Week 3

This week was unfortunately not very enjoyable, at least for the first few days. Like I mentioned in my last post, I woke up on Monday morning with a cold, which became progressively worse as the week went on. It made working at the office pretty despicable, and I barely got anything done until Friday. It was also really hard to get to bed at a decent hour because I’d be coughing and blowing my nose all night. As you might imagine, I was never really in the mood for our guest speaker on Monday, and I definitely wasn’t in the mood for a liturgy session on Wednesday either.

Even though I felt like a zombie for the majority of the week, I thank God for bringing two aspiring chefs to NYCUP. I humbly submit that Jon Kwan and Niki Brooks put us all to shame this week when their dinner team fed us three course meals every night when we all came home from work. While these two may have not been in charge of each meal, they certainly enhanced the quality with their knowledge of the culinary arts. I thoroughly enjoined dinner this week. It’s been good every night of NYCUP, but this week was especially delicious.

On Wednesday, Matt took me to a Habitat outreach meeting with a Hasidic community in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. What a trip! This neighborhood had signs in Yiddish, and everything was Jewish; from the delis, to the bakeries, to the health centers. It was so interesting to see, what I call, real Jews. I say that because, in the Bay Area, the Jews just don’t seem that into it. They’ll go to temple and take off school for the holidays, but other than that, they don’t really care or believe in what they claim. These guys, on the other hand, were legit. And I even think that they were from Israel. They wore conservative formal attire, complete with a __. They had untrimmed beards and bore the curling side-locks. The spoke with heavy Yiddish accents, and offered us pastries when we sat down.

Matt and Yaka (another Habitat representative) explained the program for them, while I took notes. Before the meeting, Matt had given me a little background information. Apparently, Habitat rarely works with Hasidic Jews because of the difficulties their religious and cultural traditions bring. For example, Jewish homes (according to this particular sect) need to be within a certain walking distance of a synagogue. If it is too far away, it will violate the Sabbath because they can only travel a certain distance on foot, and are not allowed to drive on this sacred day of rest. Another complication is the allocated volunteer time slots for religious organizations. Since most of the religious communities that Habitat works with worship on Sunday, they request volunteers comes on Saturday. The Jewish Sabbath, however, is on Saturday. Another prospective complication is the green architecture employed by Habitat's developers. You wouldn't think it would be a big deal, but automatic lights actually violate the Sabbath also. When the sun goes down on Friday, the Jews cannot use electricity until the Sabbath is over.

Overall, though, these guys were very impressed with Habitat, and were interested in working with them.

I ended up taking the day off of work on Thursday to catch up on my sleep and just to relax. I slept in until about noon, and then started practicing spoken word poetry…which we’ll get to in a moment. I read some more of Irresistible Revolution, and did some praying over NYCUP’s ministry.

Something that God has been showing me over the summer is that, while there is a tremendous darkness permeating New York City, Jesus is fighting back. Despite the diseases of society that infected this area – poverty, homelessness, institutionalized racism, human trafficking etc. – God is rising up His sons and daughters to bring healing to those places where the sickness is strongest. I was so encouraged to think about everyone’s internships and how God is using them to bring His healing to this broken world. In turn, I just want to thank my roommates for their obedience to the Word of God.

Nathan and Bethany, thank you for feeding the hungry. Will, Jon and Niki, thank you for dreaming up a gift for the poor. Francis and Stephanie, thank you for loving and guiding the children. Mike and Anson, thank you for fighting for freedom for the slaves. Melissa and Michelle, thank you for exalting these things before us to give hope to the poor and disenfranchised

Friday was good. I was finally feeling alive again, and got a lot of work done at the office. I still have a long way to go, but I’m gaining some real momentum on the Appendix, as well as a Community Resource Manuel for the future residents of the Hart-Lafayette Apartments. I was also asked to run a informational booth at Melissa and Michelle’s Hope Fair on August 1. I have to confess, though, I spent the last hour of work on Friday looking up things to do in New York City for the weekend. After work, we had catered Italian again, and went over to Casa Promesa for a worship night.

Four of the interns, including myself, had to opportunity to share some things on our hearts. Mike and Bethany played songs that really impacted them, while Niki and I shared poems about things God has been speaking to us. My poem was called “Emmanuel” and it talks about God’s immediate presence in our life. To enhance my debut spoken-word performance, Jonathan Walton played what he referred to as “raindrops” on his drum. I was so unbelievably nervous, but I’m glad I did it.

Saturday was exhausting, but so blessed at the same time. NYCUP was to help out at the Love Kitchen’s Feed 500 event, which is a bi-weekly cookout for the local poor and homeless. A bunch of Americorps volunteers and Intervarsity Staff came to help out, as well. Half of the volunteers took bagged lunches and roamed the streets while the rest manned several grills at a local park along the Hudson. It was really hot and humid outside, as usual, and I was still recovering from my cold. I opted out of any active labor, so I retreated to the shade where many of our “customers” had sat to eat their free meal. I met this awesome guy named Sydney, who I’ll talk about later. I was really encouraged by his love for people, and the joy he took in getting to know strangers and turning them in to friends.

Afterwards, everyone went their separate ways to later regroup for dinner in the Village. I went back to the house to relax, while most everyone else went kayaking in the Hudson. Mike and Stephanie went to a Bachata studio. We all reunited at a Korean restaurant on St. Mark’s Ave (the New York equivalent of Haight and Ashbury.) It was exquisite. I’d say it was much more flavorful and spicy than Chinese or Japanese food, and perhaps more complex in composition than Thai food.

There was much debate out what we should do for the evening. Some wanted to go to this pool hall in West Village, some wanted to do karaoke, some wanted to Inception (which was sold out), and some wanted to go shopping. No one could really agree so we all split up for the night. Jon, Niki and I ended up visiting union square, where we saw street performers doing gymnastics and jumping over people. After we relaxed at this fair trade coffee shop, and talked about life until about 11:30pm.

On our way to the train, we stumbled upon this dangerously intoxicated high school student lying on the sidewalk. He was lost and without any money or a cell phone. We subsequently helped him get home, and arrived back at our house around 2:30am. This, my friends, deserves a post of its own, because it was quite an adventure.

Sunday we went to Manhattan Bible Church, in Washington Heights, and then to Shake Shack for lunch. I didn’t have to wait in line for an hour and a half this time.