30 hour famine '05: part 1
03.31.05 (2:33 pm) [edit]since i finally finished the mission trip, now i can get on with 30 hour famine (30hf), which also occured about 3 weekends ago...the first weekend after spring break. 30hf was a blast, to say the least! the slogan this year was "its about savin kids' lives" and that's what its all about. 20,000 kids starve to death everday, and our job was to raise money to feed these children. a dollar a day covers food for a person. isn't that amazing?! i would guess i probably spend around $10 a day on my own food, but just $1 will suffice for these people because they expect, and can take so little. makes me feel like pig! we fasted for 30 hours. the amazing thing about 30hf is that its a Christian thing at a public school. God thing... definatly. anyway, the fast began at 6:30 on friday morning, and ended at 12:30 saturday afternoon. this is the story of the blessings i received during those 30 hungry hours.
i woke up extra early so i could have breakfast. i ate lightly so i wouldn't be so hunger stricken when that nourishment ran out. went to school early too to pick up my t-shirt. little did i know i'd be wearing that shirt for the remainder of the 30 hours. ewww! so i went through 1st and 2nd period fine. i make a habit of not eating until about 1:45 anyway, and then skipping out on dinner, so i really wasn't even that hungry once lunch time rolled around. during our lunch periods, we went to a sponsor's room, and watched a video encouraging us in our fast, and our walk, and reminding us of just why we were hungry; its about saving kids lives. once i got home around 1:30, that's when the hunger began to take effect, but it wasn't any different than the normal hunger i feel at that time. i packed my stuff for the evening-we spent the night in the school gym- and left on a hunt for a prom dress. i didn't find one at the resale i was hoping to score big on, but i found my dream dress at a local shopette-turquoise strapless top with limegreen beading coupled with a limegreen skirt-a-line of course-with a sheer turquoise material on top. got me some shoes too. cute lil numbers that have ribbon bows that are interchangable and in many colors...so i have shoes for any occasion :D anyway, back to the famine... i arrived at the gym with clothes etc., sleeping bag, dessert for the homeless people we were feeding later, and 8 can goods to restock the school food pantry. even that canned asapargus was looking mighty tastey by then, not to mention my favorite brownies that were resting in a tray in my hand shouting, "eat me! eat me!" once everyon arrived-about 60 juniors and seniors- we played a game called survival. we were split up into tribes-i was in purko-, and took on the names, and ailments of actual people in africa. i was a lil girl that lived with her mother, because all the men in her family had gone to look for work due the very limited food supply in the region, so i had to carry a back pack full of canned foods throughout the game to represent the girl's hunger. some members of my tribe had aids, so we couldn't touch them, otherwise we died. we also had one blind girl, and 2 mutes. i got to be the blind girl's "friend" and make sure she didn't hurt herself, and participated in the game. first we were given a list of african words, and told to use these words in our "tribal dance" which was to be preformed for the other tribes in 5 mins. ours was aweful, let's just say that. the next part of the game was aids musical chairs-if you got out, you had died. i died. great. then we were challenged to make a "shelter" out of 5 cardboard boxes. the point was to make a sturdy one, because balls were to be thrown at them, and the strongest won. the soft balls did nothing to anyone's so the rules got changed to the purtiest. purko tribe lost again. :P and so ended our game
i'm out of time just now, so i'll finish later. God bless!
nyc mission trip '05: part 5, the last
03.30.05 (10:01 pm) [edit]alright whoopie!!! the last bit of my mission trip memoirs...only 3 weeks late! haha. ok, here we go!
