Many of you, I'm sure have a lot of questions about what I did exactly. Our daily schedule looked something like this:
- Wake up/eat/get ready for the day
- TWL (Time with the Lord)
- Meeting/training
- Lunch
- Campus time
- Meeting or group dinner
I really appreciated having Quiet Time (QT, TWL, whatever you'd like to call it) built into our schedule. One thing I learned over the summer is that it's best to have this time in the morning because it gets your day started off right (or it does mine at least). I used to have my QT at night, thinking it's a good way to end your day, but many times I would be so tired that I wouldn't get anything out of it and if I did get something out of it, I would fall asleep quickly and not meditate on it at all. When you having this time in the morning, you can meditate on it all day.
Our morning meetings differed from day to day. The first week we were refreshed on how to use Cru's evangelism tools: Soularium, Perspective Cards, and the Knowing God Personally booklet. We were also trained on how to lead small group Bible studies, talked about God's heart for the world, how to interact best with international students, how to study the Bible, etc.
Tuesday mornings were different though. We would still have a morning meeting, but it was not a training time necessarily. We had a time of Prayer, Praise, and Celebration that the Prayer Team was in charge of. I was privileged to be part of the Prayer Team and helped plan this time every week. It was great! I learned a lot from the planning process as well as the actual meeting Tuesday mornings.
On to campus time. We were split into two missional teams that covered 4 different campuses: Brooklyn College, City College, Queens College, and New York University. I was stationed at NYU all but two days during the summer--I went to Brooklyn College twice. As I stated in a previous post, ministry was really hard to do there. It was difficult to find students--we had to go to Washington Square Park, in the midst of the campus, because non-students could literally not get into the buildings. We got rejected a lot by students and non-students--some because they probably thought we were trying to sell them something, some because they didn't have enough time, some because they just simply did not want to talk to us.
Monday evenings we would have our Monday Night Meetings (MNM). These were events open to the public held in our office space. These meetings were like our regular Cru meetings on Thursday nights at Eastern. We had a fantastic praise and worship band, a wonderful emcee, and great speakers every week. We talked about being captivated by Christ, being changed together by Christ, being compelled to express love and life with others, and choosing Christ over everything else. As you can tell, our conversations were Christ-centered and Gospel-rich. It was great!
Overall, my experience in New York was fantastic. I am so blessed to have been able to go on this trip and if you supported me through prayer or financially, I cannot explain how much I appreciate it. Our group shared the Gospel no less than 90 times--those were only the ones that we for sure remembered as we were tallying at the end. You were a part of that! And even though we didn't see anyone make a decision for Christ, there's a whole other spiritual world that we don't see how the Lord is working in! The seeds have been planted and God will water and grow them in His own timing.
I have learned a TON over this summer and I am currently processing it all. As I do this, I plan on sharing what all I have learned on here. So plan on checking back!
ps- While in New York, I walked no less than 150.48 miles. Assuming my stride length was set correctly and not adding in the times that I couldn't wear my pedometer. That's a lot!
