nyc edition_day-2

today was yet another fun day. anyone who woke up before 9 heard the Russian service held in the church sanctuary. it’s full of Korean people. apparently there is a large number of Korean people that live in the area and only speak Russian. that was interesting.

by 930 the team was up and eating breakfast together in the kitchen. from there we went to the adult bible study and then the regular service. our very own Allison Robertson fought her nerves and got up in front of the congregation to do their special music. half way through the service, 4 of us took the 4 kids who were under 9 years old and had, or attempted to have, a kid’s church.

if this one-on-one ratio of worker-to-kid was any sort of foreshadowing for the upcoming week…we are in trouble. they were definitely a handful. actually, 2 of the 4 were a handful, and the other two were rather docile. this is even more foreboding. but God will strengthen us! and we will need it!

after church some of our group went to the store and grabbed some supplies for lunch and dinner. the rest of us stayed at the church and played hop-scotch with a couple of the kids until they had to go home.

at 3 we split again. gary and I went to the Brooklyn Tabernacle and the rest of the group went shopping in SoHo. the rest of the group missed out. while they were getting their cheap purses and expensive juices, gary and I got a free concert, and quite a show. it was definitely very interesting. there was speaking in tongues, and “hallelujahs!” for guitar solos. it was also rather easy to pick out the Baptist youth group mission trip. they were the two rows of white kids in shorts and Christian t-shirts,s mouthing the words to the songs and not daring to make a clap, much less move their feet.

to end the day, we cooked some greasy tacos and went to Coney Island. Jeremy, Elizabeth, Amanda, Rachel and Belle stayed behind to play games and chill. they changed their plans on us and left the church to explore Brooklyn. this got them locked out of the church. they had to wait on the rest of us to get back from the Coney Island adventure.

coney island was a treat. one observation, a very Texan observation, was that it was roughly 2-3 times dirtier than the State Fair of Texas. while Texan, it was also true. we thought about getting a Nathan’s Famous hot dog, then decided to go to the beach. we walked across the famous boardwalk, spent a while in the sand, washed of our feet, and walked back to shoot a freak. that’s right, a freak. we convinced Dwayne to pick up this paintball gun and shoot a live target. a young man with pads, a helmet, and a shield went in to an ally-sort-of-thing and let Dwayne fire off 15 rounds in his general direction. this was totally worth it. and so were the Nathan’s Famous hot dogs we decided to go ahead and get on our way out.

now we are back at the church, planning tomorrow’s Kidz Klub. we will need our rest tonight. before we do the afternoon Kidz Klub we have to do some street evangelism, construction in the church and possibly various other tasks. if you are reading this, please pray that God gives us strength for them all. we know He is faithful and will provide. we cannot wait to see what he is going to do!