Friday- this day was our free day, so we (the youth group with lindsey in lead) went out to see all the sites of nyc. we all got up a lil late, except for yours truely, and jessica. we wanted breakfast, so we got up to grab it. sarah sent us with her breakfast ticket to get her a banana. all the other people wanted to get going early, so they were up with us. the stupid boys-not the girls-were the cause of our late departure. the WOULD NOT get out of bed!!! lazy-heads! so we didn't leave until around 11. great, half our day wasted on sleeping. (i am typically an early riser, and view sleeping over 7-8 hrs. a waste of time.) so, our fearless leader led us to times square first-only about 3 sub stops from the hostel, because some wanted to see times in the daytime, since we had gone at night previously, and daniel wanted to visit the comic book store again; he collects the flash memoriablia. so when everyone was done there, a cry went out from amongst the crowd of, "dang! i'm hungry!" so we jumped on the subway again, and rode to an area, i had never heard of, and lindsey had never been to. she had lived in nyc for a year or so, and so we expected her to know eVeRyThInG, but alas, she didn't know this neighborhood, making getting going in the right direction once we got off the subway a hastle. we HAD to go to this neighborhood so we could visit katz, the most famous deli in nyc which happens to be over 100 yrs. old, and also "where harry met sally". very cool. i think we must have walked around 20-25 blocks to get there, because we didn't really know where we were going, and subway construction :x i didn't get anything to eat there, because it is rediculous to pay $7 for a sandwich...in my humble opinion. if i'm gonna give up that much, i want some chili's, or some italian from this one local place that's purty snazzy. anyway, after lunch, we located a closer subway, and got lost in the subway system a few times. the subway train we hoped aboard when we finally found the right one was disgusting. it smelled like urine, and had a disheveled old man slumped over and asleep in one corner, so we car hopped to the next car over...which smelled like number 2, so we just kept running up several more cars, until we found one that smelled decently...or as decent as an underground train can. once we arrived at our destination-ground zero- not a word was said amongst us, except prayers, tears, and a hymn sung by me. felt led to sing, so sing i did. james teared up, and lindsey comforted him, while the rest of the group snapped pics, or wrote a message on the fence. after we had straighted ourselves up, we headed to the staton island ferry, so we could get a glimpse of lady liberty, without paying the $10 to see her up close. hooray for public transport :D so that took 30 mins to go to the island, and back. we all roamed around the boat, and some took a lil nap on benches. once we got back to the main island, we headed to one of my favorite places in nyc-chinatown!!! hip hooray! i sped shopped, and bargained my way through spending a grand total of $28 on my prom accessories :D that's all the jewelry, purse, and shoes. hehe. that's the only kind of shopping for me... the negotiable kind, which is why i LOVE garage saleing, speaking of which, with the end of spring break comes the garage sale season. i'm SO ready! got warmed up in chinatown :wink: anyway.. after chinatown, we went back to 5th avenue to stop at fao swartz, the largest toy store in the world. we danced on the giant piano, made personalized hot wheels, and i even got to practice my spanish! 2 fellow tourists were taking a pic with a giant stuffed elephant, and lindsey asked them if they wanted to both be in the pic. they signaled they only spoke spanish, so i went to work translating. :D it was fun. once we left fao, i figured we'd go home, cause we were all wilting by then, but oh no. had to check at tiffany's aGaIn, then mike, another youth member, wanted to go check out this video recorder he had found earlier that day in times square. so we walked around, and stood around some more for about an hour. my feet had begun to hurt about 2 hours previously, so by the time we finally got back to the hostel, i felt as if my arches would colapse, and take me with them. i'm not a sissy when it comes to standing, i promise. when i ref tennis, i'm on my feet for generally the 8 hr slot they give me, with about a 30 min break for lunch, so friday was NOT for amateurs. then came a shower, last meeting, packing, and sleepie bye time.
saturday- yeah! departure day. i had fun in nyc, but i was sooo ready to get home to my texas. our flight didn't leave til late afternoon, so we all slept in, except for myself, and a few others who went down for breakie. so we all packed up, checked ourselves out, and met in the lobby, prior to our march down the street toward the bus stop. thankfully, our large bags were again taken to the airport by the vans, so all we had to lug were our carry ons. we practically filled one of the publice buses, so people were quite agitated when the got on to find the bus almost totally full. people had to literally sandwich themselves into the bus. so we road very squished for 2 hours to la guardia; this incident put the icing on the cake: i was sick of so many people! so i dozed on and off until we arrived at our terminal. la guardia is the strangest built airport i've ever been in! the food court, and the stores aren't in the terminal, so everytime we had to eat, or shop around, or go to the bathroom we had to leave the secure area, and then go through security again to get to the terminal. i went through security a grand total of 4 times. please note that this process took about 5-10 mins each time due to lines, and the fine tooth comb they ran through everything. the first time we all went through, james's bag had to be searched; the dumb-dumb had swiped a knife from a diner he had gone to, and stuck it in his carry on. what a dork.:roll: then we all went to go eat, and came back-security again, :roll: but jessica had forgotten her boarding pass so i had to take that back to her so she could get back into the terminal-security again.:roll: then i remembered i had nothing to do on the 4 hour flight, so i needed some reading-security again-to the book store. :roll: so we boarded close to 4 pm, after having "bonding" time, which is what i will call the hours of riding, security, and waiting we did. i sat next to james on the way back, on the aisle, thank goodness. james is a habitual flirt, so he had fun the whole way back being between myself, and another girl. he's long lost interest in me, so he concentrated his efforts on the other girl, who was out of his league, she knew it, and she didn't give a flying potato if he knew it either, so she ignored him most of the flight, which was humorous. there was an in flight movie too-the incredibles- but unfortunantly, i didn't bring my own headset, and i was not about to pay $5 to get a pair from the flight attendants. (yes, i am incredibly cheap, big deal) so i only saw the movie, in contrast to watching which also contains hearing the movie. *shrugs* as we began our decent into dfw, james got so scared. it was hilarious! everytime we hit an airpocket, he'd squeak, pull his knees into his chest, but try to play it off, so he'd still be "cool" for the girl on his left. that provided much entertainment for the last 20 mins or so of the flight. once we landed, claimed our luggage, had potty break, and located our charter bus, we settled in for the ride home. as we wound our way out of dfw, i was so amazed at the lack of bustling people, clear sky, just space...fields, few skyscrapers, and flat land, that i stared out the window until we pulled off the highway. we made a pit stop at a shopping center which had several eateries in it for dinner, then hopped aboard the bus again. i was really excited about being home in my *sings* wide open spaces* again, that i knew if i stayed awake, i'd get sick-i tend to get sick if i get too excited- so i went to sleep, until i woke once to find myself about to cross back into my own county. i phoned greg-my ride- groggily, and asked him to be at the baptist parking lot in 20 mins. so i waited patiently for our bus ride and our mission trip to end. and end it did.
