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Month: June 2015

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Our final full day in NYC, and we made every minute count.

We began the day with the children, once again. This day’s lesson was about Jesus’ Death and Resurrection, and we emphasized that Jesus takes away our sins. A real highlight of the day was our activity to reinforce the lesson: we planted flowers out in Christ Lutheran’s garden. As we planted the flowers, we reminded the children that, like flowers, Jesus came up out of the ground. He’s alive!

After working with the children, we finished up a few projects around the church, ate a little lunch, and then went to Manhattan for some sightseeing. We started out at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and spent two hours there. Pastor Jackson’s group even found Lucas Cranach the Elder’s painting of Martin Luther!

We then took a stroll through Central Park and proceeded to the Statton Island Ferry to get our pictures of the Statue of Liberty.

After the ferry, we traveled back to Woodside, and quick got ready to visit (not worship at!) the Sikh Gurdwara a couple of blocks away.

We finished out the day with our meeting and praying Vespers.

 

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Monday was our fullest day so far. We began the day working with the children at Christ Lutheran’s childcare, teaching them about how Jesus loves children.  We were excited to see that the children remembered some of the details from Friday’s lesson and how they expressed a love of Jesus. During the school time, some of our group broke off to work on other projects around the church.

In the afternoon, we traveled to Manhattan for several activities. We first went to the 911 Memorial, where we found the name of Ronald Bucca, a son of Christ Lutheran and a firefighter. He ran to the World Trade Center and up many dozens of flights of stairs and made it to the impact floor. This was a very moving experience.

From the 911 Memorial, we went to True Light Lutheran Church, an LCMS congregation in Chinatown. Their pastor, Matthew Staneck, informed us about the history and ministry there, and we helped out by doing a little bit of organizing and cleaning. We then proceeded to Hop Lee restuarant, where we had our main meal of the day. After the meal, we let the young people loose in Chinatown to do some haggling over souvenirs, etc.

We then went out to see the Mets play in an exciting game that went into extra evenings!

A very full, long, but fulfilling day.

 

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Day four in NYC was much more relaxing, even though it was still full of wonderful things!

We got to sleep in a little bit this morning, which was very welcome to the group. Our kitchen crew made us some awesome breakfast sandwiches with eggs and ham. Mmmmm! Then, members of the church came to help set up for a cookout, and we helped with some of that setup as well.

Then, we worshiped with the people of Christ Lutheran, and what a worship service it was! In many ways the service was very familiar to us Wisconsin Lutherans. Christ, Woodside, is a liturgical congregation just like ours, so our kids felt right at home with the familiar patterns of Confession and Absolution, the Service of the Word with the Kyrie, Gloria, Readings, Sermon, and Creed, and the Service of the Sacrament with all of its attendant prayers and canticles. The poor kids even heard the same preacher. (Pastor Jackson preached.) Above all, the same Lord Jesus Christ came to us here in NYC who comes to us in Wisconsin, the Lord who convicts, forgives, empowers, strengthens, and encourages through Word and Sacrament.

At the same time, the young people had a very different experience than what they are used to. Three languages were used in the service: English, Spanish, and American Sign Language. And the congregation looked very different than what they are used to – not the church building, mind you, which looks just like a Lutheran church in rural Wisconsin. Rather, the people of God gathered together looked very different than our congregations. The congregation is made of Latin Americans, African Americans, Asian Indians, Japanese, Koreans, and even a few Midwestern German background folks as well. As Pastor Hollmann described it to us, Christ, Woodside looks like the heavenly congregation described in Romans 7: “After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands.” (Revelation 7:9 ESV)

The young people described this service as the high point of their day, many of them saying, “It was an hour and a half, but it seemed like no time at all!”

After the service, a youth from our group gave a brief talk, and our other adult leader presented the church with the Ipad bought the day before.

The church then put on a cookout for us, and what a cookout it was! Incredible food including Korean, Indian, and Latin American cuisine, fresh fish, and a few “stand-bys” like burgers and dogs. We had a blast visiting with the people of God, living out the brotherhood and sisterhood we have in the blood of Christ our Lord.

