New York City Evangelism: Post-Missions Trip Report

                If you are reading this right now because you got the link for my blog from a thank you note, apologies once again. It was never my intention to put this off so late, and I’m sorry for seemingly keeping you in the dark about how the trip went. Thank you once again for supporting me. I was able to get all the support I needed, both monetarily and spiritually.

                If you are reading this because you are one of the six awesome people I tagged in my Facebook post about this blog, I offer my apologies to you as well. I sincerely wanted to get this done as soon as I could, but the semester caught up to me before I got the chance. I hope this post brings back some memories and lessons from our trip together.

                As for everyone else, hi! Welcome back to my blog! I know, it’s been a super long time since I’ve posted in here… This blog post is primarily about my New York City Missions Trip in March. I’ll be posting a more general life-update post (hopefully) in the next week or two.

                When we got back from our trip the night of Sunday, March 8^th, I very much wanted to complete my blog post about the trip as soon as I could. But the next day, the semester struck with a fiery vengeance. I was all of a sudden swamped with more papers than I had ever written in my life, and countless books I had to read (most of which I unfortunately wasn’t able to finish). This blog post was always at the back of my mind, and I reeeaaallly wanted to finish writing it, but I sadly forced to prioritize, and school took precedence. However, before school caught up to me I had written about a third of this. I’ve kept most of that text since it was what I had actually written immediately after returning from the trip and it was all still fresh on my mind.

New York City Evangelism: Post-Missions Trip Report

The Empire State Building at night.

My missions trip to New York City was an unforgettable experience; one that I can only attempt to explain to you using words; really, you had to be there. One of the parts I loved most about the trip was how close I got to the other people on the team. I was joined on the team by six awesome people: Rachel Clevenger, Rachel Rowland (our team leader), Corinna Ward, Priscilla Files, Jordan Esatto, and Nate Mills. We had had a few team meetings before we left, but even then I have to admit that I was still working on some of the names on the initial drive to New Jersey. But during the nine days we spent together on the road, in subways and trains, serving in New York City, and chilling back in Hawthorne, I came to truly see these people as good friends, rather than just teammates. I am truly going to miss spending so much time with them. As for what the team and I actually did to serve on the trip, here’s a day-by-day run-through of what we did:

Saturday, February 28 – We left Cedarville around 8:30am, and ten minutes into the car ride we were already listening to Taylor Swift’s “Welcome to New York.” As I expected, the first part of the car ride was a bit quiet because people were either sleeping or not talking, because we didn’t know each other too well yet. But then we played “the question game,” which helped to break the ice a little. We only stopped a few times, so we made it to Hawthorne Gospel Church in New Jersey in good time; around 6:30. After settling in, we watched Phantom of the Opera (the 2004 film) in preparation for Thursday, then went to bed for our early morning the next day.

Sunday, March 1 – Every morning before 8:00 the guys and I had to vacate our sleeping area and walk to the missionary house where the girls were staying. We were staying above the Bible House in a place called “The Upper Room,” where there are some offices which open at 8:00 in the morning. In my devotional time that morning I read Galatians chapter 5 (mainly because my discipleship group is in that chapter now as well). We attended one of the services that morning and the pastor called the team and I up to the front to pray for us. Later, the sermon was over Galatians chapter 5, which I thought was a cool coincidence. A couple of the verses from this chapter that stuck with me the rest of the week are verses 13 and 14: “For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” This resonated with me because the team and I were using our freedom, our spring break, not as opportunities for the flesh to sleep in every day, but we used our freedom to serve others.

After the service, I introduced myself to Pastor T. James Richmond. He was like a second father to my dad (and was even named after him), so it was neat to talk to him for a bit. After church we went to Rachel R.’s house for lunch, where we were joined by a bunch of her family, as well as my uncle and aunt who live in Hawthorne. It was awesome hearing all the family connections that existed, like the fact that her parents knew my parents, or the fact that some of them were once patients of my dentist grandfather.

After lunch we travelled to New York City where we helped serve dinner at the Bowrey Mission. The people there were all so kind. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it was nice to interact with such Godly people there. When our “boss” that evening, Robin, introduced herself, she asked if we all love Jesus. After explaining we were all believers from a Christian university she said “I can’t wait to get to know you all better in heaven.” That really stuck out to me. We didn’t see her again that week, but it’s cool thinking about the fact that we will indeed see her again one day. Though some parts about heaven scare me a bit, this is one of the many things I look forward to.

