NYC Mission Trip Day 2 (Monday)
We arrived in NYC safe and sound! We had the NYC driving experience right away, but our van drivers from NYSUM were great! Glad it wasn’t me driving. NYSUM (New York School of Urban Ministry) is in Astoria, Queens. They host 5000 students & adults in mission teams each year. We also got to meet our mission partner, Brandon, working with Global Gates. We are sent by our church, through iGo, working with Global Gates, staying at NYSUM. Now that we’ve got that straight…
We got settled into the dorms at the school and then hit the ground running. Brandon came in a talked to us about the community in Astoria, the diversity and the people groups with whom we will likely be working. We had some NY Pizza, which made me very happy, and walked over to Astoria Park to pray and scout some mission opportunities. It was a lot of walking, about 4 miles today. We stopped in some local stores to get to know the neighborhood a little before we came back and showered and went to bed.
We have a great group of students here with us in NYC. In addition to the 29 from our church, we are traveling with one extra, her name is Sara, I would love it if you would pray for Sara as well as our team. I’m going to put a list of our team below. Please spend time praying for each of them by name today.
I mentioned in an earlier post that our kids were reading through the book of Acts this week. On Monday they should have read Acts 3-7 which ends with Stephen’s speech and death. I love Stephen’s speech. It is such a powerful part of scripture and probably about as good of a summary of the Old Testament as is possible. It is crazy in a condensed version to see how much the people of God struggled with his message.
It reminded me, and I hope our students, that we must guard our hearts every day. It also reminded me that we are not responsible for other people’s response to our message, we are only responsible for sharing the message that God gives us in the place that he places us. We paused in Astoria Park to take in the sites and pray. I was led to Jeremiah 29:7, which I read to our students, “But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.”[1]
While we have not been captured by NYC, forced into a life of captivity, this is where God has us this week, so I encouraged our students to pray for the city and to make this city a better place this week while we are here. I would encourage you to do the same. Whether you’re in Midland, on vacation somewhere, or live somewhere else and just happen to be reading this, pray for the city you are in and make it a better city because of your presence.
Our team this week: John-David, Wayne, John, Amy, Elizabeth, Journey, Malone, Dakota, Kinlee, Ashlyn, Emmy, Emerson, Steven, Jeff, Wes, Keller, Luke, Kyle, Paul, Cohen, Johnnie, Jaycee, Ashley, Madysyn, Drew, Noah, Jacob, Slavik, Judson, & Sara.
[1] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Je 29:7.
