Tuesday is Outreach day

Well today is tuesday, we have had a very busy day. We got up and again were to the kitchen for 6 am to start work, mornings come early. There were a couple of the team who were not feeling well today. We served both breakfast and lunch for almost 200 per meal. 7 of us went to a local park where we served soup to a little over a 100 people and served 96 at the pantry. The pantry was a line in which bread, egg plants, apples, sandwiches, cereal and sweets were passed out. When we got back it was after lunch and we cleaned up and were off at 3 today. We stuck around this evening and had a time of worship and sharing this evening. I think we needed that both physically and spiritually.

 Please keep praying as the work is hard but the blessing are huge.

We Met a gentlemen named Terry who works at the bowery.He has a great testimonial as to what God has done and is doing in his life. He has been clean for 2 1/2 years and is giving back to the bowery. He has about a 6" scar on the side of his neck. He shared with a couple of us it is a constant reminder of his past, it is where he would inject cocaine in to his system when getting high. The stories are endless. Many may say O what a great thing your doing in NY and how you are such a blessing to the homeless. However we are the ones being blessed by those who are sold out for the goepel of Christ and who are truley being the church in a broken world. God is so good...

N.Y.

We made it to the Bowery safetly. We left Portland around 9 and made it to Newton just outsiee of Boston around 11:30. This is where we picked up our 14th member of the team. We then traveled 4 more hours with one stop half way in conneticut. We came into NY around 4:30-5:00ish. I can now say that i drove in NY city,and glad to say that i won't have to again until next week, phew. The team got aquanted with the bowery why Angie, Jason, Curt and myself to the vans back and dropped them off in Brooklyn. I gor to see a glimps of the lady liberty as we crossed the Brooklyn Bridge.

After settling in some of us went for a walk, cause we are in NY.

The Bowery 2015

It is Two days before we depart for the Bowery Mission 2015 Trip. I am going to try and update this when time permits so that you can see a bit of what we are doing. We would like you to keep the team in prayer while we are away, for the work that we are going to be doing and our family members that are at home. For those who may not know much about the Bowery, here is a little information from there web page (http://www.bowery.org/)

Since 1879, The Bowery Mission has served homeless, hungry and poor New Yorkers. Meals, shelter, and medical care lead to residential programs that offer men and women the opportunity to transform their lives. Children get a positive first chance through summer camp, mentoring and family support. A vital part of the Lower East Side, The Bowery Mission now offers new hope to neighborhoods like Harlem and the South Bronx.


This is a wonderful chance to experience daily life in a gospel rescue mission. There are opportunities to help with meal preparation, service and cleanup; receive food donations and stock our pantry; and sort/organize the clothing donations that dress our resident students, those coming in for our shower programs, or whosoever has the need.

Your group will also likely be able to participate in chapels, outreaches to local parks and other special projects. Groups are given the opportunity to become part the life of the Mission, enjoying fellowship and working shoulder-to-shoulder with both our staff and resident students, as we serve the larger community of homeless and hungry people in New York City together.

We will be sailing out the Yarmouth Harbor on this Friday morning around 9:30am and staying in Portland that night. The next day we will be driving to New York with a stop in Boston to pick up Curt, who is flying in from Toronto on Friday night to stay with his daughter.  We are 14 strong, and we are looking forward to what God is going to do through us.

Please Pray for the Bowery 2015 Team

Unsolicited Advice About Shoeboxes

I Found this online the other day and thought it was something worth reposting when it comes ot packing shoe boxes each and every year

» Posted originally by corey on May 11, 2015

First, I can’t believe a year has already passed since we were part of giving shoebox gifts to the kids in our Sunday school last May! How is that possible?!

Second, let me say that I know that each of these gifts is prepared with love and given from hearts full of generosity, compassion, and a desire to share Jesus’ love. And each one is SO appreciated! No matter what is inside the box, each child (and family) is excited and blessed to receive a gift, given with no strings attached. For the local kids here, this is so unexpected, so unusual… Kids here do not get presents on Christmas or on their birthdays (if they are even aware of those days!). And most are only rarely given new things or presents at all. So to receive a box of gifts like this is such a treat.
You may or may not be aware of how Samaritan’s Purse runs this project. They partner with churches and missions who are involved in children’s ministry. So in our case, a leader of the denomination of our local church attended the Samaritan’s Purse training meeting a few months ago to learn the parameters and the process. He requested boxes for the children in our Sunday school and the request was granted. So this past Sunday we had the fun of giving each child a shoebox after church along with a booklet. The booklet is written in the form of a comic book, and it tells the story (in French) of some children learning about the greatest gift of all – Jesus! The booklets are well done and thoughtfully appropriate for our context – and super cool!
Now, given all that, can I offer some feedback to those of you who will prepare shoeboxes this Christmas? I can’t remember how many times we have been involved, directly or indirectly, here in Senegal with the distribution of shoeboxes, but it is at least half a dozen times over the past 15 years. I have watched little people I know well open their boxes, ooh’ed and aah’ed with them over the contents, and answered their questions about some of the items. Every year, I have thought of giving some advice on this topic, but I don’t want to seem ungrateful or critical. I just want to offer my advice, based on our experience in this one context:

