Day 4 July 26, 2011
Today was an extremely long day. We were told last night that today would the most demanding day physically, and that we should not expect the same positive reception, or results as yesterday. We started off the day by canvassing Woodside, the neighborhood in Queens where we are staying. It was not a crowded area, but the sun was out, and we had the opportunity to have deeper conversations with the fewer people we came across. After lunch, Sam took us to Union Square in Manhattan where we were surrounded by more locals than tourists. The atmosphere was fast paced and crowded, and rejection and insults more frequent. The group as a whole was more intimidated than yesterday. One of our teens, Breahna Phillips said, “It was way more intimidating, but that was good, because we had to push ourselves to rely on God.” Although it was long and mentally exhausting, the team remained faithful and hopeful that the Lord would work through us, despite the intimidation and awkwardness.
After our time at Union Square, we walked 40 minutes south to the projects in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. There, we organized children’s meetings right in the center of the Avenue D projects. We invited the local children and their parents that were gathered in the area to come to our free program. The programs were complete with songs, a rope trick, an interactive word puzzle, and a story. We were amazed at the turnout, and even more amazed at how excited the kids were, how much they participated, and how well they behaved! In all we reached over 30 kids and many of their parents who came to watch, or were sitting close by. When we finished around 7:00 p.m., our feet were hurting, we were tired, thirsty, and hungry, but we all had smiles on our faces. It was so much fun to be with the kids. It made the 40 minute walk back to Union Square for dinner not so bad.
When we made it back to the church at 9:45, we had a quick meeting with Sam to talk about the results for the day. We were not expecting to have as high of numbers as yesterday, but once again God showed his power. Sam added all the numbers, and in total, we gave the complete plan of Salvation 133 times, and 11 decisions were made for Christ! We ended the night thanking God, and praying for our prayer focus, natural disasters. Lights out was 11:15, and I have never seen so many teens go to bed as fast as they did tonight!
Please continue to pray for the safety of the team as we travel to Brooklyn today. Each day has been more physically and mentally challenging than the day before, and we appreciate all the prayers from back home!