summary- i learned alot on my nyc mission trip, but what stood out to me the most was this: no matter your culture, heritage, language, age, gender a smile, a dance, a joyful song, a helping hand all communicate the same thing-care.
i pray my retelling of my mission trip has blessed someone as it has me being the main character. :D God bless you all!
bria cocktail
03.29.05 (7:12 pm) [edit]| How to make a bria |
| Ingredients: 3 parts intelligence 1 part crazyiness 5 parts energy |
| Method: Blend at a low speed for 30 seconds. Add a little emotion if desired! |
nyc mission trip '05: part 4
03.26.05 (3:53 pm) [edit]thursday got really long too, so here she blows!
Thursday- hooray for Thursday! Thursday was a lot of fun. Got to see 2 different ethnic communities around nyc. Thus far, we had visited the mixed queens-later found out from another group that knew someone at the queens hospital that people from over 200 different countries come to the hospital annually- the black Brooklyn, now we were headed for an Indian- not American Indian, like flowing clothes, and jewelry Indians- and an Arabic sector of nyc. We met larry at the queens dunkin donuts again, and then larry led us to the Indian neighborhood. We stopped first in a lil store that sold just about every typical Indian artifact one could think of. It had hindu shrines, and gods, and goddesses, books, cookware, some cheap jewelry, furniture, incense… lots of fun stuff. I got myself some red, and silver bangles; they make me happy like this :D cause they go “jingle, jingle”. After we left that store, we split up into 3 groups to look around at other places. I went with laura and lisa. We stopped in a sari-that’s what the Indian flowing garments are called-shop. The sari’s were beautiful! They could have easily passed as a formal dress! I’m thinking the store we picked was something like that…like a prom dress shop for Indians. (I don’t like making allusions with different cultures, because each culture is one in it’s own, and cannot be fully described in terms of another. Don’t like to do that with religions either, but in this case to describe these outfits, it was necessary.) after we emerged with our heads spinning in fabulous shades of bright colors, and silver, and gold, our eyes were dazzled again as we passed shop after shop of windows filled with jewelry. Lisa tried a beautiful amethyst, and crystal set in silver necklace at a fabric store; all 3 of us fell in love with it, until we uncovered the price $900! After that, we gently replaced the necklace on it’s velvet tray, and denied the merchant’s request of trying on another. The next shop we poked our heads in was a bit of everything store-clothes, jewelry, and videos-one guy-adam-came back with 2 indian videos that the seller said had won some major movie awards in India. There was a tv in the front show room with Indian music videos playing. Lisa commented that we had now witnessed Indian and African booty dancing. We giggled at that one. We also visited the local market. There were many strange vegetable or fruit looking things-or that’s how they were being sold, in heaps with a sign telling what it was stuck in the middle of the pile. We didn’t’ have enough time to stop, and ask people what all this stuff was, as it was close to time to our meeting time for lunch. We met the rest of the group back at the first store we had gone to, and found cheri had purchased a sari. It was beautiful! Although it was not as fancy as the ones we had seen the shop we had entered. Larry had purchased a bag of Indian equivalent to trail mix for us to try. We all took a handful, and some burned their mouths to pieces, and vowed to not eat Indian food for lunch. Myself, sarah s, cheri, Daniel, and Kenny were brave enough to join larry in some Indian cuisine. Let me just say, it was delicious, and we didn’t even go to one of the better Indian food sellers! I’ve had a craving for Indian food for about a week now; hint, hint to all those great Indian cooks out there; my area would be a great place for you to come and set up a restaurant. The food itself wasn’t the best part…it was eating it! Apparently, Indians use their fingers to eat their food, so we all attempted to eat like real Indians, with laughs, and tutoring from the actual Indians who shared the dining room with us. At least we provided them a good laugh. :D it was interesting scooping up rice with my fingers and shoving it in my mouth without making an idiot of myself. Oh well. The chicken bites I had was a lil easier, because they were bite sized, although swimming in an orange sauce of some sort. After the main course, we all had a dessert. I tried a lil ball of dough sprinkled with powdered sugar. The girl who sold it to me said it was made with milk, but didn’t know much else how to explain it. It was good too, but not really sweet like we Americans like our desserts, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. After lunch, we all hopped aboard the subway again, and headed to the Arabic sector. Before we got off the subway, larry warned us to only speak to those of our own gender, as it is considered rude to speak to someone of the opposite gender in Arabic public. After we split up into groups, laura, adam and I moseyed our way through a few stores. Adam purchased a few drinks, because he was thirsty, and found one that he tried in france once, and enjoyed immensely, except this time, Arabic was scrawled over the can. One grocery store we went into held 2 men in typical Arabic dress at the back of the store chatting animatedly about something. As we walked toward them, the men put their hands behind