Count Every Day A Blessing

Today, as I was asked to recount my story and how I ended up here, at 321 Beekman Avenue, I couldn't help but marvel at the sovereignty of our Lord. He is so great, so mighty, so all-knowing. He has brought me here and blessed me beyond my wildest dreams and has consequentially shifted my life plans, goals and ambitions. As I struggled to explain the many ways that God has shaped me since moving here, I couldn't help but to come back to the reality that I feel God here, that somehow, He has made himself tangible--in this house, on this block, in these people.

Tonight, as Sara and I sat around a table cloth with girls dressed in princess outfits, sipping tea, I thought that this must indeed be the Kingdom of Heaven. We spoke of our princes back home and our unicorns waiting downstairs, of our shining castles and expensive dresses. As I mentioned the later ballroom dancing that was to take place, Nyah exclaimed "How does it get better than this?!" I simply thought, "It doesn't." It doesn't get better than a weekend full of tea parties and dance parties, sleepovers and home visits. We look forward to the next few days as prayers continue to be answered, as boys sleepover in Harlem with admirable men serving as role models in their daily lives. We look forward to the girls slumbering here, in our castle, with equally admirable women of Christ, and to Kelly headed to Harleysville for a second time.

And while I'm excited about the headway we're making here, the development of our friendships and relationships and ever eager to expand and do more, I am too often grounded by compromise--of money and time and everything in between. I ask you to join us in praying for continued expansion, for a re-establishing a commitment to schedule within our house and community and for continued enthusiasm. I ask that you pray against such compromise of our hearts, of God's will both here and around the world. Furthermore, I ask you to continue to pray for our neighborhood, for the most recent victims of violence, for the police that have re-established their presence and for the disadvantages that our friends are faced with daily.

Finally, I encourage you to find the little girls in your life, to accompany them on an extravagant tea party of your very own and to learn, in the process, everything you've ever needed to know.

Grace and peace,

Kirstin

Check What Our Friends Are Doing!

Happy New Year Everyone!

In the spirit of making resolutions (which I always thought was silly but now am seeing as a chance to set goals for myself especially in my relationship with God and to the world that I actually can try to keep!) I wanted to share something that our super cool friends Whitney and Allie are doing.

They both moved to the city this last May and have quickly become dear friends of ours and these ladies are literally some of my favorites, if I didn't live with the best roommates ever already I'd want it to be these girls. BUT, this is what they're doing: they aren't buying nay new clothes for a whole year! And these girls arent jeans and a t-shirt girls or anything like that, they are for sure the best dressed girls I know, Allie is even starting an internship at Manolo Blahnik! So check out their website and be inspired! (Click the title of this post to link to their site.)

http://nonewclothes.wordpress.com/

Peace

Updates!

Hi All!!!

So I just realized a bunch of you who are so important to my life don't even know about this Blog! Just for a re-cap this is a blog where you can read up on what my roommates and I are doing, how you can pray for us and our lives in community with our neighbors in the South Bronx, each other and Jesus!

Right now I am writing this from Kenya and although I am enjoying the wonderful break from the winter cold I do miss the babies and my roommates incredibly! :(

In recent news, I took the 3 younger girls next door to see Princess and the Frog! Just so you know it's the best Disney movie since the DIsney classics so if you haven't seen it, leave your computer and do so immediately!!!

It truly was a blessing to take the girls and I praise God for the first black Disney Princess. I don't know to which extent the girls realized that this was a moment in history but I really believe looking back they'll see that they experienced something special. It was definitely special for me seeing their faces light up and hearing Mani say "she looks like me!".

We also got to open presents with the babies and have them read the story of Jesus before they did so. It was really an amazing and fun night doing that with them and I'm so grateful that we have some kind of hand in sharing the meaning of Christmas with them.

Prayer

I would just like you to pray for our boldness in sharing the Gospel with the adults!

I'd like to pray for men to come in and mentor our young boys who really need it!

I'd like to pray for strength and encouragement of our community with each other, God and the our neighbors!

I hope your Christmas was amazing and filled with love!

Happy New Year and be blessed!

" If God is for us, who can be against us?" Romans 8:32

Advent Time

Greetings All,

I hope you had a great time of Thanksgiving. One of the things I am thankful for this minute is our new slow cooker (actually my mom's old one from the 80s) in which our curry for our first advent dinner has been cooking since this morning! So what is this Advent Dinner? We aren't really sure yet, but hopefully it will be a time within our house community and with those who are really instrumental in our ministry here to gather and set our eyes and hearts towards Christ's coming. How great will it be when He comes back once and for all and the Kingdom is completely fulfilled?!

