Well, I was anticipating having more internet access while we were in New York, but it didn't work out that way. But we learned to trust God in many different ways when we got to New York and I'm here to tell you we experienced so many blessings. Starting with where we stayed. We got connected with an 84 year old female pastor named Ms. Ruth, who has an old 3 story house in Spanish Harlem and opens up her home to missionaries. When we showed up, she said we would sleep on the 2nd floor. Well, the whole house didn't have air conditioning and we had to cram 10 people into 2 small rooms. Needless to say, it was as hot as Africa on the 2nd floor...and New York was going through a heat wave. Some of us had some nights where we didn't sleep. But we sucked it up and tried to have a servant's heart. It was easy to be servant's after we would have our conversations with Ms. Ruth. She is a Godly woman who has been called to take care of the needy. She opens up her doors to anyone who wants help, and she will do anything she can to help. Her attitude and spirit rubbed off on all of us.
Now, we partnered with a church called East Harlem Fellowship. They helped promote our camp, but we had no idea how our camp was going to look or who would even show up. So the first day we got to the church, we asked what they wanted us to do. Very simply, they told us to go into the streets and invite kids to the camps. Seeing as none of us had ever been to Harlem, let alone New York, we realized this was going to be a challenge. So we prayed that God would bring kids to us and sure enough, He did. We went to the local parks, shops and sidewalks and talked to as many kids as we could. By the next day, we had about 20 kids signed up! We were praising God, but still had no idea how the camps were going to work out.
On the first day of the camp, just about all those kids showed up, and we knew we had a challenge on their hands. Many of these kids were undiscplined didn't take direction very well. But it's really interesting how far a little love can go. We would take the time to encourage each kid, teach them specific techniques so they could get better and even gave them hugs. They responded so well to this. It showed us that they were not getting a lot of love at home so we had the chance to show them the love of God. Every day of the camp we would seperate the boys and girls and we would talk about how even though we loved track and field, our relationship with Jesus Christ was the most important thing in our lives. We each gave our testimony throughout the week, and even Derrick, our celebrity gold medalist, came and gave his testimony. As we continued to share our hearts and love these kids, they began to soften up and by the end of the camp, they loved us. In the boys group, we shared the 4 laws and 2 kids accepted Christ! When they rose their hands, we realized that God had always been in control, despite all the uncertainty. The kids proceeded to give us hats that they wrote thank you notes on to each of us. It was truly touching. Some kids even challenged us to a relay race. That's when you know you've reached the heart of a young man :) The day after we left, a facebook status of one of the kids said "I wish I was at track camp." Those kids are special to us and we will never forget them.
During our debriefing time the next night, our team knew that our lives had been changed forever and that God had blessed us in ways we could not imagine. Thank you to everyone who supported us, both spiritually and well as financially. You are a part of all of this. So farewell for the last time, and we encourage you to continue being the "aroma of Christ."