There are great things to be done in this City.

I will be updating soon, you guys. Don't give up on me! I'll upload the pictures tomorrow and have some text by the end of the week. I love you guys so so much. I assure you the Lord is doing ridiculous things. I cannot wait to tell you about it.

In Christ alone can I truly live.

Cody

My, how time flu!

Me and one of my little ones at church on Sunday. ( She did my hair lol)

Whitney made me a Nannerpus for when I got home.  :D

It's a little fuzzy, but this is the park right outside my church.

Manhattan Bridge.

Me and Whitney

Hey, everyone!

Sooooo this is mostly pictures, but they speak louder than words. It's been a while since I've updated. Sunday, Feb. 9th I woke up verrrrrry ill. I had a fever over 101 and my body was so weak I could hardly get out of bed. I stumbled into my roommate Whitney's ( in the pictures below) bedroom and told her my dismay. She called a cab and we went to the emergency room together. I already could have guessed the diagnosis. The flu. But a baaaadddd case of it since I had a different strand of flu for almost two weeks before I moved here. My immune system still wasn't on it's A game, sooo I have been out of commission for about a week and a half. Whitney went out and bought me tea, kleenexs, a " Jesus loves me" mug, crayons, a pirate coloring book, chicken noodle, etc. She is wonderful. Graffiti also sent a group of ladies here with a big care package. I felt so loved! I was out of work for a week and it was pretty miserable. I was ok to be resting, but I really missed my kids and would have rather been with them. Being so weak in body, I also was week in mind and heart. When one is left at home, alone, feeling terrible, with nothing to do but think it is a dangerous time. Thoughts that normally I would have rejected on account of them being ridiculous and clearly illogical started seeming almost true. I was unproductive ( in hindsight I see that "being unproductive" then was simply resting for wellness) but I fretted over only doing things for myself the entire week. It was a weak time spiritually. I couldn't bring myself to read the Word. It was like I was so inactive that I became dismayed over my inactivity and that spurred me on into further inactivity. I am well now. The Lord carried me through the week  and a half. I called my mentor, Lorie, and we met yesterday at a Starbucks near Chinatown. I really just needed to talk about work, and the Lord, and unload the last week. We prayed together and I walked away feeling lighter. Talking with her and being accountable to her has really helped me. She is holding me accountable to my word. When I say I will be actively working on spending more time being quiet before the Lord, I know she will be asking me about that throughout the week. She is wonderful.

The Lord is good. There are ups and downs to every relationship, and I am thankful for the stress. Had I have never been through dark valleys, I would never appreciate the mountain tops. Through whatever season I am going through God has never given up on me, no matter how sour my attitude, how self pitiful I get, how heavily I lean on my own intuition and not His Spirit. He is a gracious and loving Father. His love is without condition. All PRAISE be given to Him for that.

Other things I've been up to.....hmmmm. My roommate introduced me to the most amazing vegetarian restaurant ever. It's called Crispy's and I had a soy beef sloppy joe and it was so so so so good. Also sweet potato fries! I went ice skating for the for the first time in NY! It was amazing. Chris, our friend Jennifer, and I went skating in Central Park. It's amazing. We were in the middle of  all the sky scrapers, the night was clear and you could see stars....awesome. Went to the Plaza hotel and saw some models and fancy people and such ( it's fashion week). I visited Spanish Harlem for the first time. It was awesome. I loved it. I went to dinner at Jennifer's( friend from church) Aunt's house. Rice, beans, familia, and Spanish television. Amazing combo. Oh!! I have got to tell you about my friend Diane. She owns a Thai restaurant two blocks from my house. I go and see her all the time just to talk and see how she is and see how business is going. We're good friends. The other day I went in to get some food on my way home from work, and she randomly asked me in her thick thai accent" So.... how old are you?". I told her I was nineteen. "Single?" Yes ma'am. I'm not really interested in the dating scene right now. " Well...I know you work for free. I know man who need bride. He from Thailand. He pay ten tousand dolla to marry young bride. He nice man." I just kind of looked at her shocked. She asked a couple of different times throughout the night in different ways. It was the funniest thing. I've never been offered a price for my hand in marriage. I explained my views on marriage and why it would not be wise for me to simply marry a man I didn't know for money. She didn't really fully understand my reasoning, but it was a good time trying to explain anyways. I'm a little more pricey than 10,000 dollars. Maybe 100 grand so I could go to medical school....JUST KIDDING.

