Trip recap and link to pics and video presentation

 

Newark mission trip video

Click on the above link to watch the video presentation that was shown at the worship services at BCC this past weekend.

You can also check out my facebook page for a 200 picture photo album of our trip compiled from 5 different cameras.

Our trip was a wonderful experience as 45 students and adults from 3 churches in Westchester County NY traveled down to Newark, NJ to bless that city.

We worked hard on big and small projects, visited people and churches, fed the homeless, ran sports outreaches in the community, shared God’s love with people in parks, organized a Vacation Bible Club at two locations, and did everything for the Love of God.

Some of the work seemed monotonous and times, but our students realized that everything we do matters to God and we are to work at every task as if we were doing it for Jesus. This mindset completely transformed our projects into worship experiences.  We did not need to know the outcome of our work or receive recognition for we knew that God was smiling upon us.

We did our best to bring joy, laughter, and hope to the people in this forgotten city.  We served wherever a need or opportunity came up and were willing to scrub pots if it helped make someones life easier. 

Our interactions and conversations with people were all Spirit driven and lead.   While we hoped to be a blessing, the people of Newark blessed us in so many ways.   

Of course we realized that “the harvest is full but the workers are few”.  There is so much to still be done in this city.  While we were able to finish some of the projects we worked on, others remained uncompleted for who knows how long.  In addition, it is not hard to look around the community and see hundreds of needs (physically, financially, emotionally, and spiritually).  Many of our students left wondering what an additional week could have accomplished.  Some left making a promised to return to continue the work we began.  

We hope that we left a lasting mark on the city of Newark, the missionaries of World Impact, and the people between Sussex and Orange Ave.  We also hope that this experience will challenge and inspire us to look around more closely in our home communities to find similar needs.  While Newark is fairly close geographically to all 3 churches, there are cities and communities in need much closer.  What will we do about those?

From a youth pastor perspective, it was amazing to watch 3 youth groups come together and work towards common goals.  We laughed, prayed, played, and sweat together for a week in Newark and I believe bonded beyond expectations.  John Bagwell of Ridgeway Alliance and Dave Stradling of Hillside Church lead their ministries with common ideologies and vision as I do.  I appreciate their friendship and fellowship and look forward to joining together more often and bring our groups together to make an impact and difference here in Westchester.

We had the privledge of seeing our students at their very best.  Their attitudes were great, displaying humility, servanthood,, compassion, and love.  They loved God and loved others by serving God and serving others.  They worked at whatever they were doing for the glory of God.  In many ways, our students inspired and challenged us to come back home and continue to live as missionaries; be the hands, feet, and mouth of Jesus.  

“Lord, may we continue to do that things we did down in Newark.  Give us a vision and passion for our home cities and communities and use us to bring hope, healing, and salvation here just as you did through us down there.”

In Jesus,

Dan Haugh, Pastor of Student Ministries  BCC Youth

Photo album Newark Mission trip 09

Group D- Report for the week so far…

First of all Group D would like to thank those back home who are supporting us and please continue to pray for us. Group D is comprised of 2 leaders and several youth from different churches: Jon Bagwell from Ridgeway and Claudia Palacios from Bedford. Isaac and Alexej from Hillside, Haley from Bedford, and Kyra and Lila from Ridgeway.

On Sunday, we went to Cornerstone church for our Sunday service. The speaker that day was the president of World Impact, which is the organisation we are working with. He told us the story of how World Impact began and even mentioned the place we are staying at, an old school turned into an inner-city outreach center. After that, the 3 youth groups went to the park to play with some kids. We took a LONG walk to get to the park. Once there we all got into a circle and did a big group prayer. After we split up Haley went to draw with chalk,and give out princess stickers.Her and some other kids made a large hopscotch. While Claudia used her Spanish to talk to some of the children’s mothers about VBC (vacation bible club).Lila enjoyed playing soccer and blowing bubbles. Kyra played baseball with some of the kids,and Isaac and Alexej played some frisbee. Afterwards we split into several groups and went around the city inviting people to come to Vacation Bible <i>Club</i> . Afterwords we enjoyed a hearty meal and a good night’s sleep.

On Monday we had to wake up early to make breakfast. We were the pioneers of the kitchen! We got there and had to find everything. There was NOT much food there. We found eggs and four loafs of bread. Kyra and Lila made toast in the oven. We had three types of cereal. Claudia and I (haley) made the eggs in the pans, After Alexej and Isaac cracked them into the bowl. John got the pans out of the holders and helped us get the eggs into the pan and out on the table to be served. Like every morning we have a devotion time after breakfast for about a half hour. Then we get to work, on Monday we cleaned the garage in the morning and did evangelism in the afternoon. The garage in a MESS there is stuff everywhere and the lady Louise who is talking care of it wants to turn it into a thrift store and a food pantry. So as of Monday we were cleaning out half of it to be able to scrape off the old paint and repaint it. There was everything in that place, from tanks of oil to golf clubs you name and it was in there. It was a big mess but it was fun as well. After lunch we went with Dave and Kim to do evangelism in the park. Dave does a magic show in which he explains the bible and how to become and be a good christian. At the end we pray and ask if anyone would like to dedicate their life to Jesus and we had about 8 kids raise their hands. Then we talked with some people.It was a amazing day.

