Our 20 year old daughter is doing her college internship for a church  in Spanish Harlem.  She is a youth ministry major at Nyack College, just a few miles across the Tappan Zee Bridge from New York City, and we went to visit her this weekend.  On Friday night we went with her into the city to do a show for her church's youth outreach.

She has been working through Youth for Christ Ministries in a program housed in a public high school on 116th and Pleasant in East Harlem.  Typically, the teens play basketball, have a short devotional message followed by break away groups and a snack.  This time, Naomi was able to arrange for our show to be the devotional portion.  I love that we were partners in ministry with our daughter.

We left Naomi's apartment in Nyack and hit the George Washington Bridge at rush hour.  Naomi was an excellent navigator, though, and we found parking right in front of the school!  As people arrived, the first thing that got my attention was how highly everyone spoke about Naomi.  Every volunteer told us what a great kid we had, and the teen girls were so excited to see her.

Rose and I did a 45 - 50 minute show, and the audience - mostly high school aged guys, but some middle schoolers and a few girls - were a terrific audience.  While my message focused on the basics of the Gospel story, their favorite part was the illusion that appears to swell, then shrink my head.  I could barely get them to settle back down for the rest of the show!

Afterwards we met the lady who hosts Naomi when she stays through the weekend in the city.  A sweet lady, she greeted us with hugs and told us that Saturdays she and Naomi would leave her husband in their apartment and they would have a 'girls' day' in the city. 

Another church uses another part of the school on Friday nights as well, and some of them came into our show part way through.  While some of their youth joined 'our' youth for ice cream sundaes, Rose and I brought the rabbit and doves around for people to pet and see close up.  Then we packed up and headed back to Naomi's apartment, where we got to bed sometime after midnight.

I'll be writing about our actual visit in a future blog.