We spent the day with the brothers and sisters of the China Evangel Mission Church of Queens, at the Heckscher State Park, on the Atlantic coastline. It was a wonderful day of worship and fellowship! The church rented a pavilion and it was full of people -- more than 200! And, so much food! There were also baptisms in the ocean -- young people from the congregation! Pastor George Ibach, and his congregation in Queens, has been nothing short of amazing! What a blessing!
It was wonderful having Brenda, Emily, Tabitha and Noah here -- to share in the final weekend of Gloritrek -- in NYC! It was also a little emotional -- as we said our good-byes again! Good-byes never get any easier! In fact, I'm sitting here blogging, with Luey and Andy next-door; and my family is all gone again! Brenda and Noah are flying back to Taiwan, Tab is back in Houston, and Emily is back with David, in Champaign.
Luey and Andy will leave for a 6 day bus trip tomorrow,to Niagara Falls, Washington DC and Philadelphia. I will be in NYC a couple more days wrapping up stuff, and then I'll be heading to Detroit, to spend the weekend with one of our favorite partner churches -- the Memorial Church of Christ, Livonia.
Today, Luey, Andy and I took off to the Big Apple, without a schedule to keep! We took the subway with our bikes, strolled through Grand Central Station, rode through Central Park, came down along the Hudson River where the Intrepid is docked, walked our bikes through Time Square and saw a few theatres which were on or off Broadway -- not sure which. We had hotdogs too! We came back to the Chinatown area of Flushing, on the train, and then biked back to the church building. And, we really never got lost, thanks to Pastor George and members of the congregation, who spent much time explaining what we should do! What a blessing!
We spent the late afternoon tearing down our bikes and boxing them up at the church building. I was thinking back to the morning we boxed them up in Taiwan -- and how nervous I was! "What am I getting myself into?" I kept saying to myself! "What am I getting these guys, and my son into? They are crazy to be following me!" "Lord, keep me close to you, for their sakes, and for your glory!"
Okay, so tomorrow, I'm going to answer the question that I've been asked over and over again, in every church we've visited -- "Are you going to write a book?"
More pictures on the Flickr acct tonight! Thank you for praying! Please don't stop, since there are 7,162 unreached people groups STILL out there!
Dave, Luey and Andy