Monday, March 2 – Starting Monday, we began a schedule that we mostly stuck to for the rest of the week. We left Hawthorne Gospel Church each morning around 8:30, parked at a house behind a train station, then took a train from there to Secaucus. One of the conductors on that train, J.A. Smith was very friendly to us. He had a classic New Jersey accent and looked remarkably like Timothy Spall (the actor who plays Peter Pettigrew from Harry Potter and Nathaniel from Enchanted). From Secaucus we took a shorter train to Penn Station at Madison Square Garden in New York City. From there we walked a few blocks to a subway station where we took a few subways to the Canal St. station. After that it was only a couple blocks to the New York City Rescue Mission. We spent most of the rest of the week there, generally calling it the NYCRM (which we pronounced as “Ny-crum”).

Most mornings there I helped sort through and fold clothes the clothes pantry. Every day for a couple hours they would let the homeless in a few at a time to take up to (I believe) five items of clothing. Every day we would come back and find the clothes room messy again, but the work we did there helped make the homeless feel like they were shopping at JCPenney, rather than a yard sale. I usually worked there with Corinna, Rachel C., Rachel R., and a man named “G,” who was a graduate of the program they offer at the NYCRM.

(Left to Right) Rachel R., Rachel C., Me, and Corinna working at the NYCRM. Photo credit to @scotthuckphoto

During the middle of the day, the team and I went to Columbus Circle to do some street evangelism. I was teamed with Rachel C. and Corinna, and we walked around Central Park. None of us really knew what we were doing, and we all had to try and take turns starting conversations that would then lead to faith. I started a conversation with a man in the park who travelled to New York from Haiti. When he revealed he spoke French, the couple on the other side of him who were actually from France began speaking to him in French, so that conversation didn’t go very far.

We returned to the NYCRM that evening to help them serve dinner. I’m glad that Rachel R. asked us each night for one memory that stuck out to us from each day, or else I would not have written some of this down. One memory that stuck out to me that night was seeing an older man trying to understand why a Styrofoam cup was sticking to his hand. The man next to him explained that is was merely static electricity, but the older man could not understand how there could be electricity in his hand.

Tuesday, March 3

 In the morning I sorted and folded clothes again at the NYCRM. Then for a large part of the afternoon, the team and I helped at Manor Gospel Fellowship. Here at this mission, homeless people would attend a brief worship service while the carts they brought were filled with food by the workers in the back (including the team and I). The mission received huge donations from a supermarket, and our job was to sort that food into various boxes and crates then evenly distribute it into the shopping carts there.

The team and other workers filling up shopping carts with food at Manor Gospel Fellowship.
I'm not sure where I am... Photo credit to @scotthuckphoto

Later that night the team and I had dinner with Nathan, a church-planter in New York. It was a great blessing to hear his story and to interact with his family. In their apartment there was a ton of Batman-related books and things, which I thought was pretty cool :D

In one of the train stations on the way back we had a long wait, and since it was my turn to lead devotions, I gave a brief account of my life, following a similar pattern for “life maps” from Discipleship group. We got back to Hawthorne very late that night, though I can’t remember exactly what time.

Wednesday, March 4

After spending the morning at the NYCRM again, we then had day two of street evangelism. We split into the same groups again, but this time we walked around Grand Central Station. After maybe an hour of unsuccessful conversations, Corinna made Rachel C. and I practice on her, which seemed silly at first but was actually very helpful. Shortly afterwards a woman, Nicole, approached us. She had lost her purse and wasn’t sure what to do. She also had many questions about religion after reading The Shack, so we answered the best we could. The three of us talked to her for about an hour, then we prayed for her and went on our way.

Back at the NYCRM, we helped serve dinner again then stayed for the evening service. Rachel R. led worship with her brother Luke (he wasn’t on the team but was in the area), then she gave her testimony. At the end of the service, many of the homeless wrote prayer requests on cards which the team and I later prayed for. The handwriting on these cards was a bit messy, and the grammar was not great, but the words are heartbreaking: “I has a bad right leg and sometime I has bad luck. Please pray for me thank you. I all alone, I lost my mother 4 years ago.” “Pray for the NYC Rescue Mission and the need for food, clothing, finances. Jesus be glorified.”

Thursday, March 5

Thursday morning I switched places with Nate at the NYCRM. He worked folding and sorting clothes while I cut broccoli in the kitchen.  After helping prepare food, we served lunch to the people who lived there as a part of their program. It was cool being able to eat and fellowship with the mission team, the friendly people in the program, and the other volunteers who work there every day.

After lunch we went and saw Phantom of the Opera on Broadway, which was amazing :D This was our big “cultural experience item” which was already figured into the budget, plus we got discount tickets (because of some theater program Rachel R. is a part of). That evening we had pizza back in Hawthorne and enjoyed trying to guess each other’s middle names.

