This was our final day in State College. We woke up early, packed our bags, loaded the vans, and headed to Sowers Harvest Café for our last meal in the city.

We soon had to leave, so we thanked Bryant for the generous hospitality that he and his team showed us through the week and embarked on our journey to New York City.

Ben’s family kindly invited us to lunch at their home. Since our route went right through their area, we accepted the invitation. Our stay was short, but we enjoyed meeting Ben’s parents and siblings, eating the delicious food that Ben’s mother made for us, and playing a few tunes on their Yamaha piano.

From Ben’s home, we made the several-hour trek to New York City. As we rode, we passed through beautiful mountains painted with colors of yellow, red, and orange fall leaves. Josiah and Ben dexterously navigated the two vans into the city and brought us to Ministry Training Center safely.

We arrived before 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, gave us a feast of taco soup, and sent us out on our first assignment, a scavenger hunt. We had a list of things to do, such as:

1. Ask someone what country they were born in.
2. Find out the average price of eels or turtles to eat.
3. Find a Hindu or Buddhist temple and pray for light against the darkness.
4. 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.

Bryant generously invited us to eat breakfast at Sowers Harvest Café, so we loaded into our van and trekked from headquarters to State College at 8:00 AM. The food was delicious, the staff friendly, and the drinks superb.

When we arrived, we saw that our colleagues Abigail and Shelly had already been working for an hour. They, and two others from our group who will begin tomorrow, have been invited by the Café to volunteer, working beside the long-term staff for the day.

At 9:30 we met at Penn State’s HUB (Hetzel Union Building), a place with a steady stream of students visiting the restaurants or study spaces in the building. Mikayla, Happy Valley Christian Community’s treasurer, and Ernest were managing a table that offered free Christian literature and information about Happy Christian Community and Life Quest Community’s services to students such as English Classes and Bible Studies.

Some of us helped staff the table, and others went to various parts of the campus, initiating dialog with students and inviting them to participate in a survey that will help Life Quest’s staff understand students’ perspectives on and experiences with religion, ethics, and Christianity and gives students an opportunity to to learn about Life Quest’s events and programs.

In the middle of the afternoon, we returned to headquarters and helped with various work projects. Some cleaned out a tree row. Others uprooted and disassembled a fence. Some worked on indoor lighting, and others worked with firewood.

We ate a supper of delicious poke bowls and debriefed our day over dessert, tea, and coffee.

We capped off the day by hearing Ernest give a presentation about Life Quest and hearing from Mikayla about her experiences as a student at Penn State.

The cooks had a delicious parfait breakfast for us, then we gathered in the classroom with Jesse for a 30-minute debrief with him. The MTC team has been excellent in their service and vision setting for us! They wanted our feedback about our experience with them in order to improve their services to other groups. They demonstrated teamwork and lifestyle evangelism in beautiful, inspiring ways that have impacted us.

At 9:00, we had said our goodbyes to the team and interns whom we’d come to really enjoy. We piled into the van and left the city behind with mixed feelings. Most of us would have been happy to stay longer! It was lovely to see the morning light on the skyline.

It was a restful, smooth day of driving. We ate our packed lunches in the van because it was too cold to stop for a picnic. At one point, we drove through snow flurries, and we heard of a dusting of snow in Guys Mills this morning. Someone had gifted us with $50 to spend on a treat, so we stopped at the Ice Shack in Mill Hall and enjoyed that break!

By 5:00 we were in Franklin, and Genny and her boys came to join us for supper. We ate at a pizza place, but seemed to get full quickly, probably due to sitting all day and having had ice cream a few hours before. It was still a good social time, and we got back to school at 7:02.

We gathered our belongings and cleaned up the van and dispersed. We’re deeply grateful for a good week together! It called for enormous amounts of flexibility, care for each other, and learning from people around us. It gave us beautiful pictures of how God’s kingdom works in a broken world, and we’ll carry these ideas with us from here on, thankful to be part of His work!

This was a full day doing several things:

1. Ninety minutes solo time at the center where we’re staying (instead of Central Park because it was cold)
2. Packed lunches at Central Park
3. Attending a prayer time and extended conversation at the Islamic Center in Manhattan
4. A session with Seth teaching from Matt. 28: 18-20, making disciples wherever we are
5. Sightseeing after dark on Roosevelt Island and Manhattan river front at The Red Sculpture

We were planning to go to Central Park for solitude time but the weather turned too cold to do that comfortably. Instead, we scattered throughout the four stories and back patio of the MTC then left at 10:30. The cooks had prepared bagged lunches for us and we ate them hurriedly at Central Park before meeting Seth and the interns at the Islamic Center in Manhattan.

The ladies were required to be covered from ankles to wrists and wear scarves to cover their entire heads. We were welcomed warmly, and attended their prayer time. The women prayed in a curtained-off area in the back of the room where the men were. After the prayer, two men met us and took us upstairs to the dome room. This is the biggest Islamic center in the US, built in the 80’s. 

The men gave us a container of dates to eat as we talked, and later brought us bottles of water. They were friendly and hospitable. They were passionate about their faith, and told us that an honest, open-minded search for truth will lead us to their religion. They seemed to carefully avoid the questions we asked them that would have admitted that Jesus is God, but welcomed us to come back any time. 

We returned to the MTC with Seth, stopping for fresh churros on the way. Then we gathered for Seth’s session on making disciples. 

After a delicious taco soup supper, the interns took us to Roosevelt Island and the cable car tram to Manhattan’s river front park. It was a great evening!

We got back to the base at 9:00 and had one last debriefing and finished by writing thank you cards for people we met on this trip. 

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:

1. Be a learner.
2. 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!

We loaded up the van and left the ABT hill at 8:30. Half an hour later, we met Javon at the 80, and we headed east. It was a perfect day to drive with both fog and sun on the colorful leaves. We took the opportunity to stop at a scenic overlook and get some fresh air while several ambitious ones climbed rocks above the overlook.

By 2:00, we arrived at Mission Training Center in Elmhurst, New York. This will be our base for the next few days. Seth Lehman helped us find a parking space, welcomed us to the city, and sent us off in groups of four for an “Experience New York City” activity. We had a list of things to do, such as:

1. Ask someone what country they were born in.
2. Find out the average price of eels or turtles to eat.
3. Find a Hindu or Buddhist temple and pray for light against the darkness.
4. Buy an empanada or bubble tea.

The activity ended at a train station where we joined three interns with MTC, and they went with us to via subway to Fathers Love Church, an Indonesian church. Pastor Rene welcomed us warmly and ushered us to the front of the sanctuary. After a time of worship, he gave a talk on Indonesia and shared tips for communicating cross-culturally. Pastor Rene is from Japanese background, grew up in Indonesia, and has a wealth of stories of how culture differs between Indonesian islands and countries around the world.

At the end of the sermon, he taught us how to sing “God is So Good” in Indonesian, and ushered us to the front to face the audience because he wanted us to sing it in four parts. We sang “For the Beauty of the Earth” for them and then they ushered us to the basement for a fellowship meal.

They divided us into small groups so that we could talk with their people while we ate delicious food. We had wonderful conversations, and felt enormously welcomed and loved!

Back at the center, Monica, hospitality manager, served us another (!) supper, then Seth had a short orientation for us. He told us about New York City, this neighborhood in particular, and best practices for our stay in the city.

Elmhurst is said to be the most culturally diverse neighborhood in the world. The local hospital offers translation services for 150 languages, and over 70% of this population was born in another country. We’re at a strategic location to interact with more nationalities than we could ever travel to. We’re excited about the opportunities of the next days!