their backs-they had been flailing them around in passionate discussion a moment before- and clamped their mouths shut as we passed. I pointed out cow hoof for sale in the butcher’s section at the back, then we exited, and the men began to talk again. I thought that was interesting…to not even speak to anyone in the presence of the other gender. *shrugs* must be an Arabic thing. Lol. Next we located most of everyone else at a lil Egyptian pastry shop taste testing several things. I had a lil bite myself. The one I picked out had a walnut filling about the consistency of pecan pie filling, and crispy crust on each side of it. It was good. :) our day was done then, as many had to get back to the hostel to ready themselves for broadway, and Kenny needed to get goin with larry back to the Brooklyn place for the toboggan, gloves, scarves give away. I wanted to go with larry too, but was quickly deterred when reminded of what neighborhood it was in *shudders* so we all went back. I got my shower, but I wasn’t going to broadway-had been once before, and was not amused at paying $60 to see something I didn’t particularly enjoy. Garret, Nathaniel, and mike-another of my youth group- didn’t go either, so we went down to one of the common rooms, and played risk. I had never played before, and I didn’t do very well, and got bored, so I quit in the middle of the game to go read the 5 people you meet in heaven by mitch albom-same guy that did Tuesdays with morrie. I finished the book, then went to sleep. I was awakened by the rest of my room mates dragging in from broadway, and readying for bed. Soon one commented that she thought she heard a rat, and every girl in that place began to scream and hop off the floor in a panic just like in the movies. It was hilarious to watch! Although I wasn’t exactly going to be the brave one to get down out of my bed and investigate the scratching noises either. Hehe. After a while, we all settled down, and also onto getting Lindsey to clean up her corner, which everyone was sure had attracted the “rat” as it was filled with open girl scout cookies, and other munchies including an almost whole pizza from cheesy pizza we had gotten on Saturday. EWWWWW!!! After things quieted a bit, I fell back asleep, and woke only once that night to notice everyone else was asleep, and slip back into my own slumber quiet, and promptly.
nyc mission trip '05: part 3
03.25.05 (11:58 am) [edit]tuesday and wednesday....
Tuesday: Tuesday we got to sleep in a little, but not by much. After we all appeared in the lobby, we rode-ugh- to our second work site in queens. Given we got lost a few times, the ride took 2 hours! Never EVER drive in nyc. We met larry at dunkin dounts, then drove to our site- a house containing 4 apartments for the missionaries that work for urban impact. We were to be renovating the basement apartment, but larry, gary, and duane had to take the vans to the local home depot first to get paint, and a new iron door for the Brooklyn place we had worked at on the previous day. So while we waited for the paint for the room that was no bigger than a walk in closet which we were to paint to arrive, sarah s, and cheri went to work sorting toboggans, gloves, and scarves for the give away we were doing at the Brooklyn place on Thursday, while the rest of us sat around watching the snow accumulate outside…a blizzard had arrived. Lisa, and Kenny tried to fix a broken bookcase, but it was made wrong, so it couldn’t be fixed. Shortly after “fixing” the bookcase, the paint arrived, but it was time for lunch, so we had…pizza…yeaaah. I got mine payed for by gary though because he was impatient, and didn’t want to wait for me to dig money out of my purse. I also bummed a few garlic knots off of sarah s, and lisa. The wind, and snow almost blew us off our feet so lisa and I got to work painting the room, while the guys began patching a hole in the ceiling, and laura patched holes in the walls, and doors. After a while, cheri, and sarah s came in and asked lisa and I to switch them jobs, so lisa and I were transplanted to the garage, which wasn’t much warmer than the house because all the house had for heat in the apartment was one space heater. So we sorted hats, gloves, and scarves for a while until we found the end of the trash bag. We drug the bags of sorted stuff inside to sort into what’s going, and what’s staying because larry didn’t need all of them for Thursday and found everyone still hard at work, except laura was trying her hand at painting as she had finished her patching. Larry told us we were free to go, as soon as we had loaded a van with the hats etc. and found a place to park the vans overnight, so we could ride the subway home. Some of us walked to the subway in the snow from the house, and unknown to us, cheri lost her cell phone on the walk. A woman found it, and called cheri’s house, and told her mom she had her daughter’s cell phone. Cheri’s mom called sarah s, so eventually cheri got her cell back. Lovely lady. That evening myself, sarah, Lindsey, and Daniel went to the Jekyll and Hyde club. That was sooo much fun! It’s not a club, but a meal and show. The food wasn’t awesome, but the atmosphere and entertainment was priceless! We got to be the center of it all too! Hehe. Lindsey even got a dessert for her birthday, but Daniel ate it while she went on stage and twirled a baton (she’s a twirler at one of the local colleges) she was soooo mad at Daniel when she got back and found her dessert devoured. Sarah and I thought it was humorous. After dinner, we had to get back for the meeting, so meeting, shard our day, and hit the showers, and then the sack.
