Hello All!  This is unbelievable to be home right now and blogging about New York. Sorry, still in shock about this so please  hang in there with me. Also, thank you so much for reading these past two months. We are so happy to be here and the only reason we are here is because of people like you, and our Awesome GOD. We greatly appreciate it.
     Please excuse me for being late with this, crazy last week in the Bronx. The Tuesday after Chris (Bekah's mom) left is where we will pick up. Chris had another session in the morning for us and then she and Whitney went home. We were very thankful to have that time with them and learn. And I'm sure it was a wonderful blessing for Bekah to see her family again.
    Wednesday, we went to the Bowery and the to the after-school program at Manhattan Bible. At the Bowery, we organized tons of clothes and helped move boxes all around the warehouse; they had to make room for the shipments of food that were coming in later that week for Thanksgiving dinner. We said out goodbyes to the workers there. Many new friendships made, so that was also sad. In the afternoon Vicky came, and we hung out with her. We also...finally... shared our testimonies. A lot of people talked about how they found Christ and just a few of the highlights as to where they are where they are today. It was very nice to hear from everyone. Even though we had the amazing opportunity to get to know everyone for two months, it was nice to put some puzzle pieces together and really share out in the open with everyone listening. Vicky shared her testimony as well (Bonnie had told us a little about her family previously). Wow; it was a very good night.  Lots of lovin and understanding. Tons of giggles. New memories.
  Thursday, we finished up the rest of the testimonies. Vicky took Renee' and Beth home. A part of us left. The remainder of the group still went to the Love Kitchen and Exodus, but it was very odd for me without the whole group there. Something always felt a little bit empty whenever the whole group wasn't there. Anyway!  We got a lot done: packaged some vegetables to hand out to those that came, gave out some T-shirts, handed out the normal food (soup, rice, beans, potatoes, carrots, juice, milk, pasta) and some shampoo and conditioner! -thats a treat! Afterwards, we walked across the street to the after-school program. That was fun! Last time with all of the kids. Snap. The kids have been fantastic this whole time, even though I know some of us complain sometimes as to how rowdy they are and why don't they listen and such. But! As you guys may know, Bekah and I are a lot to handle sometimes too so it was good to remember that. :D   Some of us received pictures and cards from our students and that was very sweet. We stood in front of the school, and they prayed for us. So many blessings from that building. GOD is definitely doing some powerful things there! We left we heavy hearts. It was the week of goodbyes. Exodus was probably one of the hardest places for me to leave just because the teachers there were so great and the kids...the kids surprised me everyday by what they taught me: how they prayed, how humble and helpful they were, how they were willing to clea up after each other even when they didn't know someone was watching. Very good.  VERY GOOD. Anyway, we played another game of Settlers that night. Five STEPpers left. We were dwindling down.
   Friday was our last day we had something to do. We went to World Vision and moved pallets of the boxes that were still clean (some of them were ruined because of Hurricane Sandy).  They were remodeling the whole place, once again. We actually ended up finishing everything they had planned for us, so we got to leave early. Everyone took a nap once we returned. Then, we ate and got ready to go to Times Square Church for teh very last time. We walked around Times Square until 12am, and then returned to the apartment. We wanted to pull an all-nighter so we stayed up and watched a wonderful movie called To Save A Life. If you have not seen it, I very much recommend it. It's about a popular kid who sees that there's something more to life. He ditched his one friend when they went to highschool, but when his friend kills himself, he struggles to find his purpose. He tries out the whole "Jesus thing" but he's not sure about it....to see if he does find God, you'll have to watch it! :D  haha.  