Friday, March 6

After missing the first train from Hawthorne, we eventually made it into the city where, instead of going to the NYCRM, we went and helped Brandon (whom we had met on Tuesday) with his ministry. For the first hour after arriving at his apartment, we stuffed plastic baggies with gum and cards advertising his church, the Gallery Church. After making a ton of those, we were each assigned a street corner where we were assigned to give away 125 each. This sounded difficult at first, but was actually not too hard. All it required us to do was stand there holding out handfuls of these baggies and yell “free gum!” After getting lunch at a place that was like Chipotle but with some kind of Asian food, we went to the NYCRM one last time.

After serving one last meal with them, we had to say our goodbyes to the wonderful staff we had worked with that week. James, one of the guys we got to know during the week, kept coming up to us over and over again saying goodbye, which we thought was funny but also made it sadder.

Saturday, March 7

Saturday was our tourist day, and was also apparently St. Patrick’s Day, but only in Hoboken, New Jersey. The trains both to and from New York were full of drunk people decked out in green.

Admittedly, a couple times during the day I wished I was back at NYCRM or helping with one of the other ministries in the city, but it was also nice to have a break and really enjoy the city.

Outside that entrance to the 30 Rock building that I've seen associated with SNL. I'm not sure why I'm making this face; I think this photo was taken by accident.

We started the day at Rockefeller Center, where we checked out the LEGO store there, an art store, and the NBC Studios store, though I didn’t get anything. We also stopped by that entrance to the building that I’ve seen associated with Saturday Night Live. Following that we had lunch at La Mela, a restaurant in Little Italy then we went to Strand Books, one of the biggest book stores in New York. I thought I would really like it, but it was actually far too busy and much too big for me. After the bookstore we went by Wall Street and Battery Park, then went by the bull statue around there. We ended the evening by walking around Ground Zero and the reflecting pools there. I was moved and saddened by the huge number of names surrounding those pools.

Sunday, March 8

We left Hawthorne about 8:30 Sunday morning. We occasionally switched up drivers and navigators, and when I took over as navigator at one point, everyone jokingly feared that I would cause us to drive off a cliff. We arrived back in Cedarville around 6:00. I had dinner, unpacked, then wrote the first third of this blog post.

The team + Keith (on the far left). He works for the missions office at Cedarville and visited us in New York along with the amazing photographer @scotthuckphoto who took this photo as well. Thanks again for taking pictures of us!

What Did I Learn?

                One thing this trip did was change the way I view the homeless. Before coming on this trip I obviously knew that homeless people are still people. Everyone knows that, right? But who actually believes it? While helping serve people meals, I saw something that I would see in the school cafeteria every day: people eating meals around tables and having a good time talking with their neighbors. Looking at one group of people made me think “That could easily be my friends and I.” But what’s the difference? I was raised in a home that has been richly blessed by two awesome parents who both hold jobs that allow us to live in a house, get whatever kind of food we want, and occasionally pay for other recreational activities just for the fun of it. I have been blessed with a loving family (both extended and immediate) who I know I could turn to if I ever fell into financial trouble. I have been blessed to attend a university that has supplied me with a degree, which will enable me to one day get a good job and have a steady income.

                Many of the homeless have stories similar to this, they have just had harder circumstances to deal with in life. Sure, some of them are or have been alcoholics or addicts, but I discovered that many of them just got caught in downward spirals.  It may start with losing a job or suddenly having to pay extra rent, but that can quickly turn into not being able to purchase new clothes or simple things like toothpaste, which can create difficulty in trying to look decent and presentable for job interviews.

                But inwardly, many of these people are just the same as me. God doesn’t care about how much money we make, or whether we live in a mansion or a subway station; he looks at the heart. I was astonished at how thankful and happy many of the homeless were. These people who didn’t have anything were thanking the workers at the Rescue Mission and even making sure everyone else got a chance to eat.

                I also thought it was great to see their personalities come out. These are actually people, just like us, therefore they have preferences just like us. Some may call a homeless man ungrateful for not wanting chicken with his rice and broccoli, but homeless people can be vegetarian too. And when a homeless man wants the vanilla cupcake instead of the chocolate one that has been handed to him, what other motive can there be other than he simply likes vanilla better?

                This trip also changed the way I see my future.

                To be perfectly honest, I’m still very unsure as to what I’ll be doing with my life now that I have graduated. I know some people always seem to have the next five years planned out, but that’s not me. I tend to take things as they come to me. I do like planning ahead when I can, but sometimes I just can’t. It’s also completely possible that I may not even do anything remotely related to my English major. God changes plans all the time. My dad grew up in New Jersey and majored in Biology at his first university; now he’s a pastor in California.

                One helpful passage I discovered during the trip was James 4:14-15, which says “yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.’” I’m not sure if God is leading me to missions or not, but I believe that through this trip He definitely opened up my eyes to see what mission work is really like.