Week 4

This last week, Raja came to visit me at work to help me find Hindu resources for the Curriculum. A side from statistics and current events, I was also supposed to look up some eastern religious exhortations to help the poor. Matt had already found all the easy ones (i.e. Christianity, Judaism, and Islam) so he had me look for Buddhist and Hindu teachings. Unfortunately, neither religion has a single sacred text. Lucky for me, Raja was raised in the Hindu faith and had a solid background knowledge to help point me in the right direction.

That Monday night, we had a stewardship talk from Jonathan Walton. We dug into the scriptures and talked about what God had to say about money. I felt really convicted. In a good way. I was definitely reminded that my job and the money I get from it is purely a gift and resource from my Father in Heaven, not something to be squandered or hoarded. The biggest key point I took away was the idea that you want to direct your money where it's going, not wonder where it went. I know that's really simplistic, but I felt like it was equally powerful. There are a lot of things to think about regarding this issue. I definitely wanna start doing some budgeting when I get home.

Tuesday, I got off of work a little early and made Shepherds Pie for dinner. Wednesday was a nice change of pace, though. Matt had sent me down to Brooklyn to volunteer at one of Habitat's construction sites. It was so nice going to work in normal clothes. No ironing or tucking in my shirt, and thanks to Anson, I had proper footwear. It took forever to get there, though, because I had to take an hour-long train ride across the river, and then take a 20 minutes bus ride to the building. This particular volunteer day was special, however, because former Mets player Daryl Strawberry came to do a press conference and help out with the project along with a large group of volunteers from Citibank (one of Habitat's most generous supporters). The press conference took a good chunk of time out of the day, and Citibank bought everyone lunch, so I only ended up doing any real work for about three of the five hours I was on site.

I kind of wish we had done more, but what we did do was pretty awesome. We dry-walled the entire ceiling of a living room, via screw-gun. It's a lot more complicated than it sounds, but much easier than it looks. We had to measure and saw the pieces of drywall to fit the shape of the room, and even had to cut out holes for outlets and whatnot. We would then hold the pieces of drywall in place while someone would screw them in to the beams.

Apparently, every year the entire Habitat office goes to a Mets game together...so I got three free tickets to go see the Mets loose to the St. Louis Cardinals. There was but one Mets fan in the entire NYCUP house, and one avid baseball fan (who didn't have to cook or clean that night) who I brought along with me. Poor Francis was heartbroken when we arrived to see the Mets down by six at the bottom of the first inning. The game didn't pick up until the ninth inning, when we had left to make out curfew, but we had fun all the same. Francis and Niki made it onto the big screen for a few moments during

Thursday I went to lunch with Matt and Jonathan on the pier downtown, and later afterwork had our bible study back at the house. I know I've said it before, and I'll say it again: that Bible study deserves a post of its own. I'm gonna do a post exclusively for the book of Isaiah when I get the chance.

Friday night, after a presentation about Human Frafficking, a few of us went out on the stoop to hangout because the weather was beautiful. The humidity had curiously dropped and there was a light breeze fanning the streets of the South Bronx. It was very California. Bethany, Anson and I listened to some awesome stories from Raja, Elle Park (NYCUP's official blogger) and Viji (Raja's twin sister.) We started talking about how God has revealed Himself to humanity; how some people instinctively know Him, and how others just have earth-shattering encounters with Him.

The stories I heard were so incredible, and definitely deserve their own post. To be sure, though, these stories gave made me excited about God. They made me want to know Him more. Raja recommended a book to me, that expanded on the "indigenous Christians" of African and South American tribal communities. I can't wait to order it.

Saturday we woke up early to pray for the Hope Fair. Afterwards, I went to Shake Shack (again) with Anson, Bethany, Stephanie and Rachel. It was quite the pilgrimage, because we had to walk really far and two out of the five of us hadn't had it before. It was exquisite, as usual. Rachel went home, and the rest of us walked around Riverside (again) I took a nap on the lawn, and read some more of Irresistible Revolution. I also went on a walk and did some praying. Around dinnertime, we wandered over to this massive cathedral outside the park called St. John the Divine. It was the biggest sanctuary I have ever seen. Dimly lit with hundreds of candles, surrounded by colorful stain glass windows and lined with colossal pillars of marble...St. Johns was breathtaking. I didn't have my camera on me, unfortunately, but it was truly an architectural masterpiece.

We went back to the park for a relaxing sunset Jazz show right on the water. After that, I met up with some other people to go to a notorious jazz club known as Fat Cat, where we shot a round of pool before turning in for the night. I wish we had gotten there earlier, because by the time we got there we only had an hour until curfew. Oh well, it was still a good time. Whenever I come back to New York, I definitely wanna come by this place again. Fat Cat is basically a game hall (with live music) with a plethora of activities to enjoy while you listen to the jam session. They had ping pong, shuffle board, billiards, scrabble, go, playing cards. I definitely wanna come back sometime.

Sunday was the Hope Fair. At long last, Melissa and Michelle's hard work would be put into action. After church, NYCUP set up the sanctuary of Manhattan Bible Church into an exhibition hall. We moved the chairs and set up tables for all the non-profits that would be represented. Like I mentioned earlier, I was assigned to man a table for Habitat. I got to talk to a lot of people about the programs available in New York. Around 8-10 people stopped at my table. Some people I talked to didn't qualify, which was discouraging because they were so disappointed. Thankfully, though, a lot of people did qualify. I loved seeing the hope rise up in families' eyes as I explained the specifics of the program. They were very impressed with what Habitat had to offer, and lots of applications were given out. After the Hope Fair, which ended around 6pm, we went out to a Puerto Rican restaurant for dinner. It was the perfect way to end such a long day.