I hope everyone's last weeks have been good. I miss home and my church family. God has provided a church family here though that has been so wonderful. I'll take pictures of them soon and show everyone at home who it is I'm working with and why I love them So so so so so much.

I'm babysitting tonight for my relatives that live on the Upper West side. They are awesome and I can't wait.

More pictures for you guys!

Me and Mrs. Kathy <3

Saying " See you later" to the Cravattas on Christmas night before I left for NY. 

In my cubicle at the office. I took Whitney and Adrienne (roommates) to see my church, classroom, and office. I'm singing a song by Jason Mraz ( I'm Yours) to Whitney. My hand looks cool.

Beautifullllllll rooooooooooommmatessssssss.

Me and Whitney in a gutted building in DUMBO ( Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass)

I

On the wall of an old sugar factory on the East River.

Panoramic view. Manhattan is the borough you're looking at. The Manhattan Bridge is on the right and the Brooklyn Bridge is on the left. You can click on it to make it bigger.

Manhattan Bridge up close.

Chris and some nasty cheese fries that we got at the Bowling Alley close to Coney Island.

A few of my highschool girls. They are AWESOME.

Patos!! Also another one of my highschool ladies.

Chris looks like he's dropping that ball on Nafisah's head : (

 

They are sassy, I know. 

I LOVE YOU ALL. REALLY.

Memento Mori.

Hey, everyone! Time to update!

( Warning: It is about 1am Saturday night, so there are grammatical errors galore in here. I'll be back tomorrow or Monday to clean up the double negatives, the misspellings, the left out words etc.) <3>


Exciting news on the family front. Most of you know my sister Danielle is having a baby. I forgot to mention earlier that the baby is, in fact, a little GIRL! WOOOOOP! She will be Khloe Isabella Griffin. I am already in love. So that was amazing news. One more familial update... my big brother (Gary) is getting marrrrried! I am so soossososososoSOSOSOsosSSOSOOOsoso excited. His fiance's name is Lynnette. She is wonderful and she has a son who is equally as wonderful. His name is Maddox. Gary's adopting him, so he'll be Maddox Samuel Hudgens. Yay! His birthday was yesterday, so a BIG huge happy birthday to my sweet nephew! So in conclusion, I have a niece on the way, a new nephew, and a new sister. CRAZY! The Lord is so good. My family is definitely emerging into a new era. New, exciting, and a little scary.

( Iglesia)

Before I came here, I was told by my Grandma Sue that I had some relatives that lived on the Upper West side of Manhattan. I didn't really think much about it until I got a call from my relative, Jeno, a week or so after I got here. We finally made plans to meet. Last Friday night, they took me out to dinner at a really nice Italian place. Their apartment is wonderful. I met Jeno's husband, Paul, who is from Greece and has a very thick Greecian accent. He is very cool. They are married and have a son named Jordan. He is 4, I believe. He is so bright. The fact that Jordan is so extremely smart did not suprise me as much after talking with Jeno and Paul over dinner the first night. They are both physicists. Jeno does research at Columbia on stars and such. I couldn't even begin to try to explain to you what she does. Just saying stars doesn't give her justice whatsoever. She works on theories for....I'm really not sure. Either way she is astonishingly intelligent. Paul works more in chemistry. He builds computers that simulate molecules....I believe. Lol I feel so unintelligent trying to explain what they do. Anways, they met when they were both doing research at Harvard. Now they live here and are raising Jordan. They are very welcoming and generous and so cool. I really like Jordan. I got to babysit him Thursday night and it was very fun.

(My friends told me not to eat just any snow lying on the ground, but I definitely could not resist.)

