NYC Mission Trip [Friday, Day 7]

The Sunday School children of 1906 never could have anticipated how God would fulfill their prayers. They could pennies to put in a stained glass window in the church. “Lassen die Kindlein zu ihr Kommen” – “Let the little children come unto me.”

112 years later, the little children that came to the VBS looked different and had a very different culture than those little Germans who put up the window. God fulfilled those prayers in a delightfully surprising way.

We concluded the VBS on Friday, and the success of the program was abundantly evident, above all in the question we heard many times from children and parents: “When is the next VBS?”

One girl were notes to the VBS staff and her VBS friends. The note I received made my heart warm with her gladness at learning about Jesus with us.

Here are some more shots from the final day or VBS:

We also had to say goodbye to Pastor Hollmann and to Emanuel Church, which we anticipate will be a very different place the next time we come.

After a quick lunch we jetted back to Manhattan to meet with Talley Sue Hohfield, a member of Christ Lutheran. She works in 1 World Trade Center for Glamour Magazine, and she was able to take us to see her office and to also check out a private viewing deck not open to the public.

Talley Sue also told us about hey experience during 9/11 – she was on Manhattan that day- and she also told us about Ron Bucca, a son of Christ Lutheran, who as a firefighter ran into the South Tower, made it to the for just below impact, and lost his life serving others. We then went to find his name on the memorial.

From there, we went to see Hamilton on Broadway. That is, we saw his grave, which is at Trinity Church on Broadway.

We then took the Staten Island Ferry in order to see the Statue of Liberty.

From there we walked to Chinatown and after at Hop Lee Restaurant. We also saw True Light Lutheran Church, a traditionally Chinese Lutheran church.

After an hour of haggling in Chinatown stalls, we walked up the Brooklyn Bridge to finish to our Manhattan evening.