This Illinois-born-and-raised girl made it to The Big Apple! Chad and I went on a mission trip with Spread Truth Ministries to New York City for 5 days this past week. It was an amazing experience, to say the least. Even though the kids were in good hands with the grandparents, I was still a little worried about leaving them for that long. Before this, the longest we had ever left Luke was for one evening. The kids were really excited to see us when we got back, so that made it all worth it. You never really appreciate people (or home) until you are away for a while and then return. This trip provided a nice break of daily life for us and also gave us a renewal in our faith.
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| Meredith wanted to go with us. |
We went to different parks and streets in New York City to present the gospel. The group we were a part of went to Madison Square Park and Bryant Park. At these parks, we went out in 2s or 3s and asked people four worldview questions: 1.) How did this world begin; 2.) What went wrong; 3.) Is there any hope; 4.) What will the future hold? As expected, we had several that weren't interested in talking. However, we had many good conversations with people. Most answered "I don't know" to these questions. A few individuals were Buddhists and several were of the Catholic faith, but most didn't identify with any religion. It seemed as if most hadn't even thought about what will happen to us when we die or how we got here in the first place. One individual (who ironically was walking 3 dogs) told me the world would be a better place if humans were gone and it was just the animals who roamed freely. Let's just say we met some very unique individuals. Depending upon the answers we received, we would go deeper and present the gospel message to them or sometimes we would simply hand them some materials that explained it further if they were in a rush. I found parks, particularly the second one, to be very difficult. It was hard to approach people while they were eating lunch or walking. But, it's nice to be put out of your comfort zone every once in a while and step out in faith.
The streets were awesome! We set up a prayer station and would ask people if they needed prayer as they walked by or many would come up to us on their own. We had lots of good conversations with people, simply by asking what was going on in their lives that we could be praying for. Chad spoke at length with a young man who was trying (unsuccessfully) to get out of a gang.
We were humbled, to say the least. There were many homeless people we encountered and to be honest, they were some of the most genuine and kindest of all the people. One woman was dressed very nicely, with her nails and make-up done up. After speaking with her at length, she told us that she and her disabled husband are homeless and currently in a shelter. It was mind-blowing and reiterated that you can't judge someone by their appearance. Another homeless woman had just lost her son at the park we were at in May. He was sitting on the bench with her and died of a massive heart attack. It was so hard to find the words to say to comfort her. But I was blessed when she told us at the end that she would never forget us stopping by to talk to her and give her some toiletries. I have written down one person's name from each day and will continue to pray for them on a regular basis.
We arrived a day early and also had a few evenings to sightsee. We just scratched the surface of all the places one could visit while in the city.
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| Times Square! |
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| Yes, those are two Elmos and Cookie Monster across the street. |
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| I did jump when this guy started moving. |
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| Freedom Tower |
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| Brooklyn Bridge. By this point, we were too exhausted to walk the full length of it. |
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| I was blown away by the size of Macy's. It took up an entire block, had nine stories, and a restaurant inside. |
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| Empire State Building! |
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| Central Park! |
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| The skyline was beautiful in Central Park. |
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| Radio City Music Hall! |
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| We had the privilege of visiting a soup kitchen. It was a humbling experience. |
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| Yankee Stadium! We left at the 8th inning with a 0-0 score. Thankfully we didn't stay the entire game, since it went 14 innings. |
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| It was neat to see Derek Jeter in his last season. |
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| This was the full group from Eastview that went on the trip. |
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| Other than the young man taking our picture, our group was the only ones on the subway in this picture. |