( El Parque)

After school has been going really well. I am having a hard time not loving my kids to death. I know there are rules about how you can interact with them. Only touching their head, being careful about being too loving, hugging them too much, or showing them affection that could be misunderstood. This literally kills me a little on the inside. Most of you know how I am. Being weird and lovey is innate to me. It's like it's stitched to my clothes, and there is no hope of changing it. I've been having to watch myself carefully. This is a whole different world than I'm used to. Chris and I started breaking the afterschool kids up into two groups. We figure the ones who have accepted Jesus should be learning further about the foundations of the faith, while the others need to hear something completely different. On Tuesdays I am teaching the ones who do not know the Lord yet. We tried that for the first time this week. I decided to talk about the parable of the prodigal son. It was amazing. These kids are usually the ones who cause the most inerruptions, talk the most, and have a hard time paying attention, but when we broke down this story, it was like they were different beings. I had them each read a certain section of the story and tell me in their own words what was going on. We defined a parable as a story that had some other meaning behind it. I told them this so that they could have that in mind while reading the story. After we got done reading it, I started asking them who they thought the characters could be. I asked who the father could be, and they said " Jesus." This is the safe answer they all know is most often correct, they guessed well. Then we got to the son. The son who had taken his dad's fortune, abondoned him, spent his money on whores, went hungry, lived in pig slop, and came running home. I asked who Jesus could be talking about their. I heard " Jews"...nope, guess again. " Satan?"...good guess, but still no. I waited and didn't see any more hands. I looked at one of the boys and said, " The son is Brandon." His hand shot up. " WHY ME!?" then said " The son is me as well, and Marisol, and Xanthia, and Raymond...etc." By now everyone was dead quiet. They couldn't believe that this story was actually talking about them. They'd heard this parable before, but I don't think they ever got the point. Jesus died for our sins. He is offering us a new life full of grace and devoid of shame. When we know about Him with our heads but refuse to devote our hearts we are taking advantage of the Lord. He has given us life, and mercy, and the grace to simply breath, and we take that energy and time and body that He has given us and waste it on things that have nothing to do with Him. Those whores could have been lust, or tv, or money, or pleasing others. I said that some of us in the room are running away from Him. I asked them. " Once the son came home, what should the father have done to him?" We decided he either should have gotten beat, maybe made a servant, ignored and turned back... Then I asked how the father in the story responded. He threw a party! He rejoiced and said his son that was once thought dead was alive, once thought lost was found! Did the dad ask what the son had done with all his money? Why hadn't he called? What was he doing while he was gone for so long? No. We talked about how the Lord isn't as concerned with what we've been doing. He's looking for our hearts, hearts that are longing to simply come home to the one who made us. This was a lesson I needed hear myself. Taking myself back to the basics and reminding myself of who I am, and where I've been is truly making me more and more thankful. I've felt like that son. I've felt I've wasted all my resources, taken advantage of grace, spent my money on lesser lovers, went hungry while in the middle of a mess I created for myself. When I was preparing the lesson I was almost in tears. It's so odd how we forget such basic teachings of the Lord. Everyone's heard of the Prodigal Son, but I'm not sure how many people really are affected by its magnificent implications. Everyone was quiet after we prayed in closing. I'm praying this story will stick with them and that the Lord will open their eyes to things they normally would not understand. I am doing my best to let the Lord work through me.

( The skies were beautiful this day)

( Pretty Cottage)

My friend from home, Ashley recommended a book to me and it is truly an absurdly good, full of truth kind of book. It's called The Bait of Satan by John Bevere. It has definitely been bringing to light some things in myself I have simply ignored for a very long time. Bevere said, " The most effective way for the enemy to blind us is to cause us to focus on ourselves." This is so simple, but when I read it I feel like I've almost become numb to falling into this trap. Everything in our culture is telling us to be thinking of ourselves constantly. Buy clothes and cars and houses and electronics for yourself, save your money, go on a vacation you've always wanted to take, go to this or that place because it fits into your schedule. These things are fine on their own...money, vacation, electronics... but it seems we've just lost focus all together. If people truly cared about others as much as they cared about themselves, and if people thought about Jesus and His cause as much as they thought about their own health, problems, relationships, etc, I wonder what Christianity would look like. Jesus makes it clear that our lives are not our own. We're to die daily. It sounds fine as it's stated in scripture, but when it comes to applying it...it's a different story. Taking time to do something for someone else when I planned to do otherwise? Loving someone terribly unlovable? Going to a place I don't desire to go at a time inconvenient for me? Forgiving someone I'd rather be bitter towards? I have got to remember that we are simply conduits of grace, vessels in need of the Lord's filling, clay to be molded by the Potter, otherwise dead until life is spoken into us...nothing on our own. We have purpose because it is given us, we have life because it is given us, we have salvation because it is given us. It scared me once I got to thinking about how much I think of myself and how many decisions past and present I've made not seeking the will of the Lord, but seeking self protection.

