VA, NJ, NY, and NYC

Hello Everyone,

At Our Savior's Lutheran Church in Arlington, Virginia, we ate supper Tuesday night and then went to our host homes. Luke and I enjoyed some a game of UNO with the host kids--it was a long game (we played that you had to draw until you could play), but it was fun. Sadly, I lost, but only because Luke was helping the kid I was playing. On Wednesday morning, we did a chapel for elementary kids.

Wednesday, we drove past DC, to get to Verona, New Jersey, a suburb of New York City. I learned that New Jersey is basically made up of suburbs of New York City and suburbs of Philadelphia. New Jersey is also the most densely packed state. In Verona, we went to Lindsay's church, Calvary Lutheran Church. We stopped at Lindsay's house for awhile and met her siblings. After setting up, we went out for Chinese with 15 or youth from the church. We had a family program which ended with the church presenting Lindsay with a $1000 check. She was very surprised and happy.

Thursday, we relaxed for awhile at our host home. We had an amazing host. Thursday afternoon, we drove past NYC to Yonkers, New York. We went to Sunrise Senior Living, a nursing home. We did a family night program in the nursing home chapel for members of the pastor's congregation. After our program, we worked on learning French. Our progress on French has been slow, but hopefully we will pick it up easily when we go to Africa. Eventually, we hope to do almost all of our program in French. Now, we are working on translating our songs and learning them in French.

Friday morning, we played for some residents at the nursing home that we are staying with. After that, the pastor led a small service of songs, Scripture, and Communion. Since that was our only programming for the day, we went to New York City for the day. It was my first time in NYC. The pastor drove us around for awhile before dropping us off. He took us by Yankee Stadium, many of the neat looking bridges, the UN, the Statue of Liberty (way off in the distance), Trump Tower, the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, and Wall Street. We got out for awhile at Ground Zero--where the Twin Towers were. Now, there are a few signs and they are building the Freedom Tower. The signs said "Dedicated to those who fell and to those who carry on" and "May we never forget." They were with reliefs of fire fighters and police officers. There was a poster with pictures of all of the NYC firefighters that helped after the attacks. We got back in the pastor's van again before the pastor dropped us off near Grand Central Station. From there, we walked to Rockefeller Center. We saw the Christmas tree, the ice skating rink, and NBC headquarters. After that, we walked north to go to Central Park. We walked around the park for awhile. It was a pretty cold (30s) day; we were outside walking for most of it. From Central Park, we walked south to Time Square. We ate supper at an Irish Pub, where I had a really good shepherd's pie. Next, we went to Grand Central Station and took the subway up to the Bronx, where we got on a bus back to Yonkers. Overall, I really enjoyed our trip to NYC, but I wish I could have seen more and wish the weather would have been nicer.

Today, Saturday, we our heading to Lehighton, Pennsylvania.


Peace,

Tiffany