Only a couple of gunshots

I'm back from the Brooklyn trip and happy to say it was a success. While I expected to be doing more construction, I ended up mostly doing demolition and cleanup. Essentially busting down walls and then cleaning it all up. I think swinging a sledgehammer at walls all day is every guy's dream.

What we were doing was beginning to transform an old hospital into an administration and dorm building for Metro Ministries. They have a number of buildings in that area of Brooklyn and have bought this new building, the size of a city block, with the intent of centralizing their ministry. So, walls had to be taken down and furnishings ripped out to allow them to build to their requirements.

(Picture 1: Me taking out a wall. I found a bigger sledgehammer after the pic. Picture 2: the Manhattan skyline from the roof of the building we were working on.)

The team of 25 drove in 5 vans down to Brooklyn. It took about 16 hours of driving time, so about 18 in total. Every time we stopped there was a long line for food/washrooms, as you would expect, given that there were 25 of us. I enjoyed the drive. It was long, but the guys in my van were good guys and we had some good laughs.

While we were there, when we weren't working, we got a chance to head into Manhattan 3 times and to Brooklyn Heights, doing sightseeing. Brooklyn Heights in gorgeous, probably the best view of the Manhattan skyline in the city. I was surprised at how nice downtown Brooklyn is. I had expected it all to look like the area we were working in.

The Flatbush area that we were staying was interesting. During the day I'd walk around and everything seemed normal. A noisy neighborhood with lots of nice SUV's. However, situations just seemed to explode with no warning. One night I took a group into Manhattan. A few minutes after we left there were 5 shots fired outside of our building. I saw the police bust a guy on a street corner. There was a fight outside of our window. The last night, when we were walking back from the subway (with too many shopping bags in our hands, I'll admit) a junkie and got up in our faces looking to start trouble. While it would seem to be no big deal, I didn't like the possibilities there, a bunch of white guys from Canada carrying shopping bags... I felt like we would quickly be targets. Anyways, we got out of there quickly without any real issue. But for any illusion of normalcy, it was not a good place to let your guard down.

We got a chance to check out the ministry that they do there for the kids. Thousands of kids from all over Brooklyn and Queens come every week to their programs. And they do such a good job of capturing their attention and presenting the good news to the kids. Everything flowed and was exciting, getting the kids attention, getting their energy out, making the messages catchy and memorable. All the while teaching the kids in a very direct way. I was very impressed. The dramas they did, set to music, reminded me of the street evangelism I did back in BC with DRIME.

(Picture 3: Me and some of the guys in Times Square)

On Sunday we went to Brooklyn Tabernacle. That was a highlight of my trip. The worship was moving and Pastor Cymbala had a great message from Psalms on being real in relating to God, expressing true gut feelings while still keeping the context of who God is. I took a lot from his message and enjoyed the experience.

To sum it all up, it was a worthwhile trip. The ministry is making a difference in the community, we were able to contribute, we had great team unity, Mike Miller and Go Missions do a great job, we had fun and I'm back. With no bullet holes...

(Picture 4: The whole team)