The following, and final, morning (Friday) was spent getting ready to part ways from our new friends and head back to the lives we had put on hold. Before Sunday, I didn’t know any of these people existed, but throughout the week, as we ministered, traveled, and lived together, I got to know something about each of them. Not only did I learn about them, I even had opportunities to get to know better some of the people I had arrived with in New York, to see them step out into the uncomfortable and unknown. It was a true bonding experience, and it made the end of our adventure bittersweet.

Since there’s not much to write about from that final day (goodbyes, bus, plane, home), I’d thought I’d share just a few of the things I learned from or experienced during this trip.

• While I was there, I got discouraged, and there were times I wanted to give up and just go home. People didn’t seem to care anyway, and feelings of isolation sometimes tried to creep in, but I was reminded that I wasn’t alone and I had a job to do, regardless of the outcome. Even though people I tried to share the Gospel with didn’t seem to listen, I was constantly encouraged by our overall group unity. I don’t remember much, if any, infighting that week; though we had some disagreements, I mostly remember the encouragement from each of the people who had come. In fact, I think I was more encouraged by simply getting to know the people I was with than by any other experience that week.
• Because rejection was constant, there were two areas of Scripture I had to keep going back to throughout the week. One is Isaiah 55:11, which says that God’s word will not return to Him empty, and the other is 1 Samuel 8, in which Israel had asked for a king. What God told Samuel was the people had not rejected Samuel, but they were rejecting God. I had to keep being reminded that these people who didn’t want to listen to what I had to say weren’t doing it to me personally. I was just God’s messenger.
• Speaking of being a messenger, I’m terrible at evangelism, even though Jeff kept reassuring me I was doing well and being faithful to my calling. I flubbed words, felt unprepared, talked in circles, and many times couldn’t get to the point.  Admittedly, I think I wanted so badly to see somebody come to Christ during at least one of my conversations, but if someone had, would I have become prideful in the conversion? I don’t really know, but it’s possible. In some of those circular conversations, I was so determined to point to the truth (maybe to prove I was right) that I might not have given up had I not been prevented from going further.
• In some way it’s a good thing I’m not so great at it, because in the end it’s not about me anyway. I might not have been a great communicator and or had any direct converts, but it was important to keep going.  Even Paul wasn’t necessarily always a great speaker (1 Corinthians 2:1-4, 2 Corinthians 10:10) and didn’t see everyone he witnessed to accept Christ. At one point toward the end of the week, someone had mentioned Noah as the greatest human evangelist; he was a man who was faithful to his calling for many years, but he had no conversions (Genesis 6). Not one person I talked to came to Christ as a direct result of my words. Maybe I planted or watered (1 Corinthians 3:6), but if any good results from what I said or did, it’s God who has to cause it to happen.
• I mentioned before how I noticed people are too busy for God. As I’ve continued to ponder this thought, it’s occurred to me that of course people who don’t know God don’t have time for Him, but what of those of us who do know him personally? It’s a convicting thing to realize how often God is not my focus because I’m too distracted with lesser things.

New York City is probably a one-of-a-kind place. I best describe it as a giant version of downtown Dallas because of all the buildings, but it’s also an entirely different world from anywhere else I’ve ever been. Because of such cultural diversity, it has the feel of some European country, maybe more than one rolled together. It has a mixture of hustle and bustle with a side of silent reflection.

This was the first time I’ve done this sort of thing and also my first visit to New York, but I don’t want what I did to stop in that one week or in that one place. On the contrary, I want it to have been just the beginning. It’s always been so easy to go on a trip, do what I came to do, and then return to whatever life I temporarily put aside, but now I can say I’ve been to New York, and it was worth going. I had some good and bad experiences while I was in NYC, but I am glad that this type of trip was the first one I made there, and maybe some day I’ll go back to do it again. While I may not be good at evangelism, this is too important and one of the primary objectives of the church as a whole. (Why have we made it so difficult?) I also hope to continue doing in other places what I did there, and I feel somewhat more confident to do just that.

As the saying goes, if you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere.

For our last day of ministry (Thursday), we found a place where people eat lunch outdoors. I’m not sure of the location, but it was near a Macy’s and might’ve been Herald Square (if my Google search was accurate). It was an interesting place, because there are so few chairs in relation to people, and these chairs get moved around a lot, in order to accommodate people’s needs. I had sat down to talk with a guy, and by the time I had finished talking with him, all the chairs that had been around where we had been sitting were no longer there.

This first guy I chatted with believed God was a point of light, and we had to empty ourselves of sin in order to approach Him. During our conversation, he even used the metaphor of a cell phone needing recharging to explain our connection to God, little realizing that a cell phone cannot recharge itself, but it needs someone outside itself to be recharged. He was a nice man, but our conversation went in circles before he had to get back to work.

