I wrote about New York.

As I begin writing this, we’re at the station in Rochester, NY. It’s about 10:00 on Saturday morning, and we’ve made it halfway through our journey. And I’ve slept through most of it. I think a lot of the kids have, too. The thing is, most of the my fellow travelers wake up at the same time every day and have normal schedules. This meant that I was woken up at 7:30 to news of $10 pancakes. I do not understand the ability to have that much energy and excitement at such an early hour. There seems to be a pretty even split in our group. Half of us are either still sleeping (or almost sleeping), and the other half are up and down the train, laughing, and playing cards. I decided to start the process of updating you, although you won’t be reading this until we’re in the city. This train doesn’t have wiFi. What’s up with that?

Our group of thirty-eight must have been a sight to see boarding the train around 2:00am. In the church basement, it doesn’t seem like such a big group. Spread out on the platform, though, we started to get an idea of how it’s going to be for us walking through the streets of New York City. These kids better be ready for some lessons in “we discipline you because we love you and don’t want you to get hit by a taxi driver who is just trying to do his job so GET OUT OF THE STREET, NOW!” Okay, maybe that’s just me. But city drivers are not to be messed with.

I look out the window and see bare trees, dry, brown grass, a few houses, and the last bits of snow turning into huge puddles. In a few short (eight) hours, these will be replaced by skyscrapers, people, slushy corners, cars, lights, noise, and the energy of city life on a Saturday night. And, according to my weather app, a 90% chance of rain. Welcome to the city!

I hear there’s a stop coming up that’s long enough for us to get out and stretch our legs for a few minutes. I’ll end this part of the post now.

We’re about an hour and a half from Penn Station. We’ve been traveling through New York for most of the day, and it has been beautiful. Between small mountains and old buildings, we have not been lacking for scenic views.

At the moment, it’s raining and I’m listening to Rend Collective’s newest album, The Art of Celebration. There’s a song called “Burn Like a Star,” and I think the lyrics in the second verse speak perfectly to our desires for the work we’ll be doing this week:

“Send revival, start in us.

Set Your holy spark in us.Send us out in resurrection power.History’s about to change.We are rising once again.Send us out in resurrection power.We are aching for the real thing;hearts are open wide.Hope Swanson

Burn like a star, light a fire in our hearts.”

I can’t pick a favorite song from the album, but these words are my prayer for our team over the next few days. We want God to use us in ways that we could never predict or expect or ask. We want Him to do things in us and through us that we could never dream of accomplishing. We want to be His hands and feet and voice and heart in the middle of a city that, for the most part, ignores Him. We want to support and encourage our brothers and sisters who are seeking to change the city. We want to partner with them in ministry and in prayer. We want to be open to whatever is going to come our way on this trip.

So far, everyone has stayed safe, healthy, and excited. Almost everyone has gotten at least a few minutes of sleep, and I think we’re all looking forward to getting off of this train, eating dinner, and getting settled.

Please be praying for our children’s ministry and youth conference tomorrow, for Michael as he preaches.

We love you and miss you.

Good night.

Good evening! It’s Monday and we just got back from a day of walking through the city. Lee has asked if I could tell you all that he says “hi.” So, Lee says “hi!”

Yesterday was incredible, almost unbelievable if I hadn’t been in the middle of what what happening. My team (also known as Greg’s Team) and Kelley’s team left at 8:15 for Iglesia Evangelica Misionera Brooklyn. We sang with them and then a man came to the stage and read Psalm 51 and spoke about it. He spoke passionately about how we are washed clean by the blood of Jesus. I studied Spanish in high school and started as a Spanish major at Bethel, but I’ve never been very confident in my skills. I was understanding about half of what they were saying and singing, and it helped to have the lyrics up on the screen.

After announcements a man came to the stage and started talking about and to us. He asked the band to start playing one of the songs again, and said that we needed to sing in Spanish. He said that God might be calling us to be bilingual. At that point, I was already feeling like God was nudging me in that direction. Then he called Kelley up to the stage and asked him to hold his arms up. We were singing and moving and worshiping. Then he called Dave Jofreda to the stage and the three  of them danced and jumped. Rhonda Bollier was the next to be called up, then Dylan Carlyle, Rob Voirol, and Nancy Souder. When each person came to the stage, he began to speak to them, prophesying over them. Most of it was Spanish, but we heard a few words in English. It was such a powerful display of the Spirit. (There’s more to this story, but I don’t think I can be the one to write it.)

Then we went downstairs with the kids and Kelley’s team led the children’s ministry program that we’ve prepared. Many thanks to Janna Worthman for her prayerful preparation of a fantastic program that was adaptable depending on the audience. Kelley’s team did a great job and the kids had fun. It was awesome to be able to watch another team work.

