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!