciting, and rewarding.

I will end by giving an undeveloped thought I just talked with Jordan Bunch (the other male intern) about. We were talking about how people who stepped aside to our booth already displayed great faith to step into the power of God and yield some dependence to him. Just like the lepers and blind and sick and hungry went to Jesus so too were those who came today saying I have faith that God can do something in my life and by taking a few steps in a direction they were not planning to go, they display a mountain of faith.

This was coupled with the discussion that posed the question – did Jesus approach people or did they always approach him? It seemed to us the answer was both. People always seemed to be approaching Jesus and so at first glance we thought that was the answer. However, that was only the case because he was constantly out among the people. So both Jesus and the people took steps towards each other and the power of God entered into the picture!

Fear

June 3^rd

Fear. It can drive us, it can grip us, it can motivate us, it can control us. It may have been used to convert us, to mold us, and to form us.

I do not think of myself as a racist or a prejudice (and I hope that no one sees me as one), but I have struggled to break down barriers and deep seeded discrimination in myself.

Perhaps when you hear the word Bronx you immediately think of the 80’s. This was a time when the entire borough was burning down. For that time and others an immediate emotion that comes to mind is fear.

Yet tonight (as I rode home on a subway by myself for the first time) in the dark I looked around and for once love broke in instead of fear. Instead of fearing the man next to me, behind me, around me, I saw a brother. I did not take the moment to think to myself what I would do if the guy across from me tried to steal my backpack, but thought how I could help my brother across from me if someone tried to steal his backpack (and furthermore how could I help my brother who has been put in the terrible place of stealing backpacks).

Granted I am not inconceivably naïve going around after 11 looking for people to talk to, but at the same time my prejudices (that I hate) are beginning to break down (after 3 days!) and I am being transformed.

As I sat on a bench waiting for the train to come (probably looking like the shady 21 year old) an older Asian lady began approaching the seat next to me. I proceeded to look up and she gave me this Mona Lisa-like smile. She then placed her purse right by me and backed away to put a sweater on because it was cold. There was no atmosphere of fear in her and I think that triggered a love for the Bronx in me (and by that I mean of course the people here). (It also helped that in that moment another man down the way was talking in an African language very energetically).

The stereotype of New Yorkers being cold and unfriendly has been completely shattered. Maybe I should say that stereotype has been broken by people in the Bronx at least (since they are the ones I have been interacting with). I love the sporadic community in the parks everywhere and in the subway trains. I get to see every day (wow I really sound like I have been here a lot longer than I have) young men hold bus doors open for older babushkas (grandmothers). People jump at the chance to help you with directions. The guy sitting next to us in Starbucks randomly overhears our conversation and says we have encouraged him (a newly baptized brother in Christ).

Granted this place is not heaven and has plenty of problems. Yet, I have found myself thinking if people would just act like people here, the world should be able to get along with each other with a spirit of respect and love rather than of fear and hate.

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I am still waiting to hear some Lasoga spoken, but I have most definitely heard a good share of Russian being spoken. There is a huge Russian population where we are and it is really exciting to hear in the streets and read in store shop windows. I have yet to speak with someone, but you better believe I am sharpening up my little wimpy tool bag of Russian words!

June 1st

You have to love first night blog posts! So let me tell you what I am thinking this very moment. I am not sure how often I will be updating because I do not have the internet available as close as I thought I would, therefore, this post is being written in word and will be copy and pasted later (sorry for the delay). Secondly, I can literally see the 2 train out of my window and yes it rattles me a little bit every time it goes by our room. Finally, you should all consider yourselves lucky because on our way to the house tonight I saw a gas station boasting an unleaded fuel price at $4.39!

I love and hate the feeling of stepping outside of the airport on a mission trip. From that first step on I found myself once again utterly helpless and dependent on the people who were immediately around me. This feeling does not come up to often and so I love to take hold of it any time it does, so today I embraced the idea that I am entirely dependent on God, first and foremost, and also very importantly dependent on my fellow man and woman.

My second thought was how lucky am I to have the opportunity to experience the Bronx for an entire 10 weeks! The buildings are awesome. The diversity is awesome. The atmosphere is awesome.

The next thing that popped into my head happened on the subway riding uptown to the Bronx. I do not mean this in a good or bad way, but simply as an observation . . . I often do not find myself being a minority in many places, but after two stops in the Bronx (the second being for Yankee Stadium) I immediately noticed that I was in the minority. That of course is a different feeling since I am not used to it and it is of course a very exciting and new feeling. For the past two summers I have been able to be with people groups that were largely from one distinct culture and being in New York that is obviously as far from my situation this summer than anything. Our first meal here in New York was at a mom and pop Albanian shop where we ate some sort of pizza contraption that was extremely delicious! Our choices consisted of veggie, cheese, or meat. I chose meat.

We then proceeded to eat in a park and begin to dive into what we would be doing and some of the thought processes behind the Bronx Fellowship Church. We talked about tons of ideas and hopefully I will be able to express them more clearly once I understand them as we go!

My excitement level is out of the roof and I am going to attempt to go to sleep running on adrenaline and with the train clunking by every three minutes. Jared Looney (one of the missionaries), who has been here for over 7 years reminded us that we will be experiencing so much in the next week and our senses will be on overdrive taking in so many things trying to download and process the things we see, hear, taste, touch, and smell. I cannot wait to experience these new things and I love this heightened sense of awareness, but of course it comes with a quick fatigue!

As a final side note, I have placed links to Katie’s blog and to the Bronx Fellowship website, if you would like to take a gander from time to time to see what’s going on there! Prayers for energy, awareness, learning, and for God’s Spirit to be present in the lives of those we will come in contact with are very welcome and we thank you for them!