A New York City Church

It was a blessing to be at Bible Baptist Church in Jackson Heights, Queens, NYC this week.  This was a special meeting for us because the congregation has been supporting us for several months “sight unseen.”  We had a great time getting to know the church members and participating in their first annual mission’s conference!

This was also a great meeting for us because it gave us the chance to interact with a new, self-supporting, New York City church plant.  We got some ideas for our church plant in the Bronx, and we were encouraged to see what God can do in a great city and a short amount of time!

One of our goals for the Bronx church plant is to be self supporting in five years.  Many have told us that this will be hard to do, and that it is a “lofty” but unrealistic goal.  Bible Baptist Church is only four years old, and they are already into their own building and completely self supporting.  They are also invested in world-wide missions through monthly supporting 27 missionaries around the world. 

I want to take you for an “inside view” of this newer church so you can get a glimpse of church planting in New York City!

Pastor Taala came to New York City from the Philippines for better educational help for a special needs child.  He did not do deputation or raise monthly support for church planting, but he stepped out on faith and trusted God to provide.

The church began meeting in a Jewish center, and while the rent was low, they could only use the space for a few hours each week.  In June they were able to move into a better space.  They are still renting, but they have the basement and first floor of this “house” in Jackson Heights, Queens.  They can use the building 24/7 and pastor has an office downstairs. 

Like most things in New York City, everything and every space serves a multipurpose in order to be useful.  The nursery quickly converts to a classroom and the children sit on top of the low toy shelves instead of having small chairs.  The basement is a classroom and kitchen.  The auditorium was transformed into a dining hall for the missions banquet.  The building doesn’t have heat, so they use multiple space heaters to keep the auditorium warm.  It was a little chilly, but I didn’t hear any complaining!

There were several other things we loved about this church.  In Children’s Church the kids were taught hymns instead of just children’s songs.  The song leading and piano playing for the Children’s Church was done by teens.  For a small church, they pulled together their talent and formed a choir.  I also enjoyed that the Sunday School hour closed with all of the children’s classes coming to the platform to quote their memory verses to the adults.  Even Nolan got enthusiastic and grabbed the microphone to quote his verse!  Bible Baptist has sidewalk signs at each main intersection to direct people to the church location.  And I loved their large, blank map of the world with pictures of their missionary families on it!

Elaine declined to go to the front, but the other three kids were enthusiastic!

Russel, Nolan, and Casy

Last week for outreach the people of Bible Baptist got together and swept the sidewalks of their block to be a good testimony to their neighbors all around.  What a fabulous idea!  Sometimes you just need to get creative, and practical, in order to build relationships for evangelism.

Thank you Bible Baptist Church for making us part of your missionary family, and for you prayers and support as we head to “Da Bronx!”

I love this simple missionary board!

First time we’ve visited a church and already had our picture up on the map!  We’re in good company with our friends the Klaus family!

It’s a City Thing – Pedestrian Life

Though we have always had a vehicle since we moved to NYC, there are certain aspects of city life that are easier as a pedestrian. Our life right now is not quite as pedestrian as it was when we first moved to the city. Most of that has to do with the ages (and number!) of our children. Little legs can’t travel as far or as fast as Mommy & Daddy!

This is how we got around when our twins were first born – it took two strollers for an outing!

With so many small, mom-and-pop type shops, and so little parking, it’s easier to just walk to many destinations. I usually save up our errands in a particular section of the neighborhood, and then drive there and park. We then walk from the parking spot to complete all of our errands, and then drive home.  If it’s a hard-to-park-in type of neighborhood, we just walk.  And take a long nap when we get home!

When we first moved to NYC we were near a main avenue. All of the shopping, laundry, library, banking, park, and post office that I needed were within walking distance. Though we could easily walk to these stores, there is only so much that you can carry home. I would go to the meat market and fruit market on one day, the library on the next day, and to buy milk or mail a letter the following day. All of my shopping and errands were done in small pieces, rather than a large, stock-up type shopping trip.  I could only purchase what I could carry home or shove in the stroller! I really liked doing my shopping like this, and I even lost 20 pounds from all the exercise!

