Eight students from Faith Builders Training Institute’s Christian Ministry and General Studies tracks in the class of 2025 have embarked on a journey. Between today and October 30, we will be in State College Pennsylvania and New York City, developing skills of communicating cross-culturally. 

This morning at Faith Builders’ campus, we found our way into room 210. After a time of prayer, Anita invited us to speak about our big hairy audacious goals (BHAG). Students spoke of their desire to carry God’s kingdom to others while expanding their capacity for love and curiosity. 

After our meeting, we moved into the cafeteria to pack lunches for our mid-trip picnic. Then we boarded our vehicles, an SUV and a large van, and launched into an 12-person, State College-bound trek. God gave us beautiful balmy weather of blue skies, a warm sun, and trees lining the roads with an outbreak of yellow and orange. 

We stopped in Franklin’s Fountain Park for a picnic. The maple trees rained down leaves upon us as we dined on our lunches. 

Midafternoon, Bryant Martin welcomed us at “The Hill,” a place outside of State College, Pennsylvania where several families from Followers of Jesus, an Anabaptist church in State College, live and where All-Nations Bible Translation has its headquarters. Bryant introduced us to our accommodations. We settled in, and then we proceeded to Followers of Jesus’ afternoon service.

But, before the service began, the congregation warmly welcomed us to join in their fellowship meal. Over the meal, we reconnected with old friends and made new friends among the brothers and sisters of Followers of Jesus. 

After the service and subsequent conversation, we returned to the hill for a night of rest in anticipation of an orientation, a tour of Penn State’s campus, and other good things tomorrow. 

We awoke with the straightforward mission of returning to our home in Northwestern Pennsylvania. At 7:30, we placed ourselves on the Center’s second floor for a final breakfast with the staff and interns who hosted us so well since Saturday. Savory scones and parfaits were on the menu.

After breakfast, we went to the entrance level and had a time of prayer and singing, led by Joel. From there, Seth and Danny brought the vans to the street in front of the Center, we loaded our belongings, entered the vehicles, and began the trek homeward.

Besides some sporadic conversations, the ride was subdued. Being tired by the long journey, some read, and some slept while Danny, Seth, and then Serge navigated the vehicles out of the city, through the leaves that have now shifted from yellow to brown, and through this winter’s first snowfall.

After arriving in Meadville, we stopped by Compadres Mexican Restaurant and dined on things like fajitas, tacos, chimichangas, and enchiladas while chattering about various matters. As we entered the Institute around 5:45, our apprenticing term of 2023 officially ended. Our colleagues who stayed in Guys Mills heartily greeted us and welcomed us home.

Pertaining to this blog, we thank the many participants who documented our deeds with photography and made the pictures available to our readers.

God has been good to us for the past ten days. He has given us safety as we traveled and an opportunity for many good things such as hard work, stretching experiences, and much learning. We give him our gratitude.

We also acknowledge those who are dedicating their lives to focused ministry who introduced us to various types of ministry work and guided us in working with them for a few days. The brothers and sisters in State College and Queens have been an inspiration to us.

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

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

For the first part of the morning, some of us helped indoors with teaching while a few others rotated operating a registration table on the sidewalk and prayer walking along nearby streets.

After the first class, Camille indicated that the next class would be full of many more students and would benefit from more staff, so we all moved inside to help teach. Within a few minutes, the classroom filled up wall to wall with students eager to learn English. We helped students successfully complete their assignments and worksheets.

In the early afternoon, we made our way from Jackson Heights to Al-Khoei Foundation, a mosque, elementary school, and Islamic community center in Queens.

The school’s principle, a gracious woman, warmly welcomed us. She gave us a brief overview of the organization and then took us into the auditorium, explained to us the pillars of Islam, and engaged with our questions.

From the mosque, we made our way on a rather long train ride to Shepherd’s Cup, a café in Brooklyn. The staff welcomed us into the artfully designed space, served us good Turkish-themed food and drinks, and the manager took time to sit with us and share his vision for the café.

The ride back to the center took about one and one half hours. As we traveled, many produced books from their backpacks to read.

At the day’s end, we had a meeting to reflect on the day and wrote cards of gratitude to the numerous individuals who guided our time in the city, and showed us fabulous hospitality this week.