That took us to about 3am. We watched anothr movie and finally rested our heads on our fluffy pillows at 5:30 Saturday morning. Eryca's family came in the morning and everyone slept in. They went sight-seeing in Times Sqaure. Aaron, Asher, Bekah and I met up with them to eat some good old...Applebees  food for dinner! (Other places had a long wait so we just settled for Applebees). Asher and I shared a plate of chicken and pasta-y stuff! Eryca and her sister shared a plate of cicken alfredo, and they graciously shared a bite with me! YUM! :D   We walked around Time Square for a while with them. Into the M&M's store and Disney store we went once again! We made funny faces with all the M&M's faces  to make things....just a little bit more interesting!  Eryca's family is adorable! We all had fun. Then, Asher, Aaron, Bekah and I went home. Eryca's family folowled in pursuit 25 minutes later. We spent some good old bonding with them and went to sleep.
   Sunday was our last week at church. We sang "In Christ Alone" among other worship songs led by the pastor. She had a very good message-I'll have to look her up on their website because that woman has been blessed by God the Father for sure! After the mesage, the elders of the church prayed for us. Not a dry eye amongst the STEPpers when the morning was over. We had to peel ourselves away that day. Long walk back to the apartment. Sunday we stayed up late just treauring the moments we still had with one another. Just four left, and Asher was leaving in the morning with Bonnie to go to the airport, so it was yet another sad night.
   Monday morning we sai goodbye to Asher and Bonnie and hello to Aaron's family. They had driven from Canada to come to see Times Sqaure and take him home. The rest of the day, Bekah and I spent with his family. We walked around Times Sqaure. (If you guys need to know where anything is in Times Square, we've been there three nights in a row plus we did some of our own touring earlier on...so!  Just let us know if you need some help....we're experts now! ;D  ha!) That was a lot of fun. His family made me excited to see my family, so by the end of the afternoon, I was ready to go home. Aaron kindly went with Bekah and I to the train station to say goodbye and help us carry our many bags. (I definitely came home with a lot more than I had left with! :/  whoops!) We said our goodbyes. Boarded the train. Got off the train. Saw our families. Now, we're home. Going back to the old scenes. Going to the store and not running into people everywhere you step. Driving down the road and being able to go over 35mph. Crossing to street to street and not seeing skyscrapers. Walking outside and seeing a backyard inside of another wall to a house.  Going to bed at night without seven other teenagers laughing and giggling with us and we discus how we probably should go to bed but never actually doing it until someone has to drag us into bed. It's different. We've grown. We still look the same, but on the inside, so much of us has changed. Some parts of us are still left in that little apartment in teh Bronx. Sometimes I see a bike and think of Aaron. I break out in song and think of Asher. I want to say a witty comment  but mine never meaure up to Renee' and her comments. I see a truck and want to marvel at its beauty with Beth. I hear a country song or sing a song from Veggie Tales, but Eryca isn't there to sing along with them. I'm cold but Bekah isn't there to cuddle with. I need some wisdom but Bonnie isn't there to say a simple word from the Book of Life.  Yeah, it's weird...but this is home. It's where family is. It's where I was born. It's wonderful to be home. To get one more taste of every little thing that I never treasured before...and to treasure it once more before I leave for Thailand. It's wonderful to be home; it's sad to leave NY; it's nerveracking to think we'll be in Thailand in less than a week. BUT! Always....always!  Our God is supreme. HE guides, and strengthens. HE gives us hope and joy and peace about our troubles. HE is always there...He was here when we left. HE was in the Bronx. HE is here again and HE will be in Thailand. And that is why we keep on going every day. Yes. Our God is good.
  Thank you for reading. I'm sorry if I talk too much or you can't follow me sometimes. Please, do keep reading though. I promise you it will get better.     Stay tuned for the first message from us in Thailand next week. For now, we can't wait to visit our friends and family and fill our bellies with so much Thanksgiving goodness that we explode!  haha!  Have a great week everyone! Treasure the time you have with your family. The day may come soon when it won't be as easy to meet with them.  God bless you all!  and remember by we are thankful this holiday season.  Have a wonderful day!  :D

