Today’s mission was unambiguous. We would head home. Monica and Val kindly prepared packed breakfasts in brown paper bags and coffee to go, so we each grabbed one of these. Ryan and Jaran pulled the vehicles to the far side of Corona Avenue from the Ministry Training Center. We said “goodbye” and “thank you” to Monica, Nathan, Trennis, and Trenton. We loaded our luggage and ourselves into the vehicles. We drove away from The Big Apple at 8:30 AM. 

Six or seven hours later, we arrived at El Toro Family Restaurant in Cranberry, and, after feasting and thirty-five additional miles had elapsed, we arrived at Faith Builders Educational Programs. 

It is impossible that any of us will be quite the same after the last ten days. We are deeply grateful for good connections with each other and the people who guided our time in State College and New York City and for the privilege to see places and ways that God’s people are doing his work.

We offer many thanks for your prayers and interest in our trip.  

This concludes the 2024 Faith Builders Training Institute ministry apprenticing trip blog.  

After a delicious breakfast, we moved to the first floor of the Center, and Trennis led us in a time of worship and prayer. 

We then set off by subway for the South Asian Community Center, SACC for short. SACC is near Jackson Heights, an area of Queens where many people from South Asia and South America live. It is a Christian organization that is seeking to serve the people of Jackson Heights by offering services such as English classes, citizenship classes, and computer classes. 

During our time with the ministry, we rotated helping indoors with teaching, operating the registration table and speaking on the sidewalk with interested people, and prayer walking along nearby streets. During the English class, we helped students follow along and complete assignments in their workbooks. During the computer class, we helped students set up Gmail accounts so that, in future classes, they could log into a website that offers typing lessons. 

Our afternoon and evening involved wrapping up our time in New York City. In Central Park, we parted ways to spend time reflecting and then reconvened to debrief and share about how the apprenticing trip has shaped us. 

Pizza was on the menu for supper. Manhattan has a lovely pizzeria called Made in New York Pizza. We gathered around tables outdoors and dined on sumptuous fare as we sipped beverages with raw cane sugar. 

Our hearts are full of gratitude for the wonderful people who facilitated our time in New York City and State College, so, after we returned to the Center, we wrote thank you cards for them. 

Most days at the Center begin with a time of worship. One of the Center’s staff takes us through a time of singing and reflection on a passage of scripture. Today was no different. We sang a few songs, meditated on God’s gift to us, and then prayed. 

The remainder of our morning involved teaching. A brother from Brooklyn came to speak about the complicity that Christians at various points in history have had in oppressing an ethnic group. 

When the class and a prayer ended, we put packed lunches into our backpacks and traveled to Brooklyn. Nathan marked out maps and sent us in pairs to walk on the sidewalks, praying to God for the people around us. We were encouraged to take opportunities to communicate with people cross-culturally. Several of the groups were able to have meaningful interactions with people they encountered. 

After we returned to the Center and had feasted, we received a class about counterfeit Christianities in which Seth, the teacher, encouraged us to spend much time in the Bible and to thereby be able to identify and to productively communicate with adherents of heretical organizations. 

We then journaled, informally sang, snacked, and went to bed. 

After a long and busy week, we were thankful for a day to sleep a bit longer than normal. We gathered for breakfast at 8:30. We sipped coffee and ate the delicious food that Monica and Val made for us. 

We would, in small groups, go visiting various churches in the area. These churches have members with family backgrounds in countries other than the United States, and their services are conducted in languages other than English. Some went to a Fujianese church, some went to an Indonesia church, and some went to a Spanish church. 

The churches welcomed us with warmth, hospitality, invitations to return, and, for some, a meal. 

After dining, we went to Flushing which, according to some, is regarded as New York City’s “other China Town.” We exited the train station, parted ways, and wound our ways through crowded streets and an open-air market to find coffee shops and other public places where we could complete a guided observation activity that invited us to see the sea of people as individuals made in God’s image. 