BEST

GIFTS:

• For any age boy here, what they really want is a soccer ball. So get the best quality mini soccer ball that you can fit into the box when it is inflated (or send a deflated ball with a pump) and you can basically forget about anything else!
• Brand new nice short-sleeved shirts (with no writing on them) for boys and girls. Kids here have few clothes and often wear old, ripped, hand-me-downs, so nice new shirts are really appreciated and will probably fit. (I don’t know any obese Senegalese kids.)
• Small flashlight with batteries (Most families don’t have electricity so a working flashlight is gold!)
• Good quality melamine plate, bowl, and/or cup (Practical and also special.)
• Soap AND a plastic soap dish that has a cover. When you bathe standing on a big rock in the dirt as kids do here, you really need the soap holder. And families never have enough soap. (Funny note: the kids didn’t know what the soap was because it was in a box. I am sure they would have figured it out though, even without our help.)
• Toothbrush in a toothbrush holder. Again, the plastic case for the toothbrush is really great when you don’t have a sink/counter/tiled bathroom but rather brush your teeth outside squatting over dirt and need to keep it in your room.
• Pencils, erasers, colored pencils, and sharpeners for all school-aged kids. And good quality pens for kids aged 10-14, in black, red, green, and blue. All of these are required for school and the ones from America last so much longer than the cheap ones available here.

GREAT GIFTS:

• Jump ropes
• Band-Aids
• Hard candy and gum
• Comb
• Hair elastics or head bands for girls
• Marbles
• Harmonica
• A simple watch for older kids
• A solar calculator for older kids
• Sunglasses for older kids
• Socks
• For the youngest girls, a baby doll with light brown skin and no hair (good for a child of any color)
• Toy car, truck or airplane for the youngest boys (The ones with bigger wheels that are made for toddlers and are larger than Matchbox size are good. Matchbox wheels are so small, they don’t work well in dirt.)

NOT AS GOOD items we have seen kids receive:

• Anything with instructions in English, even if it seems simple to you (We tried to explain to one girl who got a cool pair of markers that came with a clip so you could draw with them both at the same time and a set of paper 3-D glasses you then used to see what you drew in 3-D… but it didn’t make sense. And how do you even say 3-D in Wolof??)
• Any toy that is not universally recognizable (We have seen kids receive matching memory card games – a great idea but with no one to explain it to them, they are wasted.)
• Yo-yo’s (They don’t know what it is here.)
• Gloves, winter hats (You don’t know whether your box will end up in Siberia or Senegal.)
• Play-dough (Kids here have no idea what it is for.)
• Stuffed animals (Young kids here usually burst into tears when presented with stuffed animals from their shoeboxes. The kids who are old enough not to be scared are not interested. Also, animals carry meanings here that are culturally specific. One of our Sunday School kids got a cute stuffed owl and a much older sibling told me that he himself is terrified of owls. They connote evil and shapechangers. You can’t know what the animal will signify in the culture your box reaches.)
• Stickers or temporary tattoos (Kids don’t have anywhere to stick the stickers, and often the pictures don’t make sense or connect with their world. For example, cute puppy stickers don’t make much sense in a Muslim country because dogs are considered unclean in Islam.)
• T-shirts with words or pictures on them (Would you want to wear a shirt with something unknown written on it? And again, pictures have different meanings in different cultures. Stick with solid colors, stripes, or pretty designs.
• Anything cheap or fragile (One box had a white skinned, red-haired porcelain doll in it…)
• Two of the 10-year old boys in our Sunday School class got adult sized XL t-shirts in their boxes that were obviously left over from an event. They were brand new and will be worn by some adult in the household, but in my opinion, they would have been better donated to Good Will or the Salvation Army. Approach filling a shoebox like you would approach picking out a gift for a friend’s child, not as an opportunity to unload stuff you don’t want.

That’s my unsolicited advice on this topic; I hope you find it helpful!