I remember a couple of other conversations. One guy was already a Christian, and even though I can’t remember what all we had talked about, it was a refreshing time just the same. The last guy I talked to spent a few minutes telling me why he didn’t want to talk about what he didn’t want to talk about, and I was reminded of a similar experience Sam had told us about earlier in the week. Our conversation was cut short, as I had to leave.

Even though the rest of our time that day was spent touring NYC, I still felt the need to hand out tracts as we went along. I had them with me, so why not. Besides, we’re never truly off the clock, right? By this point I was more accustomed to people accepting or rejecting them, so it wasn’t as big a deal, though it was still a bit of rejection.

For our tour, we saw part of Fifth Avenue, walked around a bit of Central Park, visited St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and eventually made our way to Times Square. Fifth Avenue is not very interesting to me; it’s a long row of businesses, and I think we spent what little time we had there walking to nowhere specific, waiting for people to figure out where they wanted to go. Central Park is this huge break from the city, but it still maintains elements of city life. St. Patrick’s Cathedral is this massive church building with some artistic design and impressive architecture (located across the street is a statue of Atlas, the guy from Greek mythology who’s often depicted with the world on his shoulders). Times Square is a place that once the sun sets, everything lights up, and the party begins. It is an over-saturated, overwhelming visual stimulation. When we went inside a particular restaurant to eat, the sun was still out, but by the time we had finished, the night should’ve been a lot darker than it was. One place I had hoped to check out during my visit to Times Square was Toys ‘R Us (I hear there’s a Ferris wheel); I worked at one and almost had a chance to visit this specific location years ago, but it was not to be then either. ‘Twas the second time in my life I missed the opportunity (this time I was just across the street diagonally from it). I had also hoped to visit the LEGO Store (because LEGO). But I digress. It was an overall enjoyable experience, and my favorite part was just spending time with some pretty cool people.

As we were making our way back to the church one final time, we had an opportunity to engage with a few people on one of the subway cars. One of the guys we (mostly one of the interns) spoke with seemed genuinely interested, but he didn’t make a decision. I don’t know what happened to him after talking with him, but at the time it was one final encouragement before our time was up.

That Wednesday we spent part of the day ministering to children by doing a Gospel presentation for them at a small park in Washington Heights. It included the sketch/paint board, singing, games, and a rope trick that shows people how we all need a Savior, regardless of how good or bad we think we are. I think there’s a certain giftedness in being able to communicate with children and keep their attention; you have to really get down on their level of understanding and interest without talking down to them or over their heads. That’s not always easy, but those who had the floor (or pavement, in this case) seemed to do well.

We stuck around the park for a little while after the presentation and then went on to another business area to talk to people along some sidewalks. Part of the time was spent distributing tracts with information for a church we had partnered with that day. How many of those ended up in the trash we don’t know, even though we did end up finding some there or on the ground. This place had a bit slower pace than the business area we had been on Monday, but it was still somewhat busy, and people were just as apt at not talking when approached. It was a bit discouraging. At one point, I did start to feel overheated; overheating and discouragement don’t go well together.

Then it was soon time for dinner and heading back to our temporary home; being Wednesday evening, it meant church services were happening by the time we returned. And that was the last full day of open air evangelism in New York City. One more full day in the Big Apple, part of it spent touring, and the week would be all but over.

We did have one incident that day. An older lady who was with us, Mary is her name, had a bit of a fall in one of the crosswalks. She even fell again while trying to get up. I really have to hand to her though. Most of the people who were in our overall group were young adults, but Mary managed to keep up with everyone else rather well the whole week. Not only that, but not once do I remember her complaining, even after falling. Despite the age difference, she has become one of us.

The following day (Monday), we went to a different area of the city; whereas previously we had gone to a park in which people were mostly sitting around and relaxing, that second day was a hustle-and-bustle kind of day along the sidewalks elsewhere. People were constantly moving, so I felt even less able to engage anyone in conversation, but I did finally manage to talk to a few people that day. Sadly, not all of the conversations went well; in fact, one of them was a bit intense.

This particular conversation I had was with a guy whom I simply thought might have overheard what members of my team had been talking about with someone else. Unfortunately, after talking with him shortly, I found his view on the Bible so distorted and awkward that I didn’t know what to make of what he was saying; he knew certain verses but somehow was way off their context or even what they said directly. I wouldn’t say he was crazy, but he was severely misguided in his interpretation and somewhat abrasive in his speech; in fact, I afterwards found out he belonged to a cult I’d never heard of before. Jeff was able to get me out of the conversation, and we walked a little bit down the street, but then this guy walked up and started to talking to me again, until Sam engaged him in conversation, and we were able to move on. I think I was still reeling from that experience for a while; it kind of stuck with me throughout the week. In hindsight, some of what he had said was a bit laughable (not necessarily in a good way though) because of how he used the verses compared with the correct interpretation. But I digress; however, I became a little more cautious about approaching people on the street after that experience.

