This Week...

So I left off at Coney Island the last time, which was lots of fun. We didn't get to play at the amusement park, but we did have Nathan's famous hotdogs and then did some team building stuff on the beach, which earned us some weird looks. Coney Island also attracts lot of interesting people so it was fun to do a little people watching as well ha ha!

Sunday we woke up and attended church at the church we're staying at. In one Sunday our church houses a Chinese church, Norwegian church, Arabic church, Armenian church, and an English speaking church. Then after a couple of the morning services there was a cookout and there were people from the Norwegian, Chinese, and English speaking services there for lunch. We then had a free afternoon in which a couple of us ran some errands and then headed over to the Brooklyn Tabernacle where Darlene Zschech was performing with the Hillsong worship team and the Brooklyn Tabernacle choir...and it was awesome! It was just so cool to have so many people in one place together worshiping like that! It was a good night!

Monday just brought more training and 4 hours in a coffee shop mapping out subway routes and marking down ministry sites and restaurants in our guide books...it was a long day...dinner, though, = Mediterranean

Tuesday...we spent the day finding some of our actual ministry sites around the city. We volunteered at one site in the evening serving meals, playing games, and doing crafts at a ministry called Father's Heart, you'll hear more about the ministry at a later date...dinner = Polish cuisine

Today...was more office and training stuff which was long and a little boring, but then this evening we went on what is called an Immersion. We were split into groups of four and given a specific neighborhood in which to go to, ours was the Chelsea/ Lower Westside neighborhood. Each group was then given $2 per person in their group and assigned to purchase dinner for our groups and one other person. We had to hand over our phones and watches and were only able to take a subway map and our metrocard with us. We also had to stop a person on the street and ask them about the neighborhood and the changes they've seen since living there and if they knew of any food pantry or homeless shelters in the area, so we set off. Well, if you thought New Yorkers were maybe a little grouchy normally then you may be interested to know that they're extra grouchy when its cold and raining. We had a tough time getting anyone to stop and answer or questions, and the man that finally did seemed a little suspicious at first about why we had all these questions for him. It is also incredibly hard to find food to feed 5 for only $8. Many vendors or businesses refused to barter with us. We ended up finding a fruit vendor selling fruit for pretty cheap and that became our dinner. We shared the rest of the fruit with a man staying out of the rain in the subway station. The immersion is meant to give groups a chance to try and experience what it's like to try and find food on a tight budget and you definitely cannot find very much food for only $8.

It was definitely a good learning and growing experience, although I've never known true hunger and true struggle that the almost 33,000 homeless in New York City experience.

I'm sorry these have been not super detailed and few and far between. Things are crazy, but I'm learning a lot and trying not to write small novels as I try to fill you in on the going ons : )