Day 4 -- Building Relationships and Serving Joyfully

It was a slow start today…harder to get out of bed, less energy at breakfast, lagging getting out the door. Tiredness always sets in at the end of the week, but that knowledge doesn't make it any easier to deal with during the day.

It was the last day of work projects, and even though it was hard to keep the energy up, everyone did a great job. The first team went back to Center City with Pastor John Davis, to do some street ministry at Drexel and UPenn. One of the BUMPers, Joe, had a cool encounter with an elderly Italian man who’d come from Sicily when he was younger. Joe spoke with the man, who explained that he was raised Catholic but when his mother died, he ceased believing in God and decided that a good God could not exist. As Joe spoke with him, he felt like the words he were saying were just coming to him. He felt like he somehow had managed to ask all the right questions to keep the conversation with this elderly Italian man going, and the last thing he said to the man as he was walking away was “But, if you don’t give God a chance, how do you know you won’t see your Mom again, if she’s in heaven?”

Joe later said he had no idea if that was the right thing to say or if he should have said it, but the words just popped into his head. The Italian man stopped walking away, came back, and got the information for the church. Joe said he had no idea what he was really doing during the conversation, but he felt like God was there and using his words and being present in the conversation, reaching out to this Italian man through him. 

The second team stayed in Feltonville with me, and we went to the Community Center to clear the library’s garden. The library garden is an outdoor space with tables, sculptures, a birdbath, and even a stray cat that the library takes care of. However, there were lots of weeds, overgrown brush, low-hanging tree branches, and general overgrowth in the garden, so we spent most of the morning clearing out the garden, trying to make it a nice place hat the library could use and that the kids could utilize. We cleared nearly thirty bags of trash and nature that morning, so it was a job well done.

The fruit of our work, and the cat :-) 

The third group went to South Philly, to help Pastor Will and Sarah. I wish I could comment more on what the South Philly people did every day in that park, but I was never able to go down L

The post-lunch afternoon in the church was relatively quiet and lethargic as the teams rested before our final worship time and prayer for VBS. Pastor John Davis came and spoke about the city. He shared two opposing views of the city found in the Bible: Jonah’s view of Nineveh and Jesus’s view of Jerusalem. Pastor John spoke about what living in Philadelphia was like, and some of the ministry opportunities he found here. He spoke of loving urban ministry because of the city’s density (the amount of people to be reached), its diversity (reaching people from every nation and tongue), and its depravity (reaching out to people in the midst of and despite sin).

The fourth day of VBS did present some challenges, but they were challenges that were met head-on with the energy and hard work of the teams, and by God’ grace there weren’t any huge issues. The kids were a little rowdy and a little more willing to push buttons on Thursday, but every potential issue was handled by the BUMPers with patience, tact, and love.

It’s always great for me to see the BUMPers change and grow from their first day in the (sometimes terrifying) trenches of VBS ministry and leadership. Rowdy kids were kept engaged, quiet kids opened up, sassy kids met their match, and the gospel was preached through the actions, and words, and love of the BUMPers.

Secret Agent Superstar

The Food of BUMP Philly

I feel like BUMP Philly merits a post about food. BUMP Philly is relatively unique in that the food is provided by people from the church cooking every day, so the dishes are slightly more varied than one might expect on a normal missions trip.

When I did BUMPs growing up, one of the things I was nervous about was food. However, I think one of the most important ways that the church shows love to the Philly teams is in providing food for them. It’s important because it enhances one of BUMP’s goals of providing a cross-cultural experience to the teams, and part of that is manifested in the food of Grace Church.

Grace Church has a large African population, so there were several meals provided by Pastor Theodor, his wife Love, and members from the African congregation. This included beans and rice, chicken that was tender enough to fall off the bone, and most memorably, the following dish:

Fish and Plantains with spicy/sweet sauce

Don’t freak out; it was delicious. But it was very different from what most 13-18 year olds are used to eating (in fact, most of us!) but Peter and I thought it was important for the students to have the opportunity to have food that represented the culture of the church. While it might be hard to think about anything else than the fact you have a fish head staring back at you, it’s a reminder that the body of Christ is vast and diverse, and sharing a meal together like one eaten in the neighborhood was an important thing for the teams to see.

We also had “eat local” day midweek. We wanted the teams to have an opportunity to try food from restaurants in Feltonville, which included the Italian place, the Chinese place, the Mexican place, or (my personal favorite, and the one most of the BUMPers opted for) the diner on the corner run by three sassy Serbian sisters and their mother that make a killer cheesesteak.

The church thinks it’s important to support local businesses as much as possible, so we felt it was important to give the teams a chance to try the neighborhood food and be able to support the neighborhood at the same time.

