The Service Mission

Ok, I'm gonna give you guys the low down on the New York trip although knowing myself it will likely be pretty short and sweet since a storyteller, I am not. So here we go :)

Our main ministry on the trip was to a small church plant over on Staten Island which is where we were for the most part. It's called Crossroads Church and it was started by the Pastor, Ray, who grew up Catholic on Staten Island. He converted during college and decided to head back to Staten Island and the heavily Catholic community there. Believe it or not, Staten Island is the least evangelized of all 5 of the New York Burroughs. Anyhoo, the first couple of days that we were there we had the pleasure of painting the outside of one of the schools. Some of us were disappointed not to be doing evangelism but guess what, God is bigger than our plans. We got more attention from the community for painting a school than we might have going door to door. We had some of the school kids that wanted to help us and we got to talk to them..... we had custodians, and maintenance guys, and parents coming up to us the whole time and asking us who we were and what our story was. It was awesome!

For the rest of the week we pretty much did whatever Pastor Ray needed from us whether it was handing out fliers for the church, Nate set up their wireless network, prayer walking, advertising and facilitating outreach events at the College of Staten Island, or handing out water to morning commuters with a note from the church while others evangelized on the boardwalk. We spent an hour or so in prayer with the church and for the church one morning, the main request being that they no longer had a facility at which to meet for Sunday services. That afternoon, the custodian of the school we were painting offered up the school year round to them (and it had beautiful auditorium and classroom facilities). The school was pretty far from the neighborhood where the church originated, but they are going to use that facility for a church plant in December of this year. 2 days after that, a school in their neighborhood offered them the same, year round, commitment and now they have a location! It was so amazing to see God answer prayer so quickly and perfectly.

Anyways, we had a great time with our group (they are so fun!) and it was an altogether great trip!