Wednesday: up; ride subway to Brooklyn for 1 hour; walk in the right direction, and arrive with key in hand. The trash men are just down the street, so we have about 5 mins to drag around 30 bags of broken wood, dust, and bits of concrete out to the sidewalk. We get them all out just in time, but the trash men won’t take them. Dang it! So we drag everything back inside, as we’ll get a ticket if we leave it out there. So we go to work crunching more boards from the wall we dismantled on Monday, and bag that up. We also rip 2 sinks apart, and pull some plywood off a wall. After completing that task, we drive over to a nicer mcdonald’s than we had gone to on Monday…one with 2 bathrooms. 0.o (in greg’s “words”) we get our food, then I go back to the counter to get myself an apple pie. *Yummy* as I stand in line, a short black woman stands beside me waiting for her food, and looks me up and down like I’m some goldfish in a bowl…after a while, I began to feel like that goldfish on display too. The lil lady mocks me, “ugly white cracker!” wow, I had never heard that in reference to myself in a derogatory manner, and rarely in a playful manner, so I bristled and stood like I had a stick running along my back as she continued to yell obscene things at me, although I couldn’t understand half of what she said due her slang, and heavy Brooklyn accent. I played dumb until I got my apple pie, and hurried back to my group to relay my story to them. No sooner had I finished my story, the lady walks around the corner with her food into the dining room, and sits down on the other side of the dining room, and stares wide eyed at the whole flock of us whities. She goes off! She yells at us for around 20 mins straight, because apparently, it is the white man’s fault that her grandson is in jail for drugs, and all we ever do is have sex, and make babies, but we had better stop that, cause our race needs to die. Let’s just say we all left a lil on edge. Once we arrived back at our site, larry had arrived, and we told him what had just gone down in the ‘hood. He apologized, and said she must have been an American, because immigrants would never do something like that. Lisa, larry, cheri and I hit the streets with flyers about the hat etc. give away on thurs. because the school down the street had just let out. We found a few immigrants, but not many. As we were standing there, a woman came walking towards us from the opposite direction of the school, when she spotted us, she crossed the street, walked a lil ways, then re-crossed the street back to “our” side. It was strange seeing racism from the minority’s point of view, and has helped me to understand the absurdity of racism. I formally was scared a bit of black people, and maybe even a bit of those sharing my Hispanic heritage, because around here, those are the minorities that cause the trouble, but in Brooklyn, the white man is the minority, and causes the trouble. Interesting, and I’m glad I observed such a lesson. After we handed out fliers, we went back to the site, and finished ripping down plywood, and Kenny and Daniel took sledge hammers and crow bars to another wall. It was fun to watch anyway, so much fun, that we attracted terry again. we came to watch, and even helped us out a bit. He told larry that if he would give the trash men $10, they would haul off anything. Larry said better to pay them $10 than the $500 for a big construction bin. Soon it was time to go, so we slipped away into the twighlight just before it was no longer safe for the black man to be out in the neighborhood, much less the group of whities made up of mostly females we were in. we went back to the hostel. I showered early, and by the time I was out, it was time for our meeting. After the meeting, and sharing our wonderful experience, I hit the sack.
nyc mission trip '05: part 2
03.25.05 (10:39 am) [edit]monday gets a blog all to itself because it's soooo long!
