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!