First and foremost, I learned the power of prayer. I mean, I have always known that prayer works and that God does wonders. BUT in NY I learned how true that really is and it just really sunk in for me. I mean, there were several days on campus that all we could do was prayer. ..pray for students to talk to, pray that the school would let us on campus, pray for school administrators and falculty…i mean, literally some days half of our day on campus was spent prayer walking. And then we would find someone to talk to and we would have a great 1.5 hour conversation with that person! So great!

Philippians 4:6-7: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus”.

I also learned a lot about leaving the results to God. Sometimes, especially in the beginning, it was really discouraging not seeing the fruits of our labor. There were many days, as I talked about in theis blog, where I just felt so so drained and seemd like there was nothing to show for it. But I just has to completely give it up to God. I learned that I am just a piece of these people’s spiritual journey’s…manyeb the beginning, maybe the end, or maybe just one little slice 1/8 of the way in. And I am not the one doing anything. It is ALL God. And I am just doing what GOd called me to do…proclaim his word. But its so up to God. ANd he has a plan for it all. I may not undersatnd it. ever. But I do know that God knows a ton load more than me. SO I just gotta trust him. ANd leave all of the results to GOd. I mean, who knows what life changing decision those students that I had conversations with will make tomorrow, next week, or 20 years from now? Yup, God knows it all

Proverbs 3:5: Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.”

I also learned a lot the weekend that I fasted. I had fasted once for 30 hrs before in high school with my youth group, but never done one as long as the one I did this summer. During this time, I realized how often my head is filled with thoughts that are so unimportant ( I think i explained more about this in earlier posts…) Those unimportant thoughts should in replaced with thoughts of GOd or those glorifying to Him. And seriously, I dont know how I went 48 hours without eating. Because I basically eat every 2 hours on a normal day. haha So it was totally God.

Matthew 4:4: “It is written: ‘People do not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the Mouth of God.’”

I also learned a lot in terms of how active spiritual warfare is and just taking those steps of faith in sharing my faith! This summer was so great, and I had so many amazing opportunities in both sharing my faith, as well as exploring the city of New York. I am sincerely appreciative of all the support and prayers I have had from yall!

Anyway, I just wanna give yall some stats from the past five weeks (These are just from the campus track):

     ~715 conversations were initiated

     ~526 were spiritual conversations

     ~254 people heard the gospel

     ~15 people placed their faith in Christ (on the Spot)

     ~1700 bibles, cds, water botles were handed our with information about knowing God

Praise the Lord! That is so awesome!

Sometime within the next week or so, Ill post more about some things I have learned here the past 5 weeks.

Gosh, I really dont like this whole good-bye/ending thing.

I love NY, and know I want to be back here sometime in my life. I just dont know when or in what way that will be…its definitely something I am praying about. But I definitely love this city. So so much!

love.

The rest of the day has pretty much been spent cleaning our apartment…it didnt take as long as I thought..but its just sad cleaning and packing up our home from the past 5 weeks! I also had to ship a box of stuff home…I just dont have room for it anymore, especially now that I am flying home and not driving with Tom, Talley, and Aaron anymore…

We have our End of Project Banquet tonight, so we are all getting dressed up

And tomorrow I am leaving around 1…Aunt Ione is picking me up and driving me to Bronxville where my dad will pick me up. We will then head to CT to get ready and organized for the rest of the week…

peace.

At the Space we did evaluations and did a lot of debriefing and processing with people…good stuff, but just sad, ya know? i really dont like all this talk about leaving…

Sorry, this message is short…its hard to remember what all went on today…it was a hard day…we had our last Monday night meeting…sang some songs, wrote some letters, listened to what people learned here, etc….

yeah, and please pray for my family..my Uncle Robert died yesterday..so its just hard dealing with that and getting ready to leave here and getting to CT and funeral stuff, etc…so yeah…

peace.