( Let it snow, let it snow, let it snnnnow)

John Bevere also talks a lot about offended people. He talks about how many of us make decisions, act, speak, preach, perhaps only in retaliation to past hurts... to offense.. There's something about making ourselves vulnerable to one another that scares the living daylights out of us. The truth is, true love gives someone the right to hurt you. I've been learning this slowly but surely. This lack of true love tears marriges apart, breaks relationships, promotes the holding on of bitterness and anger. I have to own my not-my-owness (ok, that's not really a word) and be unoffendable. I MUST forgive until it hurts and then some more, even if it's not reciprocated. If you sow Christ's love, you will reap..."even if it's not in the same field you swoed it in."Because I feel I have been wronged or truly have been wronged does not give me a free ticket to withold the love of Christ from anyone. I must drop my high expectations of those around me, especially the ones I hold most dear, and see anything given as a blessing not something owed. I must no longer see the world through a filter of past iniquites, but see the world in the eyes of the One who created it. The church lacks real love. Love that isn't puffed up with pride. Love that edifies and is given even when rejected. Love that isn't seeking it's own advancement. Love that isn't self preserving. Love that isn't look out for itself. Love that forgives every time. If we are in Christ, theresponse to our salvation should be a lifestyle of thankfulness , and a desire to love like we have been loved. I pray everyone at home or whoever reads this can become unoffendable. Too long have we held on to grudges. Too long have we been blind to our silent hatred. Too long have we been numb to our own sins. Too long have we qualified mistreament of a brother according to human reason. May our love no longer grow stale and result in self preservation. May we let go. Let go of bitterness, hate, animosity, unease, unforgiveness, silence. I pray that the walls we've built up for ourselves that keep our pride protected will come crashing down around us. May we be vulnerable and genuine in everything we do. May we loosen the tight grips we've held on our lives. May we forgive . May we let true love penetrate our hearts and spill over into our actions, whatever the cost may be.

Phillipians 2: 1-4
"If you've gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care— then do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends. Don't push your way to the front; don't sweet-talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don't be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand."

Luke 17: 3-4
So watch yourselves. If a brother or sister sins against you, rebuke them; and if they repent, forgive them. Even if they sin against you seven times in a day and seven times come back to you saying 'I repent,' you must forgive them.

Isaiah 54:17 " No weapon forged against you will prevail..."

  

Hellooooooo again, everyone.

It's my day off and it has been wonderful. Seriously. It's about 8:30pm now. I'm at the coffee table in the kitchen listening to Phil Wickham and drinking hot tea... Haha, I guess that makes me an official New Yorker with the hot tea and all. It's green tea with steamed soy milk, clover honey, and vanilla extract. Yummmmmmmmmm!  I have stayed inside all day and piddled. It's been in the single degree digits today! I spent the majority of my day reading. I don't know if you guys are aware that I am a ridiculous book worm or not, but it is true. I've powered through two Francine Rivers novels in a fairly short amount of time. The reading thing comes from my mom. I remember she used to always read when I was little.