At 6:30 AM, we journeyed to the lower level of the Center. Nathan met us and introduced us to a refugee simulator. We placed ourselves into the story of families who were in the process of being displaced from their homes by conflict and violence. The simulation was complete with sound effects and adjusted lighting.

After we completed the activity, Nathan gave us a presentation that explained the reality of millions of people across the globe who are unable to live in their homes. The true stories of families who are affected by displacement affected us deeply, and the activity helped us to better appreciate the tragedy of unwanted displacement and to respond with sober empathy.

From the refugee simulation, we moved into a chronic poverty simulator. We were divided into four teams. Each team worked together to make paper bags out of sheets of paper and flour glue which would be sold in exchange for currency that kept rent, food, and medical bills paid. Some groups were able to do well. Other groups succumbed to events beyond their control and were driven into deep, inescapable debt. This activity helped us to better visualize some of the difficult environmental factors that make escaping chronic poverty difficult for many people.

After an interlude for rest and prayer, we began to pack lunches to share with people who don’t have a home. Each parcel contained a sandwich, a cookie bar, a bag of chips, and a bottle of water.

Many people without homes live in New York City. We set out in groups of four or five with lunches in hand, seeking people along the streets, in parks, and in subway stations to pray with and to bless with food. At the designated time, we returned to the Center to pray on behalf of those we met.

The last activity for the day involved a presentation by Jesse. He spoke about the perspectives of Jesus among the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons. He encouraged us to identify error by spending time studying truth through the Bible.

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 Valerie made for us.

We would, in groups of three, go visiting various churches in the area. Each church has 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 Chinese church, some went to an Indonesia church, and some went to Spanish and Taiwanese churches.

Jaran, Sara, and Jonathan went to Iglesia Evangelica Cristo es La Luz which lies just off Corona Avenue at the corner of 90^th Street and 48^th Avenue. They entered the front door a few minutes before the posted starting time, but the service was already underway. As they were ushered to their seat, they were quickly warmly welcomed by several members who got out of their seats to come welcome them. The entire service was held in Spanish, so following along required extra attention. As the service moved from songs, to prayer, to a sermon, they tried to join in. They were able to deduce that the sermon was based on John 15 and several other passages and centered around God’s love for us and our love for each other. After the service, many approached to offer their welcome and to invite them to stay for coffee. When they went to the basement for coffee, they were surprised to learn that, in addition to coffee, they were offered conversation over a meal of rice, beans, avocados, cake, and pastries.

The three other groups had good reports of hospitality and worship, through the upbeat and spontaneous services at the Indonesian and Mandarin churches and the tight structure and formality at the Reformed Taiwanese church.

When the groups returned to the Center, we spent time sharing our experiences, most of which were overwhelmingly positive. We can learn much from the hospitality and warmth that the churches we visited extend to the strangers in their midst.

For the afternoon, we parted ways to spend the afternoon in contemplation and prayer. Some stayed at the Center, and some went to various parts of the city to find places to sit alone with God.

After we regrouped at supper, Jesse split into two teams: anthropologists and people of an unknown culture. The anthropologists were given the challenging task of learning how to effectively communicate with a new culture. This activity abounded with perplexed looks and much laughter and reminded us to suspend judgement and communicate with curiosity and graciousness when engaging with people of a culture that we don’t understand.

As happens every evening, laptops are pulled out to journal about the day.

This morning we awoke to bid farewell to State College and Penn State and to meet New York City. On the four-hour drive, we passed through beautiful mountains painted with colors of yellow, red, and orange fall leaves. Seth and Danny dexterously navigated the two vans into the city and brought us to Ministry Training Center safely. Here are some pictures from along the way.

We arrived at 4:00 PM at Ministry Training Center in Elmhurst, New York. This will be our base for the remainder of our trip.

The Center’s staff graciously welcomed us, showed us to our rooms, oriented us to the week, and sent us out on our first assignment, a scavenger hunt. We had 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 begin to become acquainted with this area of the city, its people, and its cultures.

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

This morning, we anticipated a day dedicated to prayer, solitude, and study rather than work. To kick off our day of rest, we made a final stop by Sowers Harvest Café. The indoor eating area was full, so we took our breakfast to the outdoor seating area and basked in the warmth of the morning. Bryant joined us and shared words about the place for Christians in influencing those around us for Jesus. He also encouraged us to read To Change the World by James Davidson Hunter.

