urban impact.

Last week was my spring break (quite possibly my last spring break) and the ministry that I serve with at UT partnered with three local churches to sponsor a mission trip to the Big Apple. (Fun Fact: I went to NYC on a mission trip spring break of my freshmen year as well... starting and ending college with a trip to the 'city that never sleeps') I'm gonna have another entry soon on all of the sight-seeing stuff we did the first weekend in the city but this post is meant to focus on the reason we were there:

The organization that I had the opportunity to serve with for the week was Urban Impact. Their mission is to reach out to immigrants who come from the most remote and unreached areas of the world. They are a Christian non-profit organization that spreads the name of Jesus through teaching English as a Second Language. Sounds awesome, right?! It is!

I had the privilege of "teaching" on three different occasions which is an INCREDIBLE experience. All of the guys I worked with were extremely receptive and eager to learn but I had a special session with one guy in particular... 

This is Sam. He is from West Africa (I never could understand exactly which part haha). He's only been in America for 10 months and he currently sells cell phone accessories. He has a wife and four children (three daughters and a son) still in Africa and his whole objective is to bring them here for a "better life." I think a big reason this time was so special for me was not just due to the connection we had but the Lord has laid it on my heart to go to Africa at some point in my life (hopefully soon). 

Something else you should know is that we stayed in Rockaway Beach, Queens, which was hit HARD by Hurricane Sandy. Some of the stories we heard were terrifying and something I pray I never have to experience first-hand... but hearing all of this really helped us to connect to the people we were serving. In fact, Urban Impact is actually helping to launch a church right there on the island and we were blessed to be able to help. We worked on construction projects and handed out ALOT of flyers for promotion and it was SO WORTH IT. It was perfect (AKA God) timing because they still had a lot of work to do when we arrived in order to launch on Easter Sunday... but it was a HUGE success! They had over 150 guests last week with a few people accepting Christ! It's such a blessing that the Lord allowed us to be a small part of it. Here are a few pictures of the church to give you a better idea: (it was originally an old warehouse that Urban used to house supplies for the victims of Sandy)

 

So that's a small glimpse of what we did by partnering with Urban Impact last week. I could list countless stories of how the Lord worked through small conversations, street evangelism, the ESL classes, on the island and so many things... but it's hard to get the full effect through a blog. SO, please feel free to call/text/email/Facebook me and ask more about my trip and this wonderful ministry!