Anyways, about this week. It has definitely been a challenge. Spiritual warfare is more real to me than I ever would have guessed. Satan has truly been trying to sink his teeth into me. He has been intimidating me through the words and actions of men in business suits, the homeless, men in white robes  in the subway proclaiming the "gospel"( this is the subway incident...I'll explain later.)He did a pretty good job at the beginning of the week manipulating me under the facade of my own free will. Towards the end of the week, and after a conversation with a lady friend from home, it finally hit me what was going on. Boy, did I see satan in a real way after I woke up from that spiritual slumber. I woke up two nights ago sweating and shaking in my room. I was terrified and had no logical explanation. I knew something was very wrong, I could feel it, so I tried calling out to Jesus. I was shocked when I didn't hear my words go beyond my mouth. My tongue was paralyzed. I was kept from saying His name. I think it's safe to assume that satan had to try at me one last time before he conceded for a time. I was too close to a breakthrough. If he had his way, I would have spent the entire night afraid and sleepless, unable to teach the next day-- which happened to be my first day teaching alone without Chris supervising. After quite a struggle, I remember finally getting His name out of my mouth. I don't remember anything after that. I woke up and read the Word and realized that God's word is the only thing that can protect me from the Devil's attempt at my attention. The first day of teaching by myself went awry. I had had a feeling when I woke up that the battle was not quite over yet. I won't go into a lot of detail, but my plans pretty much crashed and burned that day. What I wanted to talk about didn't go over the way I desired. One of the older boys ( only three years younger than myself) would not submit to authority and caused a scene that single handedly usurped my plans and dreams of how my first day would go. Needless to say I was disappointed. I kept my head up though. I got an encouraging call from Chris who had been in Syracuse for meetings and such, and that helped. I had to focus on the Lord. I'm not usually afraid of too much, but as soon as I clicked the light off in my bedroom the next night, I ran like there was fire under my feet( or perhaps an 8 year old girl afraid of the dark) to get into my bed and get under the covers. I didn't want to linger in my dimly lit room for too long, not in light of the night before. I felt foolish once I sprinted to my bed and was under my covers. Hopefully my roommate didn't hear the patter of my feet racing from the living room. "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, with prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God." I have known this in my head for quite some time now, but now had to apply to my heart, and consequently let it spill over into my actions.

The next day came, and I was still alone to teach. I slept well the night before and felt more rested. I got to sleep in because I stay later on Wenesday nights because of the soup kitchen Graffiti does in the basement every Wednesday at 6. I got to the office. Piddled a bit up stairs, then went down to the room where the after school program meets. I took my guitar and sang to the Lord. I didn’t was the fiascos of the day before to affect this day. The day was new. His mercies were new. I’d prepared a lesson on Identity. It’s funny how the things we teach about, lecture about, or gripe about are usually the things we struggle with the most. The identity lesson was devised for the kids, but was just as much for me as it was them. We talked about association. I’d say, “ Just do it,” and they’d say “Nike!”; I’d say “MMM MMM Good,” and they’d say, “ Campbell’s!”. The list went on, “Have it your way,” “I’m lovin’ it,”, “ Melt in your mouth not in your hand,” “Easy, breezy, beautiful,”...etc. Towards the end of the list, I shifted a bit. Instead of a slogan, I’d say, “Black.” The barrage of questions came. Was I talking about the color, or the dark, or the people... I told them they were over analyzing. I got back to the game and simply said, “Black...” I heard poor, crime, African. “White...” Rich, snobby, blonde, preppy. “Hispanic.” Poor, laborer... Leave it to a group of mostly middle schoolers to be completely candid as they answered. It’s what I was hoping they’d do so. After talking about stereotypes, we went on to talk about examples of how tv, magazines, and popular music also tells us who we are or should be. I then asked them to tell me some stories about how their identity was mistaken due to a stereotype. They recalled stories of how they’d been in a store with their white or asian friend and they were the ones who got there pockets checked before leaving, and not their friend. How Jorge, who is Honduran, is always being called an African American simply because he has black skin. There were a lot of stories. That’s when I told them about the subway incident. I talked with them about things that do not make up a persons identity. Clothes, cool kicks, skin color, hair texture, your friends opinions, the fact that you got detention yesterday, your family's history, your past sins, or even your opinion of yourself sometimes. I read them verses about being knit together by the Lord in their mother's wombs. How those who are in Jesus no longer live by the standards of the world. Our identity is hidden in Christ. We are children of the King.

OK, so after I wrote that last sentence I fell asleep. Now it's Saturday and I WILL finish this.