After saying goodbye to Bryant, we parted ways. Some returned to headquarters, some scattered to the arboretum near Penn State’s campus, some went other places on the campus, and Anita left for a friend’s wedding in a distant state.

What we all experienced was silence, solitude, and time with God.

When the time of silence had ended, we met again at headquarters to dine on poke bowls. We enjoyed the food and fellowship, but some expressed the opinion that fish is meant to be cooked rather than eaten raw.

After prolonged fellowship over the meal, we began to think about our departure to New York City. Staff at the Ministry Training Center made a video about God’s call upon Christians to be a blessing to others, so we watched it together to prepare our hearts and minds for the next segment of our trip.

Tomorrow, we’re headed off to New York.

Today, two of our crew rose early for a day of work at Sowers Harvest Café. Danny, true to form, captured these photos of his classmates hard at work.

The rest of us also went to Sowers Harvest about an hour later, not to work, but to once again dine on sumptuous fare. As always, Sowers’ staff treated us with an abundance of cheerful hospitality and welcome.

From the Café, we trekked to Penn State’s campus. Some of us rode in the big green van, but others walked. We met with Ernest at the HUB, decided who would go to which area of the campus, divvied out materials like brochures, free pretzel and coffee tokens for Sowers Harvest, books, and Bibles, and we prayed that God would equip us with his love and grace to represent him well to those we would meet.

Instead of instantly beginning interviews, with her invitation, some began their time at the University by making their way to an English class that Tara, a LifeQuest staff member, was teaching in the Pasquerilla Spiritual Center.

When our time at the University came to an end, we regrouped at the HUB, shared stories of our experiences, and prayed that God’s light would be known within the students at Penn State.

We returned to the headquarters in the middle of the afternoon to work on projects around All-Nations’ property. Most worked on the landscaping, trimming bushes, and placing mulch in the beds. Others stayed inside and cleaned the walls and ceiling and assembled mailings under Carmen’s direction. Here are some pictures that JoAna took of us working.

To end the day we talked through the plan for having a day of solitude tomorrow, signed cards of gratitude for the loving hospitality Ernest and Cathy, Bryant and Lynelle, and the others have shown us this week, and laughed again at the caricature drawing that the men in our group received earlier this week.

Like yesterday, two students rose early to spend the day working at Sowers Harvest Café. Sheri and Bri have a good report of their time among Sowers’ staff.

Instead of visiting the Café with the rest of our group, Sara and Seth stayed back at headquarters to give driving lessons to several PhD students who were seeking to acquire driving licenses for their stay in the United States. They too have good reports from this event.

After a delicious breakfast in town, we returned to headquarters where we heard from Bryant about the vision and work of All-Nations Bible translation.

Our major team work for the day was serving lunch at Penn State. We worked with a team who hosts a weekly event where students can come for a free hot meal. Some served the soup, rice, bread, fruit, and dessert. Others mingled with the guests and joined in good conversations over the food.

Our work ended in the early afternoon, so we went to The Arboretum at Penn State, a place with winding paths through woodland, fields, and a botanic garden. Part way through the leisurely stroll, we gathered some logs and sat down among the trees to reflect upon the high and low points of our trip thus far.

Our final stop of the day was at Café Alina, a place with fabulous food and gracious staff. We dined upon kabobs, samosa, tikka, and many other good things. To top off our visit, they kindly gave us tea. The visit was a genuine delight.

This morning, Jo and Danny embarked bright and early for a day of working with Sowers Harvest Café’s staff. The remainder of our group also went to the café in the morning, but to dine on their delicious cuisine rather than to work.

For the middle portion of our day, we went with Ernest and Grant to Penn State University to do surveys and have conversations with students. We scattered across the campus and, in the midst of trepidation, had many meaningful conversations with kind and interesting people of the University.

Midafternoon we returned to headquarters, shared stories from our interactions at the university, and began to work. Some stayed indoors to prepare for hosting a meal for international students.

Others went outdoors to make various improvements around the property.

The final event for the day was hosting guests, many of whom were international scholars at Penn State, for a meal. As our guests arrived, we welcomed them, served them, and enjoyed sharing their company over food, laughter, and an abundance of good conversation.

After the event ended, we wrapped up the day by cleaning the kitchen, planning for tomorrow, and reflecting on all the good things of the day in a debrief meeting and in journals.