New York

Last Friday I left for New York for the 2006 Missions Trip.

It was a long drive, and we arrived in Bellmore, Long Island at about 9pm at the Japanese Church of the Nazarene whose pastor offered to house us for the week, seeing as how he was part of the planning committee for the NY missions district.

Saturday morning we departed for the work site in Queens, another Nazarene church in need of some serious maintenence. The foundation had some loose bricks that had to be repointed, the nursery had flood damage and was in need of some drywall repairs as well as a womans decorating touch, and the back yard was a dirt lot with nasty looking lawn furniture and a lone tractor tire for the kids to play on.

We spent Saturday stripping the work areas down. The old, broken privacy fences were torn down, weeds were pulled, holes were dug, the ground was cleaned up, and nursery was gutted... and that used up the time for the day.

Sunday we attended their church service, and spent the afternoon in the park painting faces and making balloon animals for the kids, as well as playing basketball and serving food to anybody else who may have been around.

Monday was another work day, we began preparing to rebuild the fences and painting began in the nursery.

Tuesday was spent in Manhattan as a "tourism" day. We took a tour through Ground Zero... simply surreal. No words to express the kind of feelings coarsing through you as you look at the site, and remember everything that happened that day... and talking to one of the firefighters that rushed into the building was something I'll never forget.

We had a big scare in the evening... Cassie stopped to take a photo as her group was walking, and when she started walking again some guy ran up to her and slapped her bag out of her hands, spilling everything onto the ground. She kneeled down to pick it all up, and he stood over top of her, saying "Hey baby, what are you gonna do about it baby?" She told him to just get away, eventually he did and she wound up going the wrong way and losing her group. She was lost for about an hour until she happened upon another group. Poor girl.. I'm glad nothing happened to her.

Wednesday and Thursday were work days. We finished up our projects and the end result was amazing. You can view photos from the trip here.

Friday morning we left for Michigan... long drive home. I learned the hard way that you cannot take photos of bridges here in America, and now my name is on the Terrorist Watch list. Nice, huh?