A shout-out goes to Mrs. Mary, one of the long-time attenders of the church, who made homemade cakes for the groups and bought them the famous Philly pretzel rods for snacks one day. Another shout-out goes to Mrs. Chrisi Brown, who took time out of her rather scary week to make us chili on the last day as well.

And of course the biggest unsung hero of the week was Mr. John, who did a lot of the breakfasts and the rest of the dinners and lunches.

I know this might seem silly, but one of the wonderful things about BUMP Philly is how much love the church shows the groups, and one of those wonderful ways is through the love of providing a taste of the church and of Philly to the groups as a way to say thanks.       

Sometimes we got to eat the leftover VBS snacks too!

Day #3: Prayer pays off

Thankfully, God gave us mercy and provision for day three. Again, we had three different teams in the morning doing three different projects. The first group went with Peter back to the Community Center to help out there, although it turned out that they were unable to do what they had wanted us to do (fix up the library’s garden) so the team ended up spending time with the kids at the daycare. It was a terrifying last-minute switch for the scheduler in me, but I trust that God rearranged things for a reason and it was awesome for the team to spend time with the community kids, playing on the playground, playing basketball, and talking to them and inviting them to VBS.

The second team went prayer walking through the neighborhood, as suggested by one of the leaders at Grace Church after the challenges of the previous day’s VBS. “Send them prayer walking. This neighborhood needs as much prayer as we can give it.” So we walked through the neighborhood and prayed for the businesses, homes, and public spaces in the community, asking God to bless the people of the community, give it His protection, and asking that He make Himself known to them, either through us, Grace Church, or through however He wants to reach the people of Feltonville.

The last team went to South Philly, to Pastor Will and Sarah and continued to help clean up the park in Point Breeze (it’s a big park!).      

After the lunch, Becky and Debby met with the individual VBS groups by “job” (games, crafts, Bible, rotation leaders A, B, and C, etc) to give some more personalized advice, get a midweek check-in, and help reorganize and move extra people from less intense rotations to more intense rotations in an attempt to help minimize the chaos if the previous day’s VBS. It was a good chance to give everyone some breathing time and extra planning time for the day, especially the crucial day where the gospel message would be shared at Bible time. 

After that, we met with our third speak for the week, Chrisi Brown, wife of Pastor Mike Brown (whose house had gotten robbed the previous day). Chrisi shared her testimony with the teams, and her experiences (enlightened and challenged by the previous day’s events) of living and raising a family in the city. She talked about her experience of being bi-racial, growing up in Wisconsin, and moving to inner-city Philly and seeing first-hand what urban ministry was like. She shared with the teams her experiences with racism, challenges she and her husband faced living and ministering in Philly, and the importance of loving people and seeing them as God sees them. After having some much-needed worship time and prayer time for the upcoming hours of VBS, we had dinner and did our last-minute preparations for VBS.

A crew at craft time

The third day of VBS went incredibly well. We had our highest number of kids that day, of all the days we were doing VBS—around 70. This included a staggering number of teens, coming to the teen and pre-teen class that was led by some of the leaders from the church. By the third day, we had around 20 teens attending VBS. Becky and Debby were especially astonished to see how God had brought in so many teens, and they saw it as a sign of how much the church needed someone to be able to dedicate their time and begin a full-time youth ministry. So, if you’re reading this, Becky and Debby’s prayer request is for God to send someone to their church who has a calling to youth ministry and is able to dedicate their time to ministering with the Feltonville teenagers.

Opening and Closing time. Those are the teens on the right.

In addition to that, God used the energy and love of the teams to reach so many of the kids. It was an amazing day of VBS. The teams were able to balance the fun and seriousness of VBS, lead with smiles and energy, and engage with the kids is a meaningful way. Bible time was focused and calm. Craft time went smoothly and offered lots of opportunities to talk more informally with the kids. Games were fun but not over-the-top crazy. The dancers led with a contagious enthusiasm in the opening and closing time. Considering our numbers and the overall smoothness of everything, in contrast to how things had gone the previous day, I can do nothing else but praise God for having his hand on the teams, the kids, and the evening of VBS.

Games!

Day #2: Challenges and God's Protection

Day two of BUMP began our first day of serious work projects. We split the teams into three groups: one went to Center City to meet the Senior Pastor, John Davis, and got to walk around the Drexel/UPenn neighborhood and pass out fliers and talk to people. As one leader confessed, she struggled with street evangelism but she felt that it was good for her and the team to get out of their comfort zones and start conversations about Jesus.

The second group stayed with me in Feltonville, and we went to the Community Center near the library and the school. There’s a public pool, playground, and a field with a few baseball diamonds, and a basketball court. It’s an important and fairly central place for the kids of the community, especially in the summer when they’re out of school. The grounds-man there is responsible for keeping the field clean, but it’s a big field for a one-man job and it was pretty cluttered with fourth-of-July leftovers, beer bottles, cigar wrappers, needles, and general trash. We spent the morning doing a walk-through of the field cleaning everything up. The grounds-man met with us afterwards and thanked us for the help, explaining that in another two weeks the field would be filthy again but he was happy to have some time to work on other issues instead of having to work on the field every day.