Finally, the subway incident explained,

I was at Delancey and Essex down  in the sub station waiting for the J to take me home after work. There were men in white robes decorated with the star of David. I'd never seen anything like them. They had the stars of David, yet had a New Testament in their hand. They were yelling. I could hear them all the way from the surface as I was coming up to the station. I went down the stairs and they got louder as I waited. " ALL WHITE PEOPLE ARE WICKED AND ARE GOING STRAIGHT TO HELL." They'd scream. They were using countless Bible verses that I was familiar with but instead of saying "the wicked" they said "the whites". I could tell the yelling turned for a worse as I waited on the platform. I was the only white person in the crowd at the time.  Everyone around me seemed a little annoyed at their yelling, but they also weren't the obvious target of their fierey opinions. The two men doing the yelling looked at me and asked, " Do you think you'll be able to pay for the sins of your fathers?" I just looked at them. I was shocked. They both just started cackling in my face. "That's right. Nothing. She knows where she's going once she leaves this earth."I, of course, didn't retaliate. I know a lie when I hear one. Of course I can't pay for the sins of my fathers, and their fathers, or for any sins in my family. Jesus died and did that once and for all for those who will simply be humble and accept His free gift. I no longer buy into familial curses. I have been redeemed and my sins wiped away. He went on and said that Jesus hated us "whites" and we'd be the one enslaved one day. White colored people are the obese ones, the reason corporate america is corrupt, the reason for this, and for that. The taller man with the Bible looked at his friend then looked at me and yelled. "WHERE'S THIS YOUNG LADIES MOTHER GOING?" the other man would sound off " HELL"; "WHAT ABOUT HER NEICES AND NEPHEWS WHO JUST LEARNED HOW TO WALK?" ..."HELL"; "WHAT ABOUT HER GRANDMA WHO'S SICK IN THE HOSPITAL DEPENDENT ON OXYGEN TO LIVE"..."HELL". It was quite the experience. The other 4 men in the group were on the hunt for any non-white. They were talking to them about how whites were the sources to every problem they had in their lives. I knew what was going on. Just like satan to encourage the blame game. He really isn't all that creative. It's been the same since the beginning of time. It's how he convinces us our sins aren't that bad or don't count. It's nothing I've done, it's because he or she hurt me so bad, that's why I can act this way.  Blame encourages war. It encourages racism. The blame must fall on some other people group, some former boyfriend or girlfriend, some parent, anyone but yourself. Personal responsibility flies out the window and blame becomes our escape and our hiding place. I started thinking about how long I bought into that way of thinking. Also things that I currently struggle with have to do with blame shifting. How funny I'd learned something from these men after all. The whole scene just made me sad. Not because it was white people these men were yelling about, it was because satan was winning this battle and using the Bible to back it up. Again, nothing unusual. Adam and Eve fell for satan twisting God's word then playing the blame game in retaliation to their own misdeeds. I went home and prayed about the whole thing. I've never come up against any type of racism in my life....at least not against myself. Since I have been here, it seems an on going deal. Something I can't change about myself, even if I really wanted to, is the very thing that condemns me in the eyes of certain strangers. This is a struggle I feel is necessary for growing. I need to be able to see these types of issues from both sides.

So there you have it. That was it. Hopefully I didn't bore you. I thought it was quite a juicy story. Tonight I'll be spending the night at the church because I cannot get up early enough to get there for band practice. Oh... I don't think I mentioned before that I play in the band at church now. Now you know! :) I'm going to a friend's house tonight to play board games and things of the like. I'm very excited to do something social. It's been a while. A greatly appreciated break in the routine.

I love you all and will be posting again next week!

LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE,

Cody

PS- Read this in my Francine Rivers book. Thought it was fitting.

" What we believe about God determines how we serve Him."

So far...

Ok! So it has been a while since I've posted. It's a little overdue, so get ready for the long hall.

My friends from Puerto Rico left on Tuesday. I already miss them. They love the Lord so much. I've actually learned a lot from them just being around them. One of the things that stuck out to me was that every time we shared a meal, we'd pray beforehand. Now, I know that's pretty common at home too, but what was different was that we didn't just thank the Lord for the food. Julio usually prayed, and he didn't just say "ThanksforthefoodAmen." He thanked the Father for friends and family, for His mercies, and His grace. We just worshipped the Lord at the table in the middle of a busy restaurant. It is so cool to hang out with people my age who can sit around and just talk about what the Lord is doing, or how the Lord even got us to this point in our lives in the first place. They are wonderful.

