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By Posted on Posted in Service, Youth Tagged with , ,

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.

By Posted on Posted in Mission, Service, Youth

We knew that the VBS would grow throughout the week, but we had no idea how quickly. It more than doubled on Tuesday, as we had 33 students! Here are some pictures of our day:

 

After VBS we went to a restaurant called The Himalayan Yak, featuring Tibetan food. We cook two of our meals every day, so we tend to have a nicer meal once a day. The kids were good sports and tried all the exotic dishes that Pastor Chris ordered. We ate family style and passed everything around. Many kids were surprised at how much they like yak blood sausage and goat!

 

After lunch we put in two and a half hours of work on their physical plant. Painting, cleaning, weeding were the activities of the day. The kids really did a great job.

After a light dinner we went to visit a Hindu temple. Whenever I take a group to this church he likes to take them to visit religious sights. When we go to these sights, we emphasize that we are not going in order to worship or pray but simply to learn. I have found that these visits really help to solidify in the minds of the youth the distinctions between Christianity and other religions, and they become more confirmed in their faith.

 

+++Pastor Chris+++

By Posted on Posted in Christian Education, Fellowship, Service Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Today we focused on the theme “Jesus Give Me Faith,” and we learned about how Jesus gave Bartimaeus his sight.

  • Craft time

By Posted on Posted in Christian Education, Events, Fellowship, Service Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Door County Advocate just published a great article about our youth mission trip to NYC. You can check it out here: http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/story/news/local/door-co/news/2015/06/30/newi-students-nyc-mission-work/29537577/

By Posted on Posted in Christian Education, Events, Fellowship, Service Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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.

 

By Posted on Posted in Events, Fellowship, Service Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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.

 

By Posted on Posted in Events, Fellowship, Service Tagged with , , , , , , , , , ,

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.

By Posted on Posted in Events, Fellowship, Service Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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!

By Posted on Posted in Events, Fellowship, Service Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , ,

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.