We have a little advent wreath on our dinner table and we'll be lighting the first candle tonight (Churches do it on Sundays but we have church on Sundays so Tuesdays are the next best thing). We are reading from Isaiah 60, vs 1-5:

"Arise, shine, for your light has come,
and the glory of the LORD rises upon you.

See, darkness covers the earth
and thick darkness is over the peoples,
but the LORD rises upon you
and his glory appears over you.

Nations will come to your light,
and kings to the brightness of your dawn.

"Lift up your eyes and look about you:
All assemble and come to you;
your sons come from afar,
and your daughters are carried on the arm.

Then you will look and be radiant,
your heart will throb and swell with joy;
the wealth on the seas will be brought to you,
to you the riches of the nations will come.

I hope that y'all are able to see the hope we have in Christ in every possible way tonight!

Sisters, Sisters

Hi Friends,

I just wanted to update about a special trip we took with some of the girls last week to go ice skating in central park. Kirstin and I had promised to take one of the younger girls out a while ago and so we finally decided to take her and her older sister out ice skating. We had such a great time and the girls were really pros- by the end they were skating backwards and on one foot and even doing spins! It was also a great time for them to bond as sisters which is much needed and tough when the older/younger battles are always going. Here are some pictures:





I hope you're all doing well and getting as excited for the holidays as we are, we've got lots of great plans for how to spend them that are gonna be loads of fun and hopefully a blessing to our neighborhood too, grace and peace folks!

Sharing the Gospel

Good Morning Everyone,

It's been a really exciting week here as God has been showing up pretty unexpectedly in our conversations with neighbors. As He would have it, all of those neighbors are teenaged boys and He has not in fact given us any men to mentor these boys but He has placed a curiosity in their hearts. Most of the time I don't really understand God or the way He moves but I think that is a good thing.

On Monday night this week, Sara and Val were hanging out with two boys from the block and one of our guy friends who was staying with us for a while. One of the boys comes over all the time but is pretty wrapped up in the hood lifestyle and mostly just talks about girls, this boy brought over one of his friends who we'd never met before. Conversation of course turned to girls, and our friend Clinton who was staying with us was able to preach the gospel to them about girls, sex, being black, drugs, and life in general. Sara and Val were pretty floored and encouraged by their talk and the boys seemed to really take it to heart and be interested, one of them even mentioned it to me the next day.

Then on Thursday Kirstin and I were having dinner with the other two boys who live next door, they come over almost every night now and I make them grilled cheese. These boys have quickly become some of our favorites, for some reason they love hanging out at our house and telling us about their days. They are so respectful and smart both of them (although of course they've got their issues too). We were just having normal conversation when all of a sudden one asked me, "Who killed Jesus?" Kiki and I looked at each other stunned and I gave an explanation, ending with telling them about our own sin and that really Jesus had to die for each of us. Then they asked, "So who was Jesus?" We talked about it a bit and then dinner ended and we had promised to take some of the girls ice skating so we left. I think I'm going to give each of these boys a copy of the new testament and ask them if they want to read it, either on their own or with some of us!

I never imagined that God would ask us to be the spiritual mothers of these kids but until he provides them with more permanent men in their lives who are willing to take on the task we are happy to do it! Pray for us that we'd have the boldness and understanding to speak the gospel into these boys lives and that we would be able to find men to also do this with them!

Peace,
(with more to come on the ice skating adventures as soon as Kiki puts up the pictures)

We REALLY REALLY Need Men!

Hi Friends,

I hope Fall is treating you well, we are having a great time up here and are really enjoying spending time with our neighbors. We are all really one big family now, we don't lock our roof doors anymore so everyone from next door just comes over whenever and vice verse. We are seriously considering finding one big house for all of us!

One new thing is that all the teenagers have really been spending time here since school has started. The little kids all have afterschool programs till 6 or so and now the older kids come over as soon as they get home to get snacks and hang out. Most of them in fact are boys (ages 12-15). We love them so much and really act as stand in mothers for most of them. A typical day looks like one of them coming home from football or school and coming straight to our house to talk about the day, use the computers, and have us make them grilled cheese. It is so much fun and we love these boys like they were our own.

Because we love them so much, we want them to grow up into great men who really love God and love the people around them. Friends, it is so so hard for them to do this without the influence of other men in their lives. We can spend all the time we want with them but we aren't men so it is just not enough. They are at such a vulnerable time in their lives and face choices everyday that could make or break them. We would love for each of them to be mentored by one of our wonderful guy friends! This would ideally involve spending scheduled time with them weekly, maybe even reading the Bible with them. We would pay for you to take them out and do stuff in the city every once in a while. One of the greatest challenges for us has been the lack of male support/influence with our family here. Would you please consider committing to one of these young men, I really can't think of a more worthy investment! Thanks for praying with us for this, ,we are trusting God that he will provide for our boys!

Peace