A Summer in New York City
Sarah Evers invests her summer, along with 125 others, in NYC, telling others about Jesus.
Photo by Gary Nomura
I’m sitting on the deep windowsill of my 1-bedroom New York City apartment. It’s 7:00 a.m.
My cup of coffee is perfect: strong enough to perk me up, and just enough milk to soothe. Even at 7:00 a.m., the sirens, horns and squealing brakes create a cacophony that recedes into the background for New Yorkers, but is jarring to me as one of the City’s newest arrivals.
As I settle in, watching the taxis, buses, bicyclists, and trade vans avoid hitting the people who live, work and sightsee in this global city, I notice bright lights in the square below.
NBC is filming an episode of this fall’s “The Apprentice”. I can see Donald Trump with his son Eric and daughter Ivanka addressing the latest crop of freshly scrubbed and pressed job applicants.
This is the Tribeca Summer Project, a 5-week unique summer mission trip in New York City named after a part of Manhattan.
Tribeca has 5 parts, or tracks, for college students to choose from this year: Bridges, Epic, Campus, Inner City and Arts.
With about 125 staff members and college students, our entire project gathers for special events like our Monday Night Meeting, but we specialize our ministry throughout the week.
I’m with the Arts Track, and within the first 2 weeks, we’ve talked about God with people from more than 15 different nations.
There’s a culture shock and adjustment with moving to the City, if only for the summer.
The City is full of people. People who look, speak and smell different than me.
I couldn’t identify the language spoken by the teenaged girls who spilled bottled water on my foot on the subway yesterday.
Some of the faces are round, some are angular. Some are light-skinned, some are dark skinned. Some look angry and annoyed, but many are simply vacant, disconnected, detached.
Behind every face there’s a story God is writing. Each person is made in God’s image and He is intimately acquainted with the hearts, minds and thoughts behind each of these faces I see every day; the thousands of faces I see every day.
Last week I talked with a grad student from the Middle East who is studying at Columbia University. She’s been in the United States for 15 years. In the last three years she met a man, married him, and divorced him.
Just a few months ago she was in the hospital with food poisoning. When the hospital required her to call someone to sign for her release, the only person she could think of to call was her ex-husband. She could think of no one else who would notice or even care that she was ill. We talked for a long time about loneliness in the City and the common universal experience of loneliness. Though she rejected Islam, she wasn’t willing to move towards Christ -- yet. God is still writing her story.
In addition to the tried-and-true recipe for a summer project with evangelism and discipleship, the students in the Arts track work towards a collaborative art exhibition.
As a 5-week project, these students don’t have summer jobs in the City (unlike many other projects where students do have jobs) but, rather, we spend our days connecting with New Yorkers about spiritual issues, studying art and theology and learning to collaborate artistically in preparation for the exhibition.
This year we have 21 emerging visual and performing artists from around the country. They are painters, dancers, sculptors, musicians, set builders, actors. Our installation is called INTERSECTION and will explore Jesus, art and story. As we connect with New Yorkers we invite them to come experience INTERSECTION, July 16-18.
Please pray for us as we talk about Jesus with those in New York City. Pray for us as we examine our own story and how it intersects with the story God is writing in other people and with God’s story. Pray for us to learn to communicate the themes of the gospel in thought-provoking and compelling ways to people who are jaded, wary and disconnected.
Read about other summer projects.
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