week 7

Hello everyone!

This is the start of our last week in New York! The past 7 weeks have seemed to fly by! We can not believe that in about 2 weeks, we will be in Thailand! The next week is going to be bitter sweet, but lets dive into what we did the past week!

On Monday, we were supposed to have Ken to mentor us for the second time, but some things came up and he was not able to come. Bonnie taught his sessions which were about the core values of the BIC. We learned a lot about our denomination and how we are set apart from other denominations. The rest of the evening we hung out in the apartment.

Tuesday we continued Kens lessons on core values and how we can be a blessing to others. Aaron, Karla, and i (Bekah) went for a run in the afternoon and then went to get Karla's Visa! That was exciting. The rest of the evening was pretty laid back for the most part

Wednesday, Eryca and i had breakfast ministry in the morning, and then went straight from there to the Bowery to serve. we did a lot of loading and un loading trucks. I didn't serve food or work in the kitchen at all that day. I think karla did a little bit. after the bowery was the after school program. On the way there it was pouring outside. We had fun with the kids, but because of the weather they could not play outside (which is no normal, so they can run off their energy of course!) I think we can all agree that they were full of energy and had no way to get rid of it. They were a little bit more to handle than normal. By the time we left the after school program, it was snowing and there was about 2 inches of snow on the ground. Public transportation is a wonderful thing, just not so much when you're standing outside in the wind and show waiting for the bus. Almost all of us could have rung our shoes out by the time we got home. It was cold. (I think that made Karla and I excited about the fact that we will not have to worry about being cold in Thailand!) The rest of the evening we hung out in the apartment in warm, dry clothes and sipped tea and hot chocolate.

Thursday we watched a movie about Dietrich Boenhoffer (sp?) a missionary who went against Hitler in preaching and in action. He made church more of a community rather than individual religion. He also took the beatitudes as a literal command from Jesus instead of just something to read and not live by. In the afternoon we went back to the after school program. Most of the snow was actually melted at that point so we actually got to play outside with the kids and run off some of their energy.

Friday we went to World Vision in the morning and continued to help them clean everything up from the flooding. We swept the whole warehouse and organized some things. In the afternoon Aaron, Karla, and i went on run again. In the evening we went to Times Square church. The service was very fulfilling and just what we needed. we hadn't been there for 2 weeks. All of us missed it a lot!

Saturday we served with Manna of life again. We went to 4 different locations and served sandwiches, hot soup, and apple juice to the community living around there. We always enjoy working with the people from there. In the afternoon some of us went to China town and did some shopping and then ate some authentic Chinese food. That was a lot of fun!

On sunday we went to church at fellowship chapel and then Chris and Whitney (my mom and sister) came to visit us for the beginning of the week (my mom is one of the mentors, ill explain what she talked about in a bit, and Whitney came to see me of course!). They took me out for lunch in little Italy, that was nice to be able to catch up with them after not seeing them for 7 weeks! In the afternoon we just hung out at the apartment and the team got to know them a little bit. We watched the movie Elf in the evening. Karla and i got a chance to Skype with Kris, who will be our leader in Thailand! She got us aquatinted with what we will be doing once we get there and where to find her once we get off the plane! Although I already knew Kris, it was nice for Karla to be able to meet her and for me to reconnect for a bit.

Today my mom taught a session on how to build healthy global relationships. She talked about how sometimes we can think that we are in a healthy friendship with someone when really we are harming them, and maybe even ourselves! She had a lot of good things to say (and I'm not just saying that because shes my mom! hehe). In the afternoon we did some shopping in the plaza and this evening we went to a Greek restaurant in Times Square. The food was fantastic! We all loved it. When we got home we Karla and I packed some of our things to send back home with my mom and played Settlers of Catan. Such a fun game! We're headed to bed pretty soon, i think.

Next week will be the last blog post while we are in New York, we will continue weekly blog updates once we get to Thailand. We wish you all a great week! Thanks for keeping up with us and all of your support and prayers!

