Steven’s Long Day In NYC Traffic

Thursday was the longest day of my life!  I could go on for a long time about how this situation came about, but I’ll try to give the short version.  This lady, named Cindy Jacobs, who claims to be a “modern day prophet”  – decided a few weeks ago to call her fans or followers maybe to an emergency prayer conference in NYC.  Cindy and her husband Mike have a prophetic ministry called “Generals International”, they also have a nationally televised show called God Knows, and they live in Dallas, Tx.  I had never heard of her or her ministry until a couple of weeks ago when they contacted our minstry.  I’ll keep most of my thoughts on Generals International and Cindy Jacobs to myself, but I will say that I’m not a fan of anyone who believes they have a higher status with God.  While I do believe that some Christians have closer relationships with the Lord than others, I do not believe that God has established “levels” of Christianity.  It’s up to us how close our relationship to the Lord is, and through Christ we are all reconciled with the Father.  Anyway, back to the long day of driving.  The leadership at our ministry decided to bless Generals by shuttling them to and from different places in the city.  Yesterday, I was scheduled to be a driver, and ended up spending 14 hours with these people!  14 hours of driving in this city…I don’t even like driving here.  When it’s absolutely necessary for us to use our car..Nikki drives, and she’s great!  We used three of our ministry vans to take 40 people around Manhattan from 7:00am to 9:00pm.  In the morning we dropped them off at Battery Park, then had to find parking for four hours.  Then, we picked them up and took them to the UN, had to find parking again for a few more hours.  From the UN, we took them to Rockefeller Center.  There was no parking, so we had to drive around and wait during the beginning of rush hour.  By the time we picked them back up an hour later, rush hour was in full progress!  It’s not easy keeping three big vans together in the city, nor is it easy loading and unloading 40 passengers. After Rockefeller, it took an hour to go less than a mile to the Queensborough Bridge.  We took them to a restaurant for dinner, and eventually back to their hotel.  Finally, I was back at home at 9pm!  A full day of navigating the less-than-friendly streets of NY and even more unfriendly traffic is not pleasant, but I’m glad now that I was able to do it.  The Lord showed me a lot about humility and being a true servant.  There is a difference between “serving because we are supposed to” and “having a real servant’s heart”.  Having a real servant’s heart for God and His Kingdom doesn’t always mean serving in the capacity that we want! 

A Walk Across the Brooklyn Bridge

 

 

We love to get out and do new things in our free time!  One of the great things about this city is all of the free things to do.  Walking across the Brooklyn Bridge has been on our list of things to do for a while now, so yesterday we decided to do it.  It was so cool!  The walkway is right in the middle of the bridge but above all of the traffic.(Making it impossible for someone to jump off the bridge.)  You get an amazing view of the city and an up-close look at the beautiful architecture of the bridge.  We would love to go again soon, but this time at night.  It’s getting much colder so that should be fun!!

The Ice Is Back

We are quite excited today!  The ice rink has returned to Rockefeller Center.  Every year they put a large ice skating rink in the middle of Rockefeller Center, and it stays throughout the winter season.  This is so exciting for us because it means that winter is near.  Nikki isn’t looking forward to the cold (Steven is of course), but we both love the winter-time here in NYC.  It’s just so beautiful, and shortly everything will be all decorated for Christmas.  Today we also went to the Columbus Day Parade in Manhattan.  It was a cool parade, and we got some great pictures.  Most importantly though, today is our 2 year anniversary.  Not marriage anniversary, but 2 years ago today, we saw each other for the very first time!  We met at Starbucks for our first date on Friday, Oct 13th 2006.  Both years we have gone back to Starbucks on that date to celebrate!  I think this anniversary is more important to both of us than our wedding anniversary.  Simply because that’s the day both of our lives changed forever!

Jewish Evangelism

I don’t know much about Judaism.  I look forward to learning more about the Jewish faith and culture, not because I want to be Jewish(that wouldn’t be possible anyway), but because I want to be able to minister  more effectively to Jewish people.  Yesterday, I took a team to partner with a large Messianic Jewish ministry.  Their leader took us to Columbia University to minister to Jewish students around the campus.  This seems to be a good ministry, Jewish people reaching out to their people.  All was going well until one of the leaders of the ministry told me to take the cross off of my neck.  Since first giving my life to God I’ve always worn a small leather band necklace with a silver cross hanging in front.  You see, the Jewish are offended by the cross and it was presumed that I might be shunned immediately for wearing one.  I respectfully refused to take it off, and explained what the cross means to me.  It’s a symbol of rememberance of the ultimate sacrifice of our Savior for our sins.  What would you have done?

Back to Work

Hello Everyone!

It was great to see everyone weekend before last.  Thank you all for loving and supporting us!  We really appreciate it.  Hope you all are doing well and being blessing in the Lord!  Well, we made it home safely, and surprisingly our flights were either early or right on schedule.  That is a rarity these days.  Our weekend back home was great but not long enough.  But things are going well here.  We were assigned to several ministries last week and we’ll be going out again 3 times this week on different many sites.  One of our new ministries,with the country’s financial crisis, is placing prayer stations on Wall Street.  We will be ministering and offering prayer to people in the financial district of NYC.  We have much more going on and we look forward to sharing those things with you soon in another Newsletter.  Stay Tuned! 

Be consumed by the Lord today!!   “For our God is a consuming fire.” Hebrews 12:29