New Hope Community Church

Is it already week 3 of our summer project? Time is flying by so quickly! Yesterday we had an amazing time on campus. My team went to Hunter College and I was surprised by how easily it was for me to get into spiritual conversations with students. One girl said, “I’d like to know God personally, but I’m not ready to let Him be Lord right now.” I was encouraged that she actually took the time to chat with me and I hope she continues wrestling with what it means to be a believer (which she said she was, and yet admitted to living her life to please her parents). Talking to her reminded me of 2 things: 1) Its not only Asian Americans that struggle with parental-idolatry (the gal was black) and 2) I LOVE to share my faith! More specifically, I love helping people come to a greater understanding of God’s love and role in their lives. Just talking to this young lady got me so energized and encouraged. So blessed to be able to do what I love everyday!

Today our team went over to Staten Island to help out New Hope church promote their summer program. It’s pretty cool: six weeks of outings, games, Bible stories, crafts, dancing and more! And the best part is that its all FREE!
I wasn’t sure what today would hold: would we just be handing out flyers all day? I was glad to find out that it was so much more than that…just by sharing about the program, we got into a lot of great conversations with people in the neighborhood about the importance of God in our lives. And parents actually signed up on the spot for the summer program! But of course we also got people who totally avoided us, and flat out rejected us. In my mind I thought, “If they only knew that this was a safe, fun and FREE program that their kids could go to…they would realize they were totally missing out on a phenomenal deal!!” It made me think about how often I’m rejected when I approach people to get into spiritual conversations. If they only knew that the message I wanted to share with them was an amazing, life changing deal!! But one of the students shared, “people need to trust the messenger. Everyone is wary about a deal that may be too-good-to-be-true.That’s why its better if friends refer other friends.” How true! Not only for the summer program, but also for the life-transforming message of Jesus.

What I’ll remember most about today was the rich times of prayer I had with the team. Through those prayer times, I felt like we were moving mountains of doubt and decay in the community. I’m looking forward to hearing how our prayers and time in the ‘hood made a difference. If not not on this side of heaven…