I then came back a took a nap and then got up and went to lunch with Mary Beth. We went back and ate on the roof, which was so so nice…it was great weather! I then walked over to the art show that the art track of summer project put on. And wow! It was great, but really intense. It was an installaion, meaning that it is like interactive, kinda. All 30 minds collaborated to create one thing…they planned for like 2 weeks! Anyway, the theme was restoration, and you walked through the art…it is really weird to explain…and the show was really confusing, but really cool. I could def tell that they put a lot of work into it.

On my way back I did a little shopping…for souveniers and some boots ( really want some rain boots now)…i am not a rain boot person, but i found some that I really like and that will remind me of NY and that will be practical at home and at school…the only thing is that they are $115!…haha yeah, so thats not gonna happen, but I am trying to find them cheaper online!

I think I then took another nap..:)…and then I went to bryant park to do some quiet time and read. Gosh, it was such nice weather!

The rest of the night was pretty much chill…just went and hung out with people…

I then went to South Street Seaport which is this other shopping area….still did not buy anything…i am becoming so disciplined

I then took a nap, then went to Magnolia’s bakery…which a got a huge magic cookie bar (graham cracker, chocolate chips, walnuts, and cocunut)…my sis and I use to make them when we were younger and they were our favorite…well, it was deeee-licious!

Then I came back here and Maddison and I chilled and tried to catch up on The Bachelorette online…then we got tired…

hmmm…im not counting the days till I go home…its too sad…

Later, I hung out wiht my chinese buddy for the last time and we went to the Museum of Natural History. I am glad I went, but to be honest, I was a little bored. It was just a lot of the same things….animals and fossils and stuff. After, I went to times square to buy some souvenirs and then a bunch of us met to go to he brooklyn bridge. We first went to a pizza place called grimaldi’s…oh my gosh, it is such good pizza. There was a line of about prob 100 people out the door waiting, and it is usually like that…but we know the trick…if you call it in for take out, you get your pizza so quick. We got like 7 pizzas and it took like 10 min. We then just walked like 2 min to the pier and ate looking out at the hudson river and bridge…so beautiful. We then went to an amazing desert place where I got a ginormous double chocolate chip cookie…and then we walked the Brooklyn bridge back…we needed to burn those calories from the pizza and dessert…haha…but the bridge was so gorgeous and it was just a perfect night to walk it…wow, so great!

WHen we got back, they were filming Step Up 3 right outside the vogue apartments, so we watched that for a bit…that was pretty cool….

But yeah, it was such a great night! Man, it makes me miss NY already. But hopefully I will be back..I really want to live here sometime in my life…:)

Anyway, at the Space, it was out day of like office work, i guess. We met as our ministry teams and figured out our stats for the summer, in terms of the number of people we talked to, and also made spreadsheets of all of our contacts. THis is so that in the Fall, the year long staff can have names of people who are interested in bible studies of getting things started on campus. We also wrote like 2 articles-ish about things we have experieced this summer…so that they can possibly be put online on the campus crusade website, so people can see how AMAZING new york is  and how God has worked

I actually really enjoyed doing all of  that kind of stuff…i dont know why, but I thought it was fun and very accomplishing (i dont know if that is really a word…)

Katie and I then did discipleship in Central Park…then I came back and slept for like 1 hour…so nice…and then we had our cultural dinner at an Indian Restaurant on the lower east side….It was interesting…the spices were definitely different and yeah, I felt a little weird after…

Gosh, I am getting so sad about leaving…I dont want to think about it…So i am going to stop thinking about it right. about. NOW. the end.

peace.

Since it was our last day on campus, our whole track hung out together after and went to Kareoke! Oh man, it was so so much fun! I sang several songs with people, but the majority of the time the whole group just ended up singing the songs! Sammi, Aaron, Jenny, and I (all the people from my school) sang Song of the South…ya know, we hadddd to bring the south up here But yeah, so much fun! And our last song was New York New York. And that was really sad…I am SO not ready to leave here next week!

We then all went to the Wicked lottery…Alex has tried for Wicked tickets 12 times and have never won…so half of our group put in our names to try to win for him…sadly, none of us won….:( But yeah, I really hope he will win soon…

We then have just kinda hung out since then since it was our free night…