"Jamaica Mon!"

Hey we, YWAM-Manhattan, are leaving to go to Jamaica for 3 weeks of out of state and out of country outreach! We leave this comin' up Tueday! I'm excited. We hope to work with young people down there probably in some in schools. The large majority of Jamaican's are cultural"christians". So we hope to impart to young people and whoever God brings across our paths the imporatance and reality of a truly personal relationship, a walking with God.

We'll be staying in Montego Bay. Yes it's in a resort town. It will be nice to go somewhere tropical and warmer than NYC:)

We'll be back Feb. 4th and than start our outreach here in the city. We plan on working at a youth center in Chinatown, continuing our work with Gifted Hands and ISI, Prayer Stations and also we'll probably work with a relief bus.

I'm not sure how this will work out but we want to get the NYC Relief Bus, whom we worked with last Friday, up here on our street and do relief work up here in Harlem. The driver was asking about any place in this area where they do their stuff. So tentatively we have this possibility. We worked wtih them like 5 hours last Friday.

They have a kitchen on the bus and serve soup, bread, hot chocalate to the needy and homeless. There was alot of people that came around. They were even giving out socks and jackets to people who specifially asked for that. The relief bus also has alot of info on rehab centers, homeless shelters, housing, work etc...that we can place in these people's hands. We also had free New Testaments. Most if not all the people I asked wanted one and took one... some even asked me if they could have one:) They were very open to getting the Bible.

Please keep us in your prayers I've been sick with a bad cold...I don't want to take it with me to Jamaica... We need God's help physically and His blessing on us as we minister to people in Jamaica and NYC. Drop me a line I'd love to hear from ya!

From Harlem to Jamaica

Quick update. We're goin' to Jamaica! for our away from the city outreach. We will come back after for about another 1 and half to 2 months more of outreach in the city. We'll be there for about 3 weeks. My leader will be buying the tickets tomorrow. We're not sure what we'll do down there but we'll be staying at a YWAM base. We'll either do ministry set up by the base down there or day to day go to God and ask Him what He wants us to do. We'll be in Montego Bay. I've seen some pictures. It is beautiful! I'm ready for some warm weather.

Today we worked with a Relief bus. Kinda like a soup kitchen on wheels. We worked with them for like 5 hours. We got COLD... I cut up like 10 loaves of bread from a bakery that they passed out with cups of soup and hot chocolate... also I helped at the table outside where they hand out some info to the people coming by.

The ministry we worked with is established so people know that they come out. There was one guy I talked to a bit...he was in an adult body but was almost like a kid. He was quiet and there was an innocence or actually like a fear to him that pulls him back from the world in the way he carried himself. Seeing him made me sad... it feels like he's been through some bad pain. I don't know though. He lives with his mother. He stood by the chain link fence running along the road where the bus was parked for maybe a coupla hours...eating soup and hangin' out. Hardly talking to people. I talked to him a bit but he even stuttered too.

Being with the bus and outside as long as we were and getting soo cold made me thankful for shelter. We experienced a small taste of what it's like to be homeless in NYC... most of the time your not exposed to the cold for a long period of time but because we were serving those people we were outside for a long time. It was our feet that got cold the most...

The guy that drove the bus drove us back to our street and when we got out of the bus for probably all of us it hurt to walk... some of us girls got back filled up a bath tub with warm water and we had a mass foot soaking party. It was fun!

So we're gonna go from the frosty freezin' streets of Harlem to the balmy breezy beaches of Jamaica. I am ready for it! Bring on the sun and the warmth!!!:)