fun stuff

If its hard to tell, the people in this picture are soaked. Absolutely soaked to the core. After a long day yesterday, the six of us went to the Little Italy area for dinner. We found a place called La Nonna which was absolutely delicious, a great way to finish off the week. The plan was to have dinner then go to the seaport, where there would be a symphony and fireworks taking place - but as we were eating it started raining, then pouring. We tried to wait it out, but the longer we waited the harder it rained, so we just went for it. We ran about 10 blocks in the middle of a downpoor - and it was awesome. Then we gathered at the subway station and took this picture. As we assumed the fireworks weren't taking place, we went back to the house and had hot cocoa and hung out.

As for some other things we've done in the past couple of days.....wednesday night we had a "community night" where we ended up watching a documentary called Paperclips about students that completed a project to honor those jews (among others) who lost their lives during WWII. Thursday morning we spent a morning session with Jesse Selengut, a past volunteer who is urrently a musician. He brought all kinds of hand drums and shakers and we held a drum session. It was a very interesting experience and I really liked it because it involved music. Each day we also spend at least a half hour in community prayer/reflection time which is a great time for us to get to know each other and form bonds and connections. We've also had little snipits of time here and there to explore the city and hang out. At the end of this two weeks, our group of 11 will be divided to the New York, Atlantic City and Fort Lauderdale sites so we are doing our best to take advantage of our time together.

This morning I went to a church called The River which is associated with the Vineyard community of churches. Its worship was contemporary and participatory. The message was on self deceit - the preacher went through the life of Jacob (meaning deceiver) and how he began his life as a deceiver and was trying to be successful by his own means. He deceived his brother out of his birthright and deceived his father to get his brother's blessing. Later in his life, though, God gave him and new identity - He renamed him Isreal (meaning the Lord fights for you) and his whole life, desires, and attitudes changed. This applied to us relying on God to fight for us instead of doing what we can to get ahead and allowing him to form our identity. It was a very understandable and applicable. The people were welcoming and personable.

Churches in the city are interesting because theres nowhere to build churches and the number of actual church buildings that are in place are limited. Therefore people meet for church whereever they can rent the space. Its definitely new to me, but it really puts the focus of the church on the people rather than on the building that they meet in, which I find very important. Good stuff. Peace.