Another conversation I had that day just kind of went in circles, with the guy I talked to saying he had moved beyond the Bible and saw all religions as having pieces of truth. The conversation might not have gone anywhere, but at least he was a nice person to talk to.

As we were nearing the end of our time in the area, as I was waiting with one of my teammates, a lady walked over to us and asked for prayer for a specific issue. I had noticed her previously during our time there, but she had been working at one of the stores, so I never approached her. She wasn’t a believer, but it was still encouraging that she had come over and asked for prayer. Since she was still supposed to be working, I had a brief time to talk but was able to share the Gospel with her and pray for her request.

We headed to dinner that evening around Union Square, but before we arrived there, we had gone to the underground part that shows names of those lost on September 11, 2001. I can’t say what I ate tasted great (I think I’ll avoid goat cheese), but I did get to have a brief religious discussion with the guy I bought my dinner from. He was friendly, but he disagreed with some of what I had to share.

After dinner, it was back to work; this time we got to see the paint presentation and tried talking to people that way. The paint presentation is a way that someone explains the Gospel while painting what s/he is talking about; it’s very interesting to watch someone drawing a picture while sharing a message. We then try to engage with whomever may have been listening/watching this, or conversely, try to talk with those who are walking by/away midway through the presentation.

Later on, it was time to head back to the church, and that’s when we got lost in New York City (we did have a guy named Kevin with us). Let me just explain what Sam had told us from the get-go; if he wasn’t with us, we were lost, because he knew the city. Whether we were on the subway train and he wasn’t or vice versa, we were lost. Not all of us made it to the train we were supposed to get on, but those of us who did were “lost.” Those few minutes without Sam were pretty exciting and somewhat hilarious. Not every day would be this eventful or chaotic, but some things did just seem to get more difficult with each day that passed.

It is the best of cities; it is the worst of cities. If I may borrow from Charles Dickens just a bit in order to describe New York City.

Recently I had a chance to visit New York City for the first time ever. I was there with some people from my church, and our reason for going was to do what is known as “open air evangelism” or “street evangelism.” It’s pretty much walking up to complete strangers and telling them about Jesus Christ, allowing them an opportunity to place their trust in Him. At least that’s the point of it. Somehow over the centuries, we’ve made it so difficult on ourselves to do something that should be so simple, but we were determined to do this.

Now that you know why we were there, let me back up several months to briefly explain how this came about. Ever since last year, the church I go to (Woodcreek in Richardson, Tx) has been doing something called “Everybody Matters.” Why? Because they do. Humans made in the image of God matter to Him, so they should matter to us. Because everyone matters, we should be reaching out to them. Not far removed this overarching theme/objective, our young adults community was exploring what that meant to us as, well, young adults in North Texas. Towards the end of last year and the beginning of this year, we were given lessons (for lack of a better word) on how to share the Gospel with various groups of people. This culminated with the idea to take what we were trying to do beyond our little bubble of life into somewhere else, and a missions trip was born; without going into a lot of details, NYC became the destination.

This idea was presented to us, and it was opened to anyone interested in taking the Gospel of Jesus Christ to NYC; it had started with young adults but soon grew to include anyone within the church. From the moment I heard this announcement, I was on board. It wasn’t because I had everything figured out or knew what to expect. Quite the contrary; frankly, I had no idea what to expect. Something you should know about me is I like trying new things and sometimes going to new places. I’d been on a couple missions trips prior, but those times the objective was different, though related; I’d also never been to New York (almost did in 2010). So this was perfect for me, and I was gung-ho to go.

As the months passed, my eagerness ebbed and flowed; life has a way of doing that to our excitement for future events. And then came the event. I don’t know that I was ever fully prepared for this trip, as I didn’t necessarily have any pre-conceived expectations, and when I got there, I was never fully taken in by the sights (as in “this is the most awesome place I’ve ever been”). Don’t get me wrong, there’s something about New York City that kind of draws you in, but at the same time, maybe there’s this sort of disconnect I can’t explain. Or maybe it was just me; after all, I was in a new place with people I’d somewhat gotten to know before this trip. We all were there for the same purpose, yet there were times when it was basically just me with my thoughts in a city I didn’t know.

We arrived on a Sunday afternoon at the church we would be staying during the week. The church we stayed at has multiple services in different languages on any given Sunday, which means the building was not ready for temporary habitation when we arrived, so what did we do in the meantime? Our leader Sam liked to say, “the best way to kill time is to work it to death.” So he had us go do what we came to do, but I’m pretty sure none of us were prepared for that just yet. I think we were expecting to get to work the following day after getting our bearings and such, but that first day we got right to work. And that is where this story really begins.