On Tuesday, we had fence duty all day. Luckily the group before us had already scratched off the rust so all we had to do was paint. we had buckets of thick black paint. It looked and felt like tar. We used latex gloves but there was really nothing you could do to get away from the paint. It was a VERY messy job. Alexej and Lila were on the scaffolding. It took us a while to finish but it looked good in the end, although we dropped paint on the sidewalk which was what we were trying to avoid the whole afternoon. We had to get some of the clothes from the garage and use this oil stuff that we basically bathed in ourselves to get the paint off. We had to pour it on the sidewalk and we were all scrubbing the sidewalk. We all got paint in our hair and all over our legs and arms. Lila and Kyra wrote their names in the paint on their legs. Which they regretted much later when they were showering. All in all it was a fun day and our group really bonded.

 

Today- We had garage all day and the good will food pantry. We were in the garage today scraping the old paint off the walls and repainting the walls and ceiling. Lila and myself (haley) were on the scaffolding all day doing the celling. Kyra also joined us doing the celling.  Alexej and Isaac  were scraping and painting, they also pushed us on the scaffolding. Also some of the group went to the GoodWill rescue mission and served food.   Goodwill Rescue Mission

Tommorow we have VBC (vacation bible club) we are all looking foward to seeing the kids and seeing what god has in store for us the rest of the week.

- Haley, Claudia, Alexej,Lila,Kyra,Isaac, John.

sledgehammers and a new kind of coaching

Today I got to do what many youth pastors dream of…smashing things up into tiny pieces with big sledgehammers. Okay, perhaps only I used to daydream of that while sitting in seminary classes!

My work crew continued the massive makeover of the garage project and my task was to remove the old heating cast iron pipes. Ralph Adrien was a big help with the hammer as well as we removed an entire wall of pipes and prepared them for cleaning and painting. My ears rang with the loud noises and my arms are still a bit sore, but it was fun!

In the afternoon, I had a real privilege of taking two BCC baseball players to help run a baseball clinic for 20 inner city kids between 10-14 years old. Jeff Smith and Liam Wheeler did an excellent job of doing drills and throwing batting practice. We then helped run a 5 inning exhibition game. I have been coaching modified baseball at John Jay in Cross River for six years, but never have a felt a sense of pride, gratitude, and fulfillment as when I was with these children, most of whom cannot afford their own bats or gloves.

A special moment occurred when Liam shared his testimony with the boys about how baseball and Jesus saved his life and gave him hope when he was battling his cancer. Watching Liam stand on the pitchers mound and share what Christ has done and means to him was powerful, and my favorite sport and passion of baseball brought all of these things together today. I am grateful for this unique opportunity called Word on the Mound provided to us by the great programs of World Impact, but also feel saddened wishing that I could spend the same amount of time with these guys as I do with my team back home. I wonder what kind of development (physically and spiritually) would occur with that kind of dedication and involvement.
Dan Haugh

Do you mean VBS? No, I said and meant VBC

Today was our first day of Vacation Bible Club. Yes, here in Newark, if you want 6- to 12-year-olds to attend the program, do not invite them to Vacation Bible School. So, we re-packaged our materials into a VBC program.

Two VBC sessions are scheduled daily until Friday. This morning, we organized VBC at the Newark Christian Academy’s Day Camp.  We had a total of  23 kids from which only 3 were not day campers.  In the afternoon, we hosted VBC at another World Impact location for 15 kids.  The afternoon kids seemed mostly unchurched and as Amanda Aguzzi from BCC said, it was special to minister to them.

Six of us form our team, including the two leaders, Rebecca Ellson from Hillside and myself.  Rebecca did a great job managing most of the prep work for VBC and running the show.  Amanda was our narrator,  Liam Wheeler our Storm Director, Greg Smith and Josiah Davis were Jesus and one of the disciple in the skit.

I feel blessed working with my team and proud of their hard work and dedication to the clubbers.  There are offf to a great start!

-Ralph Adrien

Pictures from Newark trip, Day 1

World Impact Ministries, 8th street location.  site for afternoon VBS Monday-Friday and community cookout

 

Apartments off Orange St.  2 blocks from home base.  housing for large number of VBS children from community

Garage Project.  location of 1 of 4 construction sites throughtout the week.  future home of World Impact community thrift store

 

Amanda Aguzzi playing with child in Branch Brook Park

Afternoon Update

Today was our first full day at the World Impact/AIM camp in Newark, NJ. Thankfully we were able to sleep in a little before eating breakfast and heading to church. Our group was split up between three churches, each very unique. Team A was assigned to the 24/7 Community Church located on the first floor of our building. The 24/7 church has a fairly small congregation but the love of God was abundant. The preacher’s wife was lively and “giddy” as she described herself this morning. Being a predominantly African American congregation, the volume and energy was absolutely incredible. It did not feel like a small church by any means and was certainly not a church with little personality. The sermon, although short, was powerful and moving. Unfortunately we were unable to visit for long since lunch was about to be served. After lunch our entire group went on a prayer walk to a local park. After a heart-felt prayer the group branched off to play with the children present and explore the area. A couple people drew out a hopscotch pattern while a few others played baseball. We had to leave our new friends to get back to camp for our next adventure. The group met up with one of the camp leaders to go scouting and hand out fliers. Smaller groups branched off to canvas different areas in search of children to invite to our Vacation Bible School which is starting tomorrow. It’s interesting how many preconceived notions everyone has prior to really experiencing a community. When you think of the people of Newark, NJ you probably wouldn’t assume they were kindhearted and willing. Yet, this is what was experienced by our groups today. They found that people were eager to hear our message, excited to send their children to VBS, and hopeful for companionship. A couple of us stayed behind to attend the “Shalom Church” which is a Spanish service located in the 24/7 Community church. This was an amazing experience but also a challenge. The entire service was in Spanish although one woman kindly translated for our group. Both experiences this afternoon were eye-opening for those involved. We are all eager to discover our activities for the rest of the week.

With love,

Greg, Josiah, and Rebecca