Monday: my group-urban impact- was the last group to leave :D didn’t have to get up til 8:15, and be down in the lobby until 9:15. our time schedule in the morning didn’t change much because breakfast ended at 9 everyday. So we drove-mistake-to meet our coordinator. Driving in nyc is 1) not reliable, or 2) fast…always take the subway. Anyway, got to our meeting place, a Nazarene church that also serves to house office space, including that of urban impact, and met larry, the coordinator. He gave us a debriefing about our work to come this week. Apparently, out work took us this week to several different locations, but it would always not be smart to share with any curious by-standers what exactly we were doing, because most of the areas had a muslim majority, so if word of our lil Christian spot got out to the streets, the muslim leaders would tell all their followers to never step foot in our place, and that’s exactly who we’re going for helping, the poor, and new immigrants of the neighborhood. What the muslims wouldn’t get was that conversion was second on the list to showing Jesus to them through action. After our briefing, we road the subway to our first work site in Brooklyn without larry because he had an appointment. We got into Brooklyn, and began walking, looking for lunch. We grabbed many a stare, because we were the only white people for probably a 5-10 mile radius. (yes, this story is a lot about race/culture relations, but stick with me, it has a happy ending.:D) so we walk for about 30 mins to our lunch at a wendy’s. after lunch, we ask for directions, and find that in our quest for food, and site, we have walked around a mile or 2 in the wrong direction. Great. So we back track to the subway and head the other direction, and walk 10-15 blocks in the right direction toward our site. We arrive, and larry’s waiting for us. We unlock the steel roll up door, and pull her up to reveal a glass door with a mess behind it; we were working at a hole in the wall of an office space, that was in the middle tear down. The room was filled with remnants of crumbled walls, broken wood, and one exposed wall. Our jobs included taking down the old business’s sign outside on the wall, sweeping up the remnants, tearing down the exposed wall, and the molding off the old 1920s style iron ceiling. They’re trying to restore the ceiling, but it’s so far gone, I don’t know how that will work. It had several tiles rotted out, and the majority of it had once been painted over. Larry left us again for another appointment, so most of us swept up the stuff inside, while gary, and Daniel took down the sign outside. We raised such a dust cloud on the inside even with the door forbiddingly open, we had to break every 10 mins or so, so we could go outside and breath real air. cheri took a pic of us sweeping, and you can barely see the people in the pic for all the dust flying around. After sweeping, we ladies-myself, laura (one of the leaders), lisa, sarah s, and cheri-plus Daniel went to the mcdonald’s about 10 blocks away, while the rest of the guys- duane (laura’s husband and co-leader), gary, and Kenny (of fame on my blog)- began work on tearing down the exposed wall. Once we arrived at the mcdonald’s we stood in line for about 10 mins for each of us to use the bathroom, and wash our grimy hands. As I was standing there in line, I was examining my hands; the palms were almost black they were so filthy, but the backside was as clean as can be. I figured that that’s the way a lot of us Christians are; we look quite clean on the outside…almost good enough to eat with, but take a look at our inside, and you just almost want to be sick with the thought of that kind of filth being inside you, ingested, hidden. I ran my hands under the water, watched the dust, and dirt slide off my hands, and thanked God for His wonderful, matchless grace that washes my hands of my own grime. We sat in the mcdonald’s for about 30 mins until laura got a phone call from duane saying we had better get back because larry had returned, and said it wasn’t safe to be out. We booked it back lightening fast! We walked so fast we almost missed lisa’s comment of “shake that thing!”, and cheri’s of “heeeyyy, snowflake!” black men hitting on a gaggle of white as can be girls, plus one dude, is rather scary. Once we got back, we discovered, it wasn’t larry that had made the comment, but terry, the guy that lives under the office space, and has wild parties all the time, and whose favorite past time is vodka. I kid you not, that’s a direct quote from terry himself. I have a pic of terry coming, I’ll tell ya when I get all my nyc pics scanned, and uploaded. Pay attention to names throughout this; we got larry, terry, and cheri mixed up A LOT! Anyway, duane, and laura had a lil spat over the mix up, so the rest of us just walked around the small space, and marveled at the felled wall. Larry did arrive back right about then, helped us close up shop, and then we headed over to yolélé- an African bistro a few blocks away, and a block from the place we would be teaching English to immigrants later that evening. The atmosphere of the bistro was great-upbeat, and posh, but relaxing at the same time. All the food was African, but I had to try something, just to say I did, so I got myself a bissap-a blood red drink made from a flower of some sort. A few others tried something too, as this was our dinner stop. Cheri got a dessert with yogurt, sliced fruit, and some millet in it. It was really good, although no one else liked the millet added to it; the millet gave it a different texture, but I liked it, and I think I may try to make it myself, because it looked simple enough for even me to make. Kenny and Daniel split a plate of meat balls on a stick-or that’s how I would describe it. It tasted like meat loaf, but with a lil extra kick of some sort of spice. Very good. (if you can’t tell, I mooched off other’s food a lot this trip) as we ate, the owner of the bistro put on some sort of music video for us. Interesting. African booty shakin to traditional African music. We tried to not pay attention, but the guys had a lil trouble with that. So then we went a few doors down to the English school. I got to teach a guy his abc’s. he said I was a good teacher. I would point to a letter, ask him it’s name, and to write the letter. We formed small words, and I would have him spell the word aloud while pointing to the letters after my example, and then I would explain to him what the word meant. We did simple words like dog, and eye, although he didn’t understand vase, even when explained to him in his native French. His story was pretty cool. He had come to America before, but had gone back to his home country of senegal for a while, then came back, and now is ready to stay, and as a result, learning English. I had a nice talk with the main teacher about learning different languages, as I could relate from learning Spanish, and conversed with my student a bit, although with some degree of difficulty. He spoke English better than he writes it. Have a pic of him too. After school, we walked to the corner, hopped aboard the subway, and rode back for about an hour, falling asleep along the way. Once we returned, and had our meeting, I went to the showers, and went to sleep.
