Monica and her helpers served us a delicious breakfast, then Jordan led us for a worship time. Our morning activity consisted of walking up to Roosevelt Avenue and South Asian Community Center. The director introduced us to their ministry and oriented us for the ESL classes that we would be helping with.
SACC offers free English lessons to adults. It’s based in Jackson Heights, where over 180 languages are used, and the majority of residents are from South Asian countries that are very difficult for Christian workers to enter. The beauty of this kind of outreach is that these people are on our doorstep and many welcome interaction with friendly Americans. In turn, their interactions with Christians can ripple out their own families and friends. Even in America, many of these nationalities face severe rejection and difficulty when they choose to become a Christ-follower.
Classes are separated according to gender, and the school works hard to nurture friendly, loving, respectful connections with students. Jordan and Linda, interns at MTC, teach there regularly, and our group sat in on their lessons and assisted the students.
While the ladies were in class, the men handed out free masks on the sidewalk and flyers advertising the school. When the men went into class, the ladies traded off in pairs, handing out flyers or shopping for scarves next door. Some people also found delicious samosas and chai down the street.
Four MTC interns met us at lunch and we divided into groups for lunch. One group ate an Indian restaurant and the other found gyros at a street vendor. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed the food, then we took the subway to Flushing, also known as Chinatown.
We breezed through a huge Chinese supermarket where we saw live eels, turtles, many fish, enormous dirty clams, and countless other grocery items that we didn’t know what to do with. We divided into pairs and looked for people on the streets or in parks to talk with. Some found good bubble tea and watched street vendors selling gold fish and turtles. We wonder what Asians do with ornamental fish. Do they have elaborate aquariums and fish ponds?
After supper at the base, Jesse led us in a cross-cultural activity. He divided us into two groups and gave us social rules with which to interact with the “foreigners.” It took trial and error and collaboration among the group to find out the cultural rules they were following so that we could talk with them. The purpose of the activity was to learn two things:
- Be a learner.
- Suspend judgement.
Thankfully, even though the cultural rules were exaggerated and puzzling, we laughed and laughed!
After debrief and planning details of tomorrow, some of us played a game with the interns until curfew at 10:00. It was a good day!
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