Jumping right in to this one, I'm first gonna give another quick fun financial update. This week we got news from Vicky, the STEP coordinator, that the Missions Board has decided to give a grant to our STEP team. This means that all the rest of our funds that weren't covered from donations or pledges are fully covered. But again, this doesn't mean that you've lost your chance to give. I know that if you're like me, you were probably waiting till last minute to donate because you usually don't do things until you're required to do them, and now you think you're off the hook. Well let me tell you, you can still give to STEP and help lessen the burden of fund raising for future teams and individuals. If you feel I'm talking to you, or even if you don't, here are some contacts of people you can ask about donations: Vicky at vlandis@bic-church.org or Toni at 7sons@fickett.info. Thanks again to every one who has made this possible for me and my teammates. And particularly, a special thanks to the Board for their generosity to the whole team.
Well, seeing as last Wednesday I left off at Saturday, I'll pick up now at this past Sunday. It was a pretty average Sunday, the most noticeable difference was the rising apprehensions, warnings, and news announcements of our little hurricane friend's arrival. We weren't expecting anything major to arrive until at least Monday evening. So we went shopping. Not the shopping that most people were doing—milk, canned food, lantern fuel—but just some fun, basic shopping. (I guess Bonnie did a little necessity-item shopping, but not much.) The mini-mall thing eventually kicked us out because stores were closing down in anticipation of the coming storm. So we went home and had dinner and a free evening. We ended up having a five-ish hour long conversation about team issues, problems, successes, and just general team things that needed attention. It was definitely worth while and stress relieving.
Monday was, according to my journal entry from that day, "pretty much a nothing day." Their was no schedule to follow since the person who was supposed to be coming to talk to us on Monday and Tuesday was unable to make the trip due to the weather. Everyone woke up lazily throughout the morning. I personally got up around noon and showered and ate "breakfast." We watched the "Fellowship of the Ring," special extended edition.
As evening approached so did Sandy. We ourselves didn't have much of a storm, just some gusty wind and rain. We even went out and played in it a little, puddle jumping and enjoying the wind and general stormy-ness. Our electricity stayed and we ended up not needing the water we had filled the tub with (to flush the toilet with if there had been an outage).
Tuesday was a little more structured, but still mostly free. I woke up at 9:00 to make my family's special Brown-sugar biscuits for the team. Having never made them before and not having the usual biscuits we use, they turned out not quite as good as they're supposed to, but we still enjoyed them. After breakfast we split into our three teams (Spain, Colombia, Thailand) to work on our teams' Missions Statement and Goals.
After lunch I had Reneé cut my hair, which turned out very nice. Afterwards everyone but Eryca and I went to the park to get some exercise and to get out of the confines of the apartment. Eryca and I stayed back and watched "Letters to Juliet," near the end of which everyone got back. Reneé then wanted to watch the newest Star Trek. This was completed with a small dinner interruption.
The rest of the evening was hang time.
Wednesday was another day in our long, extended "weekend." Due to public transportation being down, we weren't able to go downtown to help volunteer at the Bowery Mission as we usually due on Wednesdays. So we had a little group devotion and worship time, after which we did a little language training with some CD's that Bonnie has.
I then stayed home to write my (late) blog while the rest of the team went down the plaza to do some shopping. It really wasn't that much of a sacrifice for me since shopping isn't really one of my cups of tea anyway. When they got back we had some yummy dinner before watching "The Incredibles," one of my all-time favorites. Again, we then had a chill, relax evening of talking and hangin'.
Thursday we didn't do much, but we did break our trend of doing nothing. The morning was a normal morning with breakfast, devotions, showers. After lunch we were finally able to get back to doing something on our schedule: we went to the Love Kitchen. As usual we helped with the preparations—packing fresh veggies, stocking shelves, carrying boxes. We then took people through the food line, plus they also got shampoo and pumpkins, something that they don't usually get but that had been donated that week. We then came home since there was no after-school program due to there being no school due to Sandy. The rest of the evening was fun-at-the-apartment time, including "A Bug's Life" and some team Catch Phrase.
Friday was again a back-on-schedule day. After breakfast and showers we packed our lunches and headed out for World Vision. Eryca got to drive us there since Bonnie was out of town at my home church's Missions Conference. (Don't worry, she didn't leave us in New York alone, her husband, Steve, came up for the weekend.) World Vision was a bit of bummer for us. It turns out that due to Sandy, the river across the street from the WV warehouse had flooded. This caused the warehouse to get about three feet of flood water throughout the whole building. Everything touched by the flood water had to be either cleaned or thrown away. Or in other words, most of the work, if not all of the work that we've been doing for them over the past six weeks was ruined. Stocked shelves had to be emptied into the trash and the shelves cleaned. The boxes we had organized in the storehouse were damaged and waterlogged. Everything was a wreck. All the carpet is going to have to be replaces, the concrete floors repainted, and any of the flood-touched dry wall replaced. And we only feel a portion of the "waste of work" symptoms that I'm sure the World Vision staff is feeling. Please keep them in your prayers as they have to remove-in after having just moved-in about two months ago. They had been planning on opening for distribution this week but will now have to postpone that for another month at least.
We came home (a little downcast) to the apartment where our mentor who had come up for the weekend, Greg, had already arrived, as well as a young German couple and their baby who were friends of Bonnie and Steve. The husband, Lucas, is going to be taking a class here for a week and will be staying with us, while his wife and child headed home to Germany this afternoon (Sunday, Nov 4). The rest of the day was laid-back time. Before bed we watched the newer Karate Kid (with Jacki Chan and Jayden Smith) which related to the culture topic that Greg was going to be talking to us about.
Saturday I woke up and had some breakfast before starting our talks with Greg on some different cultural awareness topics. After lunch and our second session we walked down to Little Italy to do some tourism. We stopped at a pastry shop for some yummy pastries and good conversation. We then came home and had some dinner before playing a great game of Spoons (that I won). Afterwards we watched "The Two Towers."
That brings us to the end of last week. As usual, if you have any questions or comments, concerns or worries, quarrels or edifications, those can be posted here on this blog, or sent to Hope as constanceh.95@gmail.com who will then pass them along to me. She is also the one to contact if you would like address information. I recommend that you come up with some question or comment or "other" if you don't have one just so you can have the joy of communicating with such an extraordinary communicator girl extraordinaire. Also, if you would like to receive my prayer updates, you can contact Mike at biblebeach@hotmail.com.
Thanks again for keeping up with me and taking time to hear me talk. May you see God's blessings in your life as you go through this next week. With many misses and loves,
~Asher Fickett~
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