One full day of serving in NYC under our belt! Our ministry team left on Sunday morning, after being commissioned during our first service at church. We loaded up three vans and 22 people (and all our luggage) and headed for the city. Four stops later (yes four stops… that’s what happens with 22 people!) we arrived at Living Waters Church in Brooklyn, our home for the week.
We settled in and gave the kids a lesson in riding the subway (mostly in how to work their metro card) and headed off to the Shake Shack near the Occulus. Good thing it was open late! We got back to our dorm around 1 am!
On Monday morning, our group split in two. Half of us went to work at the World Vision warehouse. Works Vision sends supplies around the world to people in need. They are non profit and get their materials from large companies who donate their excess inventory.. companies like Tommy Hilfinger, Costco, Cardinal Health, and others. On the day we were there, we had about five pallets of mixed product from Costco. We broke down the pallets and sorted through the product, put it into other pallets, putting “like” with “like”.
We worked for about four hours on the pallets – unstacking and restacking and wrapping and crushing cardboard. At the end of our time, we had completely transformed the warehouse and got it ready to load the tracker trailer trucks to take the goods to people who needed it.
The cool thing about trips like this… isn’t necessarily just doing what we do… although that’s cool. its being able to spend time with the kids and other adults, learning different perspectives on life. We showed up a little early to the warehouse today and they weren’t quite ready for us, so they sent us to the park across the street to wait until they were ready. During that time, I sat on the bench with one of our young adult leaders and had the coolest conversation about life, and life choices, and the grace of Jesus… the moment when his faith became his own and not his parents.. and these are the moments that remind me of the power of God.
Those who are near me now know that my life is taking a fairly incredible change right now – and I’m in the process of seeing God bring some pretty amazing dreams to fruition – in such a crazy and powerful way that there is absolutely no mistake that He is in it. I promised God two years ago (almost to this exact date) that I was willing to share my story, although I didn’t really think I had one. The one thing that I can tell you all is this… if you’re willing to do what God’s calling you to do, and willing to tell others about His power, He will show up in a powerful way.
I am confident now more than ever that God, in His infinite wisdom, is preparing all of the people in my life to be part of His story, in some form or fashion. I invite you all to join me in this crazy journey….
Blessings to you all,
SB
Journey-For-Life 