The Community Center wanted to take our picture to put up!

The final group went to South Philly and met with Pastor Will Turner and his wife, Sarah, in a neighborhood called Point Breeze. Pastor Will was at the one-year anniversary mark of having planted a church in Point Breeze, and he wanted BUMP to show some love in the community, so the team got to meet the proprietors of the park and do clean-up projects there.

Later in the day, the BUMP site-director for Grace Church, Peter Ndaita, spoke with the team about Evangelism. He talked about his experience of evangelism in his home country of Kenya, and what he had learned about evangelism from working at Grace Church. He explained how, to him, evangelism centers on building relationships and showing love to people, and taking the opportunity when it arises to share the love of God with them. He talked about building relationships with his Muslim neighbors and being available to them, and not shying away from talking with them about their religious beliefs and sharing the gospel with them.

Peter in the center, with leaders Sharon and Kim

We then spent some time worshipping and praying for the day’s VBS, before making our final preparations, eating dinner, and starting day two of VBS.

Day two was a testament to the sovereignty of God. The actual VBS went well, but the circumstances surrounding the evening became a true test for me and the other leaders. We found out, shortly before VBS began, that the church parsonage (right next to the church) had been robbed. Additionally, one of the church volunteers had to be taken to the hospital, and one of the team’s leaders heard some difficult news from his family. There was some fear, due to the circumstances of the theft, that the robber(s) may return during VBS so we prayed for safety and protection from God in the midst of all the uncertainty during the VBS.

The dancers leading music during the VBS opening

VBS itself was a little chaotic. Of all the days of VBS for the week, the kids were hardest to manage of Tuesday. They were disobedient, restless, and difficult to keep calm and engaged in the activities of the evening. It was a hard night for us, but God was gracious and brought us through it safely and protected us in the midst of all the uncertainty of the night.

There were still plenty of smiles!

Day #1: Preparation

Day one of BUMP Philadelphia is here! It's such an exciting start to what I hope will be a fantastic week!

We began with our day-long preparation of gearing up for the first day of VBS. After breakfast, the teams headed out to the neighborhood to pass out fliers. They got to see Feltonville firsthand, and all the stunning diversity within it. Feltonville has ethnic groups from West Africa, South America, Eastern Europe, and Southeast Asia, and this can be seen in the wide variety of local restaurants offering a range of cuisines from around the world. Many of these ethnic groups are represented in the church, and most certainly would be represented at VBS. It was a good way to expose everyone to the neighborhood which they'd be serving. 

When the teams got back from canvassing the neighborhood, we met with Debbie and Becky, the VBS coordinators at Grace Church who have been leading the VBS every summer for over ten years. They spent some time with the team explaining that, for many of the kids in the neighborhood, the only time they come to church is this one week of the summer, and it’s one of the best opportunities for Grace Church to minister to the community kids and introduce them to Jesus.

Getting ready for VBS

After the meeting with Debbie and Becky, the team spent the rest of the day preparing for VBS for the rest of the week. It became apparent that God was going to stretch the teams because everyone was hesitant to learn the dance moves for the songs, which Debbie and Becky emphasized was one of the best ways to break the VBS kids out of their comfort zones, and assured them that the kids would see them as rock stars by the end of the week. The dance leaders were practicing during the preparation time, but no one was by any means comfortable.

After we’d spent some time preparing and had lunch, we had some teaching and worship time. The first speaker of the week, Josh (the BUMP intern...me!) spoke about spiritual and physical poverty, and three ways to categorize sources of poverty: sin, injustice, and circumstance. We walked through an online simulation that can be found at http://playspent.org/. Then we spent some time praying for different aspects of the upcoming VBS.

Dinner had barely finished when kids started showing up for VBS, and the team swung into action. It was a little hard, not because anything went exceedingly wrong, but because it seemed difficult for the teams to connect with the kids at first. I think it was a little difficult for them to step into their roles as leaders; but, it was only their first day of VBS ministry, for many of them. I think they did a great job, and I’m excited to see how they grow over the week. Considering all the usual kinks that need to get worked out at the beginning of the week, it went really well. The story of the day was Jesus' baptism, which was the "identity check" that kept in the theme of the VBS, a spy agency confirming the identity of Jesus and looking in the Bible for the evidence to who he is: the son of God! 

Bible Lesson

After VBS, we debriefed with Debbie and Becky, who offered their encouragement, advice, and suggestions for the next day. After that, we were free for the evening until bedtime, with a great start to a great week!

Secret agents at Craft Time