This past week I was privileged to serve Wonder Voyage in New York City for the week. I stayed at Father's Heart Mission in the East Village with a small group from North Carolina and a larger group from Texas (everything is bigger in Texas;). Sleeping with aprox. 16 girls and ladies on air mattresses in the second floor of the mission and going out on adventures or service projects each day was thrilling.
It has been over 8 years since I was a youth pastor and I MISSED being with teens SO MUCH. I enjoyed every moment with the groups and Jason from Wonder Voyage. So many laughs. So much fun. I can't explain how I felt except to use one word. Effortless. It was effortless for me to serve the teams, tour them in the city and take them on outreach with New York City Relief - The Relief Bus. I felt more happy, more comfortable, more in my element then I have felt for a long time.
Even in the most challenging moments when we were leaving outreach in the Brox and the subway station shut down as someone had fallen on the tracks on the line before our stop. We were forced onto the street with over 300 people who had built up waiting for the train and is was a mad chaos. I took the team and made a quick decision to not squeeze on the local buses that were overflowing with people to go to the next subway stop (which I thought would not be working as well since it was on the same line). Instead I said lets pray for taxis to get us to meet up with the rest of the team at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This truly would be a miracle as taxi's do not travel to this really bad area of the Bronx. We had not seen one all day. We would need 3 taxi's to get our team out of the madness that was unfolding on the streets as a mass exodus was fleeing from the subway hole - all looking for a mode of transportation. "Here on the street we are going to pray?" asked one of the teens in a surprized voice. "Yes." I said then we gathered our group in a circle and said the shortest prayer "Lord - help us find Taxi's, amen" I asked for the oldest kids to come with me and divided up the rest of the team with the two wonderful female leaders from the Texas team Louis and Mother Kathy. Approaching the traffic filled street in the ghetto I saw a black town car with an african american guy driving. I knocked on the window and asked if he was a Taxi, he shrugged as if the answer was maybe depending if I was a cop. I asked if he could drive a group to the Met in Central Park for 20 bucks. He said, oh no way and took off. Surprisingly, a few cars behind him was another black town car. This one had a clip board on the front seat so there was more chance this guy was semi legit. I asked him the same, he said yes, yes, hurry before the light turns green. I put Louis and her teens in the car and sent them off with $20 cash that I thank God Mother Kathy had available for each of the taxi's. Right behind that one was another black town car that did not stop for many people trying to hail it before us. They stopped for us and in when team number 2 with Mother Kathy. Within 1 min. the last of us hopped in another black town car and off we went.
Now once we were in I realized that this person could not have been in America for more than a few days to a week. They could barely speak English and of course all the cars only took cash and had no meter. He did not know how to get to Central Park from the Bronx so I had to guide him (I have never driven that route either) into Manhatten and then onto the Met. I was hopefully that the probably less than legal cabs carrying my Texans knew where they were going better than mine did.
Thankfully we all arrived safe and sound and only 15 min. late joining with the rest of the team at the Met. Whew. I have to say though. The challenge of getting our team under almost impossible circumstances from point a to point b was really thrilling. I felt like I was able to snap into action and take control of the situation with ease and most importantly pray and then give glory to God for in a real way "saving us".
I loved the whole week. I am amazed at how much we walked and how much we did and I am most thankful for all of the leaders and teens that were so wonderful to be with. I am so very very very happy.
Here is a link to the video I made throughout the week as a gift to the teen so that they would not forget their wonderful week in New York City.
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