"Coney Island for Jesus"

On our two service days, Sunday and Thursday, our group rode the hour long subway out to Coney Island. On Sunday morning, we woke up around 6:30 so we could make it to the "Sea and Salt Ministries" in time to prepare for their church service. Debbie runs the Salt and Sea and man, is she one amazing woman! She used to be a homeless alcoholic that roamed around Coney Island for 4 years, but was saved! Debbie talks about how she wanted to get off of Coney Island as soon as possible, but instead felt God leading her to stay on the Island to minister to her friends that were still homeless. Debbie started working for Salt and Sea ministries to reach out to the homeless of Coney and has so much passion! She recently had knee surgery as well as surgery on her trachea, so she isn't in the shape that she used to be. When she younger, she used to walk the streets to share her faith as well as meeting the physical needs of the homeless, leading so many of them to Christ.

On Sunday morning, we were split up to do different things around the building to either spruce up the area or help bag food to hand out after the church service. People from the streets came in for the church service-some that were homeless while others were blessed enough to have a roof over their heads, although severely below the poverty line. Everyone was given a tambourine or a maraca for worship and a couple of students from the trip shared their testimonies. At Salt and Sea, there were a few cheesy decorating ideas though...as seen in Jamie's picture. :) And at the end of the service, the only song that everyone in the service knew, they sang a song that they called "Coney Island for Jesus" and it's just one of those songs that you can't get out of your head--so we sang it alllllll week. haha

Thursday afternoon, a handful of students stayed back at Salt and Sea to move a new shipment of food around and put a little bit more elbow grease into helping keep the place clean. My group bagged up food and handed it out the the homeless that lined up outside of "Lighthouse Ministry" that's just a little further down the island from Salt and Sea, but still associated with each other in their mission and their ministries. It was especially touching to put faces with people that struggle from paycheck to paycheck....if they have any paycheck at all. I think that it can be so easy to coin people with the name of being "homeless" or "poor" without thinking of the homeless being a group of people, with faces, names, and stories.

After helping to serve, we of course had to enjoy some hotdogs from the original Nathan's Hotdogs and a little stroll/picture taking on the boardwalk! What a wonderful day...even if I was exhausted after waking up and doing labor most of the morning, it was more than worth it in my book!