nyc mission trip '05: part 1
03.25.05 (10:11 am) [edit]well, this summary of my mission trip has turned into a bit of a novel, so i'll post 2 or 3 days of it at at a time. here's saturday and sunday, with monday and tuesday soon to follow. :D
i have returned!!! *BWAHAHA* sorry it's taken me a whole 2 WEEKS to blog about my mission trip :oops: been busy...i really needed a week break to recover from my spring break. my feet are STILL sore! anyway, i'll just tell ya all about it, although i doubt few will be interested, but those few i pray will be as blessed by the re-telling of my mission story as i was playing a role in the story.
i'll put this in a linear storyline, so it's easier to follow, and keep organized. :D
Saturday: we loaded a charter bus in the parking lot of the giant baptist church here in town at 1:30. i sat next to sarah, kenny's sister. the bus driver was gruff! she wouldn't let us board until there was an adult on board to suprivse us. she was kinda funny though when it came to choosing a movie. "i have 3 movies; only 3. we will watch one, because you can't watch the other 2. i'm not going to tell you what the movie's called. so, yes, we're watching it." very strange. once we were all boarded, we left at 2, got to dfw airport around 6 and ate once we got through security into the terminal. me, sarah, and jessica went for mickey d's. the rest of the 60 or so people split up and went their own ways to different place too. we had plenty of time as our plane didn't leave until around 9ish, if i remember correctly. we boarded, and guess who i got to sit next to- nathaniel, to adhd kid. joy. *sarcasm* so, i babysat him for a few hours listening to him talk about his dog. "when i get home, my dog will come and sniff me, looking for food. i ate wendy's for lunch. wendy's a funny name" etc.- no logical pattern to what he said…ever. we arrived at la guardia at 11ish and promptly claimed our luggage, threw our big bags into 2 mini vans we had rented for the week and road a public bus to the nearest subway station that was open that late at night. on the subway, there were 2 drunk prostitutes with a boy. all 3 were proabably 14 or 15 and drunk off their rockers. it was pretty funny, but also at the same time really sad, because they could have been doing so much more with their lives...so much life ahead of them. instead, they were selling their bodies into the night to strange men, and boys and had absolutely no fashion sense! i have NEVER seen such ugly girls in my life. one had a really pale complextion, and nearly white hair, coupled with ruby red lips, layers of black eyeliner, and a blood curdling drunken laugh; the other had a laugh almost as torchorous a laugh, but with darker hair, and complextion, with the same eyeliner, but pure white lips as a phantom. after we got off the subway, still draggin our carry on's behind us at 1 in the morning, we walked 6 blocks to our lodgings for the week-the hostel...scary. the place is basically an international boarding house for students mainly, dorm fashion, so I roomed with 9-10 other girls during the week. I didn’t even bother with a shower, because I was soooo tired! But I did go out with the group for some chow at cheesy pizza a few blocks away; if you ever go to nyc, don’t do cheesy pizza-several of us got sick off that stuff.