After we returned to the Center for supper, Jesse split us into two teams: anthropologists and people of an unknown culture. Jesse gave the anthropologists the challenging task of learning how to effectively communicate with a new culture. This activity abounded with perplexed looks and much laughter. It reminded us to suspend judgement and to communicate with curiosity and graciousness when in relationships with people of a culture that we don’t understand. 

Here is an overview of our first full day in New York City. 

• Breakfast: At 7:30, Monica and Val had a breakfast of sausage, pancakes, and fruit prepared for us. 

• Silence: After breakfast, each spent time in prayer, meditation, and silence. 

• Worship: Nathan led us through one hour of singing and collective prayer. 

• Refugee and Poverty Activities: The Center’s staff and interns orchestrated displacement and poverty simulators that placed us into the stories of families who were in the process of being displaced from their homes by conflict and affected by poverty. 

• Randall’s Island: We spoke with and gave hats, gloves, and literature to people at a migrant encampment on Randall’s Island. 

• Homeless Ministry: We packed lunches and traveled to Manhattan where Greg and Alex, are two men who routinely minister to people in Manhattan without homes, guided us through portions of the city where we could give the lunches to those who would benefit. 

Here are a few pictures from our day. 

This morning we awoke to bid farewell to State College and Penn State and to meet New York City. On our departure, we had breakfast at Sowers Harvest Café one last time. Over the food and coffee, Bryant spoke to us about Alan Kreider’s The Patient Ferment of the Early Church, a book that has captured his attention. He then sent us off with a prayer.

On the four-hour drive, we passed through beautiful mountains painted with colors of yellow, red, and orange fall leaves. Ryan dexterously navigated the big van into the city and brought the crew to the Ministry Training Center safely.  

We arrived at 3:00 PM at the Ministry Training Center in Elmhurst, New York. This will be our base for the remainder of our trip. 

The Center’s staff and interns graciously welcomed us, showed us to our rooms, oriented us to the week, and sent us out on our first assignment, a scavenger hunt. 

The scavenger hunt included a list of things to do, such as: 

• Ask someone what country they were born in. 

• Find out the average price of eels or turtles to eat. 

• Find a Hindu or Buddhist temple and pray for light against the darkness. 

• Buy an empanada and bubble tea. 

Since the Center is located in a region of the city that has many first-generation immigrants, many languages, many cultures, and numerous religions, the scavenger hunt allowed us to become acquainted with this area of the city, its people, and its cultures. 

Some scavenging groups initiated conversation by giving away flowers. Others found less mediated entries into conversation. Others prayed while they walked. All found good food. 

After the activity, we returned to the Center, shared stories of our experiences, completed journaling assignments, shared a snack, and went to bed in America’s most populous city. 

Our final full day in State College found Keri and Korina at Sowers Harvest Café bright and early. 

After we had one last sumptuous breakfast feast at the Café, we set out on foot to find students on Penn State’s campus to talk to. Though the morning was cold, we had numerous meaningful interactions with Penn State’s people. 

At noon, each began to discontinue speaking with students and found silence, solitude, and time with God. Some found locations on the campus for this. Others made their way into The Arboretum at Penn State, an area adjacent to campus with natural lands and botanic gardens. 

We ended solitude with a stroll together through the natural lands and a time circled in the botanic gardens to speak about our highs, lows, and buffalos with each other. 

Our final stop of the day was at Café Alina, a place with fabulous food and gracious staff. We dined upon kabobs, samosa, tikka, mango lassi, and many other good things. 

When the meal ended, we returned to Headquarters and began to think about our departure to New York City. Staff at the Ministry Training Center asked us to watch a video about God’s call upon Christians to be a blessing to others and asked us to complete a series of structured meditations pertaining to our mission. 

Tomorrow, we’re headed off to New York. 

Nic and Max valiantly rose early to volunteer at Sowers Harvest Café. As our habit has become during our time in State College, the rest of us rose a bit later to journey into the Café to dine on a delicious breakfast of coffee, grillatillas, omelets, and muffins. 