I officially started work on Monday. I am DEFINITELY in for a challenge. I don't know what I thought I was getting myself into upon coming up here, but now that my job has been laid out in front of me, the responsibilities are tremendous. I get to the office Monday-Thursday at 10am. I work and prepare my lessons until the after school program that starts at 3. I do the devotions for the A.S program ( mostly 7-8th graders) once or twice a week. These are the kids who don't necessarily go to Graffiti. They come from Catholic schools in the area and are from all different walks of life. Also on Wednesday nights the church serves a free meal to the homeless. It is so fun. I got to serve the food, and once I was done I got to sit down at a table with some men and talk with them. All of them that I talked to had problems with drugs and alcohol and that is why they have no money and why they are living on the streets. I told them I couldn't really relate to those experience personally, but had a father who I talk to often who struggles with all those things. One of the guys I met was named Johnny. He is homeless and lives in an abandoned building. He's 18. When I saw him walk in, I could tell he was very close to my age, if not younger. He told me about his life and I sat and listened. His story is full of sin, brokenness, shame, and guilt... breeding ground for the Lord's mercies. He said he would start coming back more often. I hope I see him again. One of the coolest parts of that night was that when I walked downstairs to start serving the meal, I expected there to be a few people preparing food and almost no one sitting and talking with the guests, but when I walked in, the pastor himself was sitting at a table sharing a meal with everyone. He was talking to them like they were old friends (maybe they were), laughing, and sharing stories. The pastor's son and Chris also got to share meals with everyone. It was amazing to me. Wednesdays we also have "connections" groups where we split the high schoolers and middle schoolers up and between me and Chris (My boss....he hates me saying that lol) we'll lead Bible studies for whichever age group we have that week. We have small groups on Sundays for the older kids that have been going to the church for a while and already know the Lord. That's more like discipleship... similar to what Crash was. Tuesdays and Thursdays I help with the 4-6th graders. They are AWESOME. I get along with them really well. I help with homework, beat them when they are not quiet during devotions (jk, I just give them the stank eye and they usually respond promptly). Mostly I  am a glorified babysitter during their after school program, but it is cool. I get to talk with them and love on them. I found a guitar in the sanctuary and me and about five 5th grader girls sang Chris Brown and Rihanna. I told them next week I'm bringing my own music with me that way they could sing along.  I forgot to mention that one Sunday a mouth we have outings as well. We will be taking the High schoolers and Middle Schoolers out on the town. We'll be bowling, going to the Met. Museum, walking the Brooklyn Bridge, things like that. Also we are going to be doing a camp in Pennsylvania. I'll tell more about that when it comes closer to time. Basically, there is just a lot going on. There is a lot of preparing to do and a lot of praying to do. I observed mostly this week, so Monday will really be when I start getting into action. There is a lot of work to be done, but the Lord will equip me as I go. Friday's are my day off, and I need to go to Manhattan and get some errands done. I want to get home in time to REST tonight. Today is my Sabbath. Yay!

Prayer requests: Right now mostly I just need energy and discernment. I need wisdom to be able to lead these precious kids. I also need to focus. I cannot get behind here. I need to be listening to the Spirit and letting Him guide me. There is no way I can do all of this alone. And if I try to do this myself, I will inevitably get overwhelmed and run down.

Next blog I'm going to be telling you about- A man named Orlando, a little boy named Nicholas, the subway incident, and Lisset. I'll be writing soon.

Love,

Cody

PS- Just a random picture from the office. To explain the nose ring, yes, I did re-pierce it myself with a super hot sewing needle. I've worked in retail for the last two years or so and haven't been allowed to keep it in. I thought it due time to bring it back.

Photos only.

Hoe-SAY!

My stop :)

Snow on the tracks!

Snow, snow, snow!

Edificio

Falafel

Friend, Julio.

I liked the color of the crosswalk.

Just liked it.

This I dedicate to Christine A., Beth, and Leah.

A whole different story.

I do not have time to post much right now. It is midnight and I have to get sleep for work tomorrow, but I WILL be updating very soon. Some things have been happening and the Lord is already doing some really crazy things. I will update soon.

I love you guys.

Cody