Our two teams left together and split so that my team could go to Roosevelt Island. Christina Getz was guiding us all day and took us to their apartment to rest for a while. We got our Starbucks fix and spent about an hour getting to know Christina and enjoying their view. Roosevelt Island is in the middle of the East River between Manhattan and Queens, and you can walk across it width-wise in about a minute. Their apartment has a view of both boroughs, and the roof is incredible.

The church where our team presented the children’s program is a brand new church plant on the island. It’s called Hope Church Roosevelt Island and they officially launch next week. When we arrived on Saturday night the four adults on our team met with Jeff and he told us that the kids probably wouldn’t have any church background and that we’d have to adapt our program and start with explaining what a disciple is and what the “good news” is. We had a brief moment of panic, but we spent some time in prayer with the rest of the adults and went to bed feeling much more at peace about the whole thing. After what happened in the morning at IEMB, we were ready. We knew that God was with us and would use us and speak to us and through us.

We walked to the church building, which is a beautiful old brick building. The sanctuary is classic: stained glass, hardwood floor, cathedral ceiling; gorgeous. Our space for children’s ministry was about twice the size of what we anticipated. We talked with Amanda, one of the pastors, and she helped us get set up. We prayed together and headed upstairs for the first part of the service. I immediately felt at home when I heard Mumford and Sons playing through the room. When the next song was “Second Chance” by Rend Collective, I knew I was in the right place. (Not that there was any question.) I met a few of the kids, we stayed upstairs through music, and went back down with the kids. There were about ten of them, and four of them were the pastors’ kids. (So much for no church background.)

These kids were AWESOME! They participated, they knew one of the songs, they danced, they answered questions, and they talked to us. We had a great time with them.

We made our way back via the tram and subway, rejoined Kelley’s and Lee’s teams, shared some stories, and stayed up way too late talking.

I’ll write the story of today in the morning, and maybe we’ll get back on a normal schedule. I started writing this post this morning and was almost done when Jeff came in and told us that it was time to go. And I’m emailing this to my dad tonight, but it probably won’t go up until tomorrow morning. So you might get three posts in a day.

It’s Tuesday morning. I’m sitting on my air mattress, which deflated slightly overnight, sipping coffee and listening to the girls get ready. This is the point of the trip when we all know each other and like each other well enough that we’re still being very loving and kind. But it’s the fourth day that we’ve spent together, and this is often the time when we are tired enough that our usual filters start to deteriorate. We start reacting without thinking. We start getting a little bit snippy. Please pray specifically for this need. Pray that we would continue to care about each other’s hearts. Ask that God would give us a double-portion of patience in these last few days.

Yesterday was extra exhausting. We got to sleep in a bit, but it sure didn’t feel like enough. The first thing on our agenda after breakfast was a devotional from a man from Pakistan. There are some legal issues involved in this situation, so I’m not going to write too much. Suffice it to say that our eyes were opened to the need for knowledge about other religions, especially Islam. We cannot demonstrate their need for Jesus if we don’t demonstrate an understanding of what they think they have. Did that make sense? I hope so.

After that meeting, Jeff took us on a prayer walk through the city. This probably wasn’t quite like the prayer walk you’re used to. Jeff has a deep love for this city. He said to us “till the city that never sleeps meets the God who doesn’t either.” That’s why he’s here. That’s why he works with people who are planting churches. That is the desire that God has placed on his heart, and he wanted us to get an idea of how to pray the same way he does. As we traveled through the city, we would stop and Jeff would point out a landmark and talk about how he uses it as a reminder for prayer. We went to Times Square and he talked aout how New York is the city that never sleeps and that Times Square is the crossroads of the world.

Our next stop was lunch from Chipotle (yes!), which we ate in Bryant Park. After we ate, we gathered and Jeff pointed out the Bank of America building, representing greed. He challenged us to think not only about obvious kinds of greed, but the greed in our own hearts that keeps us from sharing what we have to offer (money, skills, love). As we stood there, he pointed behind us to the library. He talked about all the knowledge that building stands for and our responisibility to use that knowledge well, and not to depend on it. We walked from the park, to Grand Central Station, which represented busyness. Jeff asked us to think about things in our lives that take up time that we could be spending doing other, more meaningful things. We walked from Grand Central to the United Nations building. Each time we walked, we were to be looking at people’s faces, really looking at them, looking at their eyes. We were asking God to show us how to be part of their lives. We were praying for people differently than we usually do, I think. We were supposed to notice places, and think about how to use them as reminders to pray for what is going on in people’s lives and hearts. When we get home, ask us about what we noticed and how we’re praying for the people around us.