 
L: It didn’t take us long to discover that the family pram wasn’t practical in the City!
R: Sometimes pedestrian life just makes you sleepy!  We carried her up three flights of steps like this to let her continue her nap in the stroller!

Life as a pedestrian can get exciting, especially when the “littles” want to be just like Mommy!

Now that we have four small children, it’s harder to walk those long distances to get everything done. We have a large shopping basket under the stroller to facilitate small shopping trips, and I make those trips on nice days. We usually stop at the park on the way home to let the kids run off the rest of their energy.

Many stores do not have parking lots, and some neighborhoods are particularly bad when it comes to parking. Sometimes I spend the extra time and gas money to drive to a store that has a parking spot, just for the convenience. Many times I pay for a parking meter on the street and rush to do all errands within walking distance of that spot. Laundry cannot be done on foot anymore – there are too many bags of clothes to be washed!

Some of you may not be able to imagine life without the mobility that a vehicle offers. I struggled to go from being a two car family to a one car family when we moved to NYC. But when you live here, you learn that sometimes the vehicle just gets in the way. Its hard to park, it costs money, and traffic is slow. Often it is faster, cheaper, or easier to just take the train or get some exercise on a nice long walk. My kids have frequently walked 20 blocks to go a bigger park in the summer. How many suburban kids can do that at 2 and 3 years of age?!?

Living in the city has a big pedestrian side to it. We do find times when having a car is beneficial – bringing people to church, doing laundry only once a week (8 loads on average), and making a big shopping trip. But I love the pedestrian lifestyle and the good exercise it provides!

Van Cortlandt Park

This weekend we had the opportunity to stay in the City because of a meeting cancelation.  We took Saturday afternoon to do some more Bronx exploring.  This time we tackled Van Cortlandt Park.

Van Cortlandt Park is the third largest park in New York City.  It is bigger than Central Park by 303 acres!  There are a lot of sports fields and a couple of playgrounds, but most of the park is wooded areas with foot paths. 

Ben read online that there was a lot of poison ivy.  We discovered that to be an understatement! We couldn’t get off the path much at all because the poison ivy was so rampant.  The kids enjoyed collecting acorns, and Ben did some stroller 4-wheeling. 

We hiked out on one rocky point behind the Van Cortlandt family burial plot to get a lovely view of the cricket fields and the City beyond.

It was a perfect day to spend outdoors!

I am looking forward to calling this part of New York City home!

Place of Service

I’ve had this written in the flyleaf of my Bible since high school graduation.  I never would have guessed that 13 years later, God would have led me to serve alongside my husband in the largest city of our country, and one of the most influential cities in the world.  But here I am, and New York City has become home.  God has been so good along each step of the way. 

~Andrea

It’s A City Thing: Subway Numbers

We have this design for our prayer cards and display banner:

Often we asked, “What are all of those numbers and letters?  Do they mean something?”  It’s a fun conversation to have, and we purposely chose this design for our prayer cards so that it could serve as a conversation starter.

No, they are not just random numbers and letters.  And they are not a secret code either!  They are the markings for the trains which run through the Bronx.

The New York City subway system has both color and letter/number markings for each train.  The color represents the track.  Each track may have several trains which run on it, so the letters and numbers distinguish the trains.  One train might be express, and the other makes local stops.

In our current neighborhood in Brooklyn, we have the orange track and the N and R trains run on it.  The R makes local stops, and the N is express.  The two trains also have different beginning and ending points.

There are three subway lines which snake through the Bronx:

• Green line: 4, 5, and 6 trains.  This is the line closest to our target neighborhood, Kingsbridge.
• Red line: 1, and 2 trains
• Orange line: B and D trains

{click to enlarge}
Map of the Bronx subway system.  White dots are express stops; black dots are local stops.  A line connecting two stops indicates an underground walkway between train stations.