After the cookout, we put in a few hours of work, and I have to say that this impressed me very much. I have always had great groups of kids on these trips, but this is the best one I have had so far. I did not even have to ask the youth to begin working. They simply went and put on their work clothes and got on with it! A number went around the church to pull weeds, a few washed windows, and our painting crew finished off their work. In all, we put in about four hours of work!

We rounded of the day with our evening meeting, prayer, and a game of dodge ball.

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Sorry that this post wasn’t posted this morning!

We spent the bulk of our day on Saturday working at a community health fair put on by Christ Lutheran and a local health organization. Our people helped by assisting in set up, standing out on the street to invite people in, and offering children’s activities. Meanwhile, four of us went up into the gym to paint a couple of worn walls. We then helped clean up after the health fair, and then it was time for our evening activities.

Pastor Hollmann took us down to 5th Avenue, and we set the youth free to take in the sights and do a little shopping. This was also the youths’ first introduction to street food, as they got some for dinner. Pastor Hollmann and Pastor Jackson, meanwhile, went down to the Apple store so that our trip could purchase a new Ipad as a gift for the church and its educational ministries.

We all met up on the steps of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and we took a brief tour of it before proceeding to “Top of the Rock.” We timed our entry onto the observation deck to give us a view of the sunset and the street lights turning on. A really great time.

It was time to head home, then, but that turned out to be an adventure. The train we wanted was not stopping at the station we entered, so we got onto a train that took us near to the Tram that crosses the East River to Roosevelt Island. Taking the tram wasn’t necessary for us to get home, but it was certainly a lot of fun, one of the group’s favorite activities.

Once on Roosevelt Island, we took a number of subways to make it back to Christ Church.

A big day of hard work and play that left us all tired and ready for a more restful day on Sunday.

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Friday was our first full day in NYC, and what a day it was! We woke the group up at 6:30 for breakfast, prayed our morning prayers, and then got to work prepping for our VBS program. The VBS went well. The children enjoyed having lots of personal attention lavished on them, and all of our activities focussed on learning about the birth of Christ and how He was born for us out of God’s love.

After lunch our group split up for about an hour and a half. The men went to observe (though not participate in) the prayer service at a mosque a couple blocks away. The visit helped us learn a little bit more about Islam, even as it raised many questions. One fact about the difference between Islam and Christianity became very clear, however, and that is that Islam is a religion of extreme works-righteousness. According to that faith, one becomes acceptable in God’s sight through one’s actions and deeds, and this belief is extremely different from Christianity, which teaches that we are acceptable in God’s sight by faith in the saving work of Jesus Christ.

While the men were at the mosque, the women were working extremely hard on the church’s community garden. We were all amazed at how much work they accomplished. Some painting prep then rounded out the work day.

After our work was done, we went to eat at the “Himalayan Yak,” a local Tibetan restaurant. I have to say that the kids are doing extremely well with the multiculturalism of the neighborhood. Actually, this group of country kids are doing much better than any of the groups of suburbanites I’ve ever brought here, and this was displayed with how well they ate up the food, which included things like “Yak blood sausage.”

We took a trip down to Times Square to celebrate our hard work. Lots of sights to see!

Finally, we came back to Christ Lutheran, prayed Vespers, and hit the hay.

Keep us in your prayers!

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The day started out early as the group gathered at 6:00 AM for prayer and departure. We then loaded up in our vehicles and headed down to Milwaukee. Traffic wasn’t too bad as we drove through the big city. Once at the airport we got through security just fine and before we knew it, we were up in the air! Bumpy flight but we made it in one piece to Laguardia. At Laguardia, Pastor Hollmann and several members picked us up and brought us to Christ Lutheran, Woodside, Queens, which is where we will be doing the majority of our work. Pastor Hollmann welcomed us by leading us in Responsive Prayer and delivering a message about how the the unity that all people have in Christ, a unity that transcends race or nationality or tribe, is lived out in the life of Christ Lutheran. He then gave us a tour of the church before we were on our way to the Hindu temple for a visit. Of course, we did not worship there, but we did learn much about this different religion and how it is different from Christianity. We then went on a walking tour of the neighborhood around Christ, an area called “Little India.” This was the favorite part of the day for many of them: being minorities for the first time in their lives, seeing the beautiful saris hanging in the windows, experiencing the bustle of a neighborhood market – all of this was a new and different experience. We then came back, got unpacked, and ended the day by praying Vespers.