Tuesday Update

TUESDAY
We made our way to the USS Intrepid in the morning. Because of the venue, we included some patriotic pieces in our concert. The folks visiting the ship were a great audience and we led them all in the National Anthem at the opening. As you'll see in the photos and videos in this blog, there's something special about seeing the beautiful Mahattan skyline in the background while our students perform and minister in Arts. The staff at the Intrepid was very welcoming and professional with us and even helped us celebrate Pastor Steve's birthday with a cake and candles they brought out as we started singing "Happy Birthday" to him at the end of the concert. Afterwards we toured the museum part of the ship and headed back to NYSUM where we had a quick turn around time to eat dinner and go to the Brooklyn Tabernacle's prayer service. The kids seemed very excited as we entered and could hear the worship music already in progress. We definitely had a special worship experience at that place. We closed the night by stopping at legendary "Junior's" and enjoying their famous cheesecake. Sweet time of fellowship and lots of laughter as I showed some of the kids some very embarrassing baby pictures of mine. Because we are using subways as our mode of transportation, that implies that we've had to do a LOT of walking as well. Today alone we walked several miles for several blocks to get from point A to point B. It is pretty tiring. Please pray for us because, usually as we approach the middle of the week in our trips, that's when we all begin experiencing exhaustion, lack of focus, tempers flare, and health decays. This has not happened yet but 12 years experience doing these type of trips tell me that it's coming, so help us pray for that. Good day all in all. - Leo

Monday Update

MONDAY

We woke up bright and early and had breakfast in the dining room along with a team from Indiana and Kansas. This was followed by orientation and training. As always, first days can always be a little rough...the generators that were supplied to us up here to power up our concert were defective so our tech team (who has been doing a tremendous job) had to improvise and rent a new one from a local store. One of the vans that were supposed to transport us to Coney Island broke down over the weekend so we had to do the whole commute via subway with instruments and all. A commute that was supposed to take 45 minutes ended up taking close to 2 hours. But the team remained flexible and with a positive and fun attitude through it all. They even took advantage of the opportunity and gave a little acapella mini concert to the people in the subway during the long ride. You can see some of the fun in the videos included in this blog. We finally made it to Coney Island, set up for our concert and performed/ministered for an hour and a half on the boardwalk facing the beautiful beach. We had a current stream of onlookers and people passing by. Many of them would stop and listen. We even a had a drunk crazy man try to disturb our concert and distract the audience from our message but the beach patrol took care of him. The audience welcomed our music, dramas, and dance routines very enthusiastically and we even had some people raise their hand during the gospel invitation. After the concert we ate at the legendary Nathan's Hot Dogs and returned to NYSUM. Before bedtime, as we always do in these trips, we had Big Group which is a time of debriefing and testimonies from the day. I spoke to the team about the power of words (from the book of James) and shared specific examples throughout my life of how I've been lifted up and encouraged by people's words but also how I've totally been demolished and devastated at times by reckless words...how sometimes we listen to the wrong voices and believe lies that totally handicap our lives and how we need to listen and believe instead those voices which speak truth, encouragement and hope into our lives. We concluded by exercising encouragement...I asked them to give a shout out to someone in the team who has been encouraging to them. What I thought would be a brief exercise took a life of it's own and 40 minutes later, I finally had to stop the "lovefest" because it was getting late. We gained a lot of territory for the Kingdom today and are steadily taking back what the enemy has stolen from us. I am very proud of this team...we are finally becoming one and only united is that we will succeed in our Mission. Tomorrow, noon concert at the USS Intrepid ship in Manhattan and then Brooklyn Tabernacle in the evening. Please keep us in your prayers...

Leo

Monday photo Slideshow

We've got so many photos from today that I decided to put them in a slideshow to take up less space... enjoy!

More Travel Photos...

Here's the photos from Sunday and the trip to New York

Sunday Arrival

We had a nice flight and arrived safely at NYSUM. We held hands and prayed at the gate before boarding the plane. A lot of excitement in the group. During the flight, we played our usual game of "musical chairs" as we switch seats with each other to sit next to students we want to get to talk to and get to know better. I know it always makes the flight more enjoyable for me as I catch up with students' lives and find out how we can pray for them and better minister to them. Some incredible stories in our team, you'd be surprised of the laughter, tears, and ministry that takes place in a simple 3 hour flight. As we flew over Manhattan it was cool to see the students looking out the windows at the beautiful lights, buildings, and bridges down below us. After picking up our luggage, the NYSUM vans picked us up and we went straight to our rooms to sleep...well almost everyone...some of us are writing daily blogs for parents ;). Tomorrow, evangelism ministry and concert all day at Coney Island...keep us in your prayers. Will post another blog tomorrow. - Leo