After the UN, where we prayed for peace, we made our way to the Staten Island Ferry, which is widely accepted as the best view of the Statue of Liberty, and it’s free. When we got back to Manhattan, we took the train to the tram and took the tram over to Roosevelt Island for dinner. Then it was up to the top of the Getzes’ apartment for the best and windiest view of the city. Inside, we heard from Kelley’s friend Josh Lee, who I’ve been hearing about for six years. Josh has a desire to bring the Gospel to kids in poor neighborhoods, who don’t have any idea what it means to be loved or cared about, because their parents aren’t providing that for them. It was so cool to finally hear from Josh. And Kelley finally rapped for us. We also heard from Kristin Bollier, who graduated from GMC and Leo in 2008. She’s living in the city, working in the fashion industry, and learning to be intentional about finding community. She hit hard on our need to surround ourselves with people who can support us and encourage us and challenge us. It was so good to see Kristin and hear her heart and what’s going on in her life right now.

That was yesterday. It was a good day, and I hope you get a chance to hear from some of our team members. Ask us questions. We have stories to share, and we would love for you to get an idea of what we’ve been doing.

We’ve made it to Wednesday. It’s our last full day and it’s going to be a long one.

I’m typing between bites of Honey Nut Cheerios. It’s 9:27, and we’ve gathered for breakfast. We’re in the room where most of the girls are sleeping. Air mattresses are stacked on tables, luggage is pushed to the edges of the room, several of my belongings are strewn across a table.

Yesterday (Tuesday) was a long day of walking.

Half of us spent the morning at a senior center on Roosevelt Island, while the other half did community research in Astoria. I went to the senior center and spent about an hour listening to a woman named Paula talk about her children and grandchildren. The woman hardly took a breath, and it was freeing. I didn’t have to come up with questions for her or things to say about myself.

We ate lunch with the people there, and then Monique and I went with a woman named Perdida to help her clean out a shelf and throw some stuff away. She put a few things in a bag and offered them to us. She went back to a room and returned with an armful of clothes that she wanted to get rid of. She kept telling us that we should keep the stuff, because she didn’t want it to go to waste. 

I think everyone at the senior center had a good time and talked to some interesting people. I haven’t heard much from the people who did the community research, so you’ll have to ask them about it.

After our morning activities, we met at the 9/11 Memorial. I wasn’t sure what to expect from myself emotionally. I remember a few details about that day: sitting at the kitchen table, eating a Pop Tart, watching the news, wondering along with the hosts what what going on in New York, watching a plane make its way across the screen and sky and into the tower. I remember cars lined up at gas stations. I remember watching the news in the afternoon, because nothing else was on because nothing else seemed to matter. I was in fifth grade, ten years old. I didn’t realize at the time that everything had changed. I didn’t realize that fear had taken over our country.

As I slowly walked around one of the Memorial Pools, I read names. I thought about these people who got up and went to work or boarded a plane. We hear stories of people who woke up late and missed their usual train, or who happened to have a meeting scheduled and rescheduled for somewhere else in the city. The people whose names are on that memorial didn’t have stories like that. They went through their normal routine. They did the same thing they did every day, but that day was the worst day. That day changed our nation and their families forever. On the far side of the first pool I noticed two names that were followed by “…and her unborn child.” That is when the tears finally fell. I thought about those children who would now be teenagers, the same age as my Sunday School students. Those children who were spared from a world without peace by such an act of violence and hatred. Those children who were victims along with their mothers and thousands of others. It was a tragedy that was felt throughout the world, the effects of which we are experiencing every day.

It’s now 12:44am on Thursday morning. I got interrupted this morning, and have been talking and getting ready for bed since we got back. Fellowship seemed to be more important on this last night in the city, so I’ll give you two days in one post.

It feels like we spent the day on our feet or on trains. After breakfast, we set our room back up so it would be ready for us tonight. We boarded the train to the World Trade Center stop, ate lunch at Burger King, and got on another train to take us to Newark, New Jersey. We met Pastor Tulio at Emanuel Missionary Church. This was the church where Michael preached and his team did their children’s program on Sunday night. It’s a beautiful old Russian Orthodox building that has been updated on the inside. They’ve added lights, painted, and generally brightened the place. It was such a welcoming space, even without people.

There’s a playground across from the church where we did a modified version of the children’s program. Kids were running everywhere, parents were watching, and our students were amazing. They talked to people, they played games, they laughed, they led well. I was a very proud youth leader.

I’ve been so impressed all week. Parents, you have done well. These students are helpful, loving, thoughtful, smart, brave, patient, encouraging, funny, and fun to travel with. We’ve all had our moments of frustration, but we’ve pushed through them all. We are at the end of our time here, and we still like each other. You should be proud of your children/parents/siblings/spouses/friends/GMC family. Thank you for supporting us financially and in prayer over the past few months. God has been faithful to provide everything that we’ve needed, and even more than we ever thought to ask for. Our eyes have been opened to the needs of the city, and our hearts have been softened to the needs of Grabill/Leo/Fort Wayne.

We’re looking forward to being home on Friday morning. Not just because we get to see you and tell you our stories, but because we now have a better understanding of our mission to our hometown. Get ready, Grabill. We’ve been to New York City, and we’re bringing back the love of Jesus.