      Goodmorning! Goodafternoon!  Goodevening! I'm not quite sure when yall will be reading this but there's your greeting! I hope you guys had a fantastic week, and I just wanted to say thanks for reading and keeping up with us. We just finished up our fourth week here in the Bronx. Only two more left to go. It's weird because it feel like we just got here some days and then other days it feels like I've spent more than a month and a half here. Kinda crazy to think about. Anyway, let's get this thing rolling, shall we?
    Wednesday was one of those days where we were cooped up in the apartment because of Sandy. So our group went downtown to go shopping and see what kinds of cool stores were down there. Some of us got super yummy Dunkin Donuts! Bekah and I gt super cool shoes. But, that's not the important thing. We basiccally had some good bonding time walking around in all the different stores. The shops were full and the buses were pretty packed too becasue some of the subways were not working yet so a lot of people had off work and school. People were everywhere! The rest of the day, I'm pretty sure we just chilled. Actually, maybe we watched Lord of the Rings-Asher brought the extnded version..ahhhh!
     Jueves, also known in English as Thursday, arrived at 12:01am. Karla led group devotions, and we sang some songs. After lunch we were able to go to The Food Pantry at Manhattan Bible. It was actually a good day! (Sometimes the people are not as happy, but I think they wer even more grateful for the food because of the storm.) Afterwards, we had a group discussion about one of the books we are reading. We stayed up talking and bonding until our eyeballs only wanted to see the darkness of our eyelids.
    วันศุกร์   means Friday in Thai. (By the way, I just googled that word. Bekah and Karla are still learning Thai but not the days of the week...just simple stuff right now.) Friday we went to World Vision. It was sooo exciting because we were not the only volunteers there, so we definitely got to meet a lot of new people; I think there were like three to four other groups there.  The downside was that because of Sandy, the whole builing was under three to four feet of water. This means that all of the stuff we had done previous weeks was somewhat destroyed, which was a bit of a downer but we began to understand what the workers at World Vision have to go through. I don't know if everyone has built something; put all the pieces of a shelf together; moved things from one builing to another; set things like pens, pencils, books, hand sanitizer, etc on the shelves in nice little color-coded boxes; and then also felt the excitement when you realized the project was almost done. The people would soon be able to come in and take what they needed for their classes. (What World Vision does is stocks up on school supplies, clothes and necessities and then gives them out to people. So, they have shelves stocked and organized to the max. It is a very clean facility, and they just moved from their old warehouse. I'm pretty sure they were actually getting ready to open up the doors this week to the public...sometimes plans are changed though.) So! Our hearts sank with all the workers who have been preparing for this week for months only to come into work one day with half of their upplies completely ruined. Yeah, please keep these people in your prayers. World Vision is right next to a river so they got hit pretty hard. Anyway, we had to take shelves down and clean them outside. One of the volunteers got hurt while bringing a load of shelves outside, so prayer for him would also be greatly appreciated. We're pretty sure he will be fine; it was just a bit scary! Anyway, we had a speaker, Greg, come. We watched the movie The Karate Kid (the new one with Jaden Smith), and Greg talked about Intercultural Communications. Then, we talked, of course...we always talked. Our warm blankets and fuzzy pajamas started calling our names, and we answered. Goodnight.
     Saturday morning we had another session with Greg. Then, everyone except Renee and Karla went to Little Italy. Renee and I went on a walk and just stayed back to catch up on some stuff. Then, we all sat down for dinner, watched Lord of the Rings-The Twin Towers, and played Spoons. Greg even played! He was fun; he lost, but he was fun. Bedtime came after another good bonding time (aka: staying up late to talk).
     This morning-today is Sunday-we went to church and sang some songs for them, which we did not have prepared but hey!  As missionaries we're supposed to be flexible so BAM! That was a great opportunity for us! We came back and had lasagna...yum! Great job to Steve! Everyone except Karla and Renee went shopping this afternoon, and Renee and I yet again had alone time (with GOD and just by ourselves). It was actually really nice and everyone else seemed to have a really good time too. Now, we're all just sitting around. Tomorrow Ken will come again to teach us about Blessings. Until next week! Thanks for reading! :D