Early Mornings

Rise early.  It’s hard, but quite rewarding all the same.  Mornings mean new mercies from God, a new opportunity to receive undeserved grace from our glorious King.  Not to mention the sunrise is breathtaking, yes even in NYC. 

Getting up early in the morning has never been easy for either one of us.  We love sleep!!  On a typical day, we might rise an hour before work-giving us enough time to get ready, eat quickly and head to the office.  Needless to say, that gives us little to no time to start our day with the Lord. 

Recently, we made the decision to change that part of our life.  Realizing how important it is for believers to fellowship with God before all else, we decided to seek Him early in the morning.  I can’t even explain how much this has affected me personally.  When we made the decision to get out of bed early to pray, read the Word, and worship the Lord (leaving the TV off)- He really started to speak into our lives. 

We now have a structured routine, beginning the day with personal prayer time, reading the Word of God and communing with Him, and exercise.  We’re so out of shape it’s ridiculous!  But we’re easing into that with a great work-out plan.  It takes discipline!

2 Timothy 1:7   “For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.”

Washington, D.C.

                                                                                               

So, it’s been quite some time since we last posted.  This is one of the busiest times of the year at NYSUM.  We had several teams come through to do ministry with us in February, and March is Spring Break month for most high schools and colleges.  We have 2 large teams and a couple of smaller teams (about 80 people) coming in Saturday.  Monday, a huge team of 84 people will come, making it over 160 people here ministering with us next week. 

This week makes 8 months for us here in NYC.  Wow, it’s hard to believe it’s been so long.  It’s been a struggle, but the Lord has shown us so much.  He is always teaching us about His ways, and preparing us for a life of ministry.  We still spend most of our days behind the scenes working in the ministry office.  We prefer to be out and about, but our jobs are a crucial part to this ministry.  Nikki is the first person people talk to when inquiring about us, and she maintains those relationships until teams come.  I put together team and staff schedules , take teams out on ministry, and occasionally help out in the maintenance department.  The last couple of months, Nikki and I have worked with some great ministries here in the city.  We served with our church small group at an AIDS hospice facility.  At this place we prepare a Sunday meal for the residents because their kitchen doesn’t feed them on Sundays.  Another place is St. Paul’s House.  This is an early morning Breakfast Kitchen feeding homeless men and women.  Here we help prepare breakfast, play music and share testimony, and then actually serve breakfast.  We will be very busy the next couple of weeks with many teams coming to stay. 

We’ve also taken a couple of short weekend trips recently.  In January we took a fun trip to Cooperstown, NY to see the Baseball Hall of Fame.  It was great…cold, but so fun!  The low temp one night was below zero and the high was only about 15 degrees.  Last weekend we took a bus to Washington, D.C.  It’s such an amazing place, but of course it was freezing cold.  And DC got their highest snowfall total of the winter while we were there.  We actually got snowed in and got to stay an extra day!  Bus travel is quite interesting as well!  I’ve posted a couple of pictures here, but feel free to check out our Picasa website with our many photo albums .                                             http://picasaweb.google.com/stevenpforrest

We are praying about other possible ministry opportunities in the near future.  We will update later with more details on this!!