The Café is stocked with games, so some challenged each other to rounds of mancala as we absorbed the morning. 

After breakfast, those who were not working at the Café met with Bryant and Ernest. We prayed for those we would meet today, got oriented to our time of surveying, gathered materials, and headed to the university campus. 

One walking through the center of Penn State’s campus today could see Faith Builders’ students sprinkled across chairs, patio tables, and stone walls, engaged in conversation with students and scholars. 

Though we worked atop The Hill on Tuesday, work remained. Ernest and Cathy sent us to the lawn and the floors, bringing order to disorder. We trimmed bushes, weeded flower beds, cleaned tables and chairs, and removed spiders and their webs from soffit. 

Janelle, a long-time staff person at Sowers Harvest Café, welcomed us and her colleagues to her home for a meal. We ended the day with cornhole, laughter, roasting hotdogs over the fire, and drinking hot cider in the amber glow of the fire. 

Today, Lucia and Ryan rose early for work at Sowers Harvest Café.

The rest of us also went to Sowers Harvest about an hour later, not to work, but to dine on sumptuous fare for breakfast. Sowers’ staff lived up to their reputation of treating guests with cheerful hospitality and welcome. 

From the Café, we went to Penn State’s campus. Ernest joined us at the University’s Center for Spiritual and Ethical Development. We practiced interviewing once more, heard Ernest tell stories of good, long-term relationships that began with interviews, and divvied out brochures, free pretzel and coffee tokens for Sowers Harvest, books, and Bibles. 

Instead of instantly beginning interviews, Keri and Nic stayed at the spiritual center and worked with Tara, Ernest, and David to set up a meal of rice, bread, curry, cookies, and coffee that we would soon serve to students.

Faith, Korina, Travis, and Max entered the wide university to seek students to interview. Some students declined to talk, but others completed the interview and entered meaningful conversations.  

We returned to the Spiritual Center near noon and joined students for lunch. We enjoyed the good conversations that proximity over food sparked. 

We went back to headquarters in the middle of the afternoon to work on projects around All-Nations’ property. Some worked inside on cleaning and furniture assembly. Others worked outside on cutting the grass and spreading mulch in flower beds. 

For supper, we traveled to Sowers Harvest Café and joined in an international potluck. Our American contribution was meatballs and potatoes, prepared by Sara, but other attendees graced the table with foods from their home countries. We had lots of chatter, laughter, some board games, and enjoyment while learning to know people whose languages, cultures, and foods differ from ours. 

Today we received several orientations. After a morning meeting with Bryant at All-Nations’ headquarters, we met with Truman at the McAllister Street Parking Deck to begin a tour around Penn State. 

Truman took us from building to building. When indoors, we saw the areas that are significant to Life Quest’s work, and when outdoors, we were surrounded by the beautiful yellow trees that decorate the campus and piles of fallen leaves along the walkways. 

When the tour ended, we divided into several groups and found lunch at restaurants of various foods including Vietnamese, Japanese, and American. 

When we returned to headquarters, Bryant introduced us to the work of All-Nations Bible Translation. In the pursuit their vision—“Communities of believers in every language group living out the Word of God”—this ministry is partnering with churches to facilitate planting new churches and translating the Bible among numerous groups of people who do not yet have a Bible in their language. 

We then sat in a circle while Byant and Nevin introduced us the work of Sowers Harvest Café, and then Ernest and Truman introduced us to Life Quest Community, including the survey that we will engage Penn State students with on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. 

We will seek students who are willing to participate in a survey that will help discover individual’s perspectives on religion, ethics, and Christianity and give them an opportunity to get connected with Life Quest. These surveys may also give us a chance to speak about the Gospel. Following the introduction, we paired up and practiced giving the survey to each other. 

All-Nations then provided us with a delicious feast of curry over rice.

We ended the day with a presentation from Ernest about Life Quest, and a story from William about his journey toward God. 

Tomorrow, we anticipate beginning to speak with Penn State students through surveys and by serving a lunch.