Sunday: my youth group-there were 2 that went, us, and the big Baptist one- decided to go to church at one of the sites that some of the group was to be working at this next week, although, not my group. We left the hostel at 9ish. On the way to the subway, I saw a guy holding a sign… beggin, you know, but the sign said, “tell me off $2” now, that’s sad that 1) he’s allowing people to do that, 2) it obviously doesn’t bother him to be yelled at anymore, due the amount of yelling he’s received in life, and 3) he can actually make money that way. We didn’t get to the church-Greater Restoration-until 11! We spent 2 hours on the subway and walking to get to this place! Shesh!!!! We arrived late to the service, so we walked in amongst 3 ladies doing interpretive dancing. Different…but very interesting, and in my opinion very appropriate. If a member of my Nazarene congregation would have known I was witnessing dancing…much less in a church, they would have croaked on the spot. But, that’s not my opinion, this dancing was not vulgar, but was a beautiful interpretation of how the dancers felt. Astounding! I think doug-our youth pastor- must have learned something from their dance, because we’re putting one of our own on at church in a few weeks, and I’m gonna be in it, and not in the supporting roles either! There were several worship songs sung with many members of the congregation pulling tambourines from under their chairs, and rising, sitting, and jangling their tambourines with the music, and their feelings. That was one of the most beautiful expressions of love for Jesus I have ever seen. It was women’s Sunday, so the preacher’s wife spoke on women’s strength. Due to topic, and the lack of sleep, most of the youth group fell asleep during the sermon, but I was attentive, as that topic is one of my pets. The service didn’t end until 2:45, but I enjoyed every minute of it. Most everyone else of the group emerged rubbing sleep from their eyes, complaining about the length and the topic. After walking the 10-12 blocks back to the nearest subway station, we rode on toward “home”, but stopped in soho-the Italian sector of nyc-for lunch. And we had pizza..again. let’s just say I was pizza-ed, and micky d’s-ed out by the time we got back home. Can’t ever go wrong with pizza, and micky d’s in a strange place…most of the time, but we’ll get to that part later. :D once we got back, we almost automatically decided to go out again. *sigh* so off to times square we went…we being most of the youth group, minus doug, cause he was tired. We walked around out in times square seeing just about everything one can see in times square. We walked around in toys r us-and got lost in there- then we spilt up guys and girls so the guys could go look at fossils, and we could go look at tiffany’s. :D unfortunantly, when we got there, tiffany’s was closed-lindsi just about threw a fit, because Daniel-youth intern/lindsi’s boy- was supposed to get her something for her birthday there, so we ended up in the trump tower getting starbucks instead. Not so bad. Some wanted to go into the espn zone, but only 18 and over could go in, unless accompanied by an adult, so, me being the youngest of the “adults” I got to babysit those who got left outside, because the 2 over 18 going in could only take in 2 minors at a time, so I sat, and let garret, and Jessica borrow my cell to call home. Awww…they still like to call home, cute. After that, we were all tired of snapping pics, and walking around with our faces up to the neon lights, mouth agape, our heads began to droop, so we headed back to the hostel a tired bunch for our evening meeting, and a shower. End of day 2.
posting shortly/join my webring!
03.24.05 (3:02 pm) [edit]ok, really, i will post my trip, and 30 hour famine memoirs tomorrow; i promise you! i hereby promise to sit down, and write, and not get up til i'm done...tomorrow, cause tonight, greg, and i are having a ring marathon...watch the first one at his house, then skip over to the theater for the ring 2!! yeah!!! one of my fav kinds of movies physco thrillers are. :D i'm happy now. in the mean time, if you have a site, or a blog, or space of any sort on the net to call your own AND believe in abstinence, apply for membership in the true love waits webring over there...i'm the manager! and you love me, so this will work out great!
alive!
03.20.05 (9:34 pm) [edit]just to let ya'll know, i did return from nyc in one piece, just trying to get all the memoirs down, before i post them here... please check back soon! God bless!
off into the wild blue yonder...in 3 different directions
03.05.05 (8:55 am) [edit]the past 3 days could have been a nightmare, but they have come almost to an end with no hurt feelings, but with a ton of laughs! my whole family is goin different places on spring break... my sis was off to mexico at 6 am this morning on mission, my parents are going to austin later for some shoppin, and relative visiting (boy, i'm glad i'm missing out on that one), and myself, i'm goin on mission to nyc in t minus 3 hours. usually when we go on vaca-much less than to 3 different locations- everyone gets really uptight, because everything has to be "perfect"- have to leave the house sparkling like a fresh cut diamond, car must be washed, trunk has to be packed just right, the animals arrangements have to be taken care of, all our things packed, and re-packed. this time, wow, we weren't running around like chickens with our heads cut off, squawking at each other. this time we each did our own thing-my sis packed like 2 days ago because she's a planner, i, and my dad have procrastinated as long as possible-i did mine last night, dad'll do his the night before they leave-, and my mom, well, she'll wait until they decide to get up and go. we've done all the stuff we always do before we leave, but no one's been up tight...now that's what i call vacation! i think what's kept our packing, and setting off going smoothly is all the prayer covering all 3 trips. i know i've prayed for them each everyday for about a week now, and no telling how many others have prayed over them. laughter has dared to infiltrate our "get-ready-for-vaca" scene! we've been playfully poking fun at each other the entire way! my dad just walked in mumbling about a bird going on his newly washed car, but he wasn't angry; he's was making a joke out of it! yeah!!
anyway, i hope this attitude follows each of our trips until the finish. i like to laugh! :lol: God bless, and go with each of you on your travels!
