A Presbyterian Life

A Presbyterian Life
PCMK said goodbye to one of its saints on Saturday, July 12th.  A good size congregation gathered on a mid-summer weekend  because Mary Mace was one of our best.  She had been a member for over 40 years, having made the move from the village to our present location.  Over those decades it would be impossible to count the ways she contributed to the life of our church, and our outreach to the community.  The tributes that were spoken of her at the service were moving and even humorous at times.  Her son Andy gave a poignant eulogy that captured the essence of his mother, their relationship and her beloved role as "Grandma New York."

In my remarks I noted how thoroughly Presbyterian Mary was.  All these life-cycle events took place in a Presbyterian Church or organization: baptism, confirmation, college, marriage, adoption of Andrew, a lifetime of service, funeral, and final resting place in our Columbarium.  Hers was a truly Presbyterian and Christian life.  We will miss her, but as the Scripture says, "blessed are those who die in The Lord, they rest from their labors and their deeds follow them."  Mary Mace will have quite a following for a very long time.  Thanks be to God.

The Week is Almost Over

 Today is the last day on the trip!:( It's July 4th too, and so far we're helping set up the barbeque the community mission service is providing. We painted the tables yesterday so everything looks very nice! After this we're traveling to Canada to spend the rest of the day, and are going to go on the Maid of the Mist, which is a boat that takes you under the falls! I'm so exited, but also sad to leave everyone I met at the community mission, especially the children. I've become really close with Alexa, a little girl who is living here, and every day she runs in the room and hugs me, and begs me to have lunch with her, which I do.  She always  has so much to talk about. I will miss her a lot, and hope I was able to be a good role model and make an impact on her as well.
-Juliet:)

Parents and PCMK family, you would be so proud of your high schoolers.  These are some of the most amazing young people I have ever been around (and I've been around a lot of them in my time).  They work hard (most of the time) when there is work to be done, and they play hard when they have time to goof off.  They have survived living together in very close quarters for a week with no fist fights.  We have gotten on each other's nerves (an old person's expression), but they are quick to forgive.  They will be fighting one minute and having a blast the next.

What has impressed me most is that they are really thinking about and processing what they are experiencing.  Last night at our group time one of the youth observed that she's always heard Westchester and especially Chappaqua was life in a bubble.  She never knew what that meant until spending a weeek in this community where everyone seems to be struggling so much.

Yesterday we had a tour with Pastor Mark, the chaplain of the Mission.  We saw the rooms that serve as emergency shelter, and HIV/Aids section and the respite rooms (for people stuggling with mental illness).  He observed for us that these would be the people Jesus cared about and would want to help.  So they were being Christ-like as they helped the MIssion help them. I agree.

We are looking forward to one more day in Niagara Falls, NY and Canada.  We'll see you soon.

Yet More Photos

More Thursday Blogging

Today, July 3rd, is a rainy day in Niagara Falls.  It doesn't really concern us because all of our work today is indoors.  I am currently writing this with about half of my body covered in paint.  My group's first job today was to finish painting the walls of the Community Mission building. (the place where we do most of our work/vacation bible school)  I have been having a great time so far and I feel like we are truly impacting others' lives in a positive way.  My favorite job so far was two days ago when we helped completely restructure a garden and plant edible plants at a home for young pregnant women. I must also admit that we haven't been making it easy on Dale, Elisabeth, and especially Sarah, but we are all having a great time.

-Theo Coutsouros



Today, was very playful and entertaining. I participated in kids' club and made new friends named Xavier and Anisean. We played games together, such as Pokemon and sang songs loudly while decorating and coloring multiple crosses. It was very cool to talk to some locals at the kitchen soup in the Community Mission building. I made an additional friend in the kitchen, Maurice, who decided to follow me on twitter after our discussions about whether Lebron James is the greatest of all time. This gave me the opportunity to not only help others by moving boxes that they don't desire or painting their walls certain colors, but actually interacting and creating relationships that can last, creating memories. Everyone is staying positive, as it continues to rain today. We are having a fun time, currently playing a game of cards during a break before heading back to work.

-River Elms

Thursday morning, July 3rd

Hey. After the 3rd day up here in Niagara I can't believe we still have a whole nother 3 to go. It's been a blast, well most of the time. We've been going to the same place every morning, the Community Mission Center, which is a center providing aid to hundreds of Niagrans in need. What used to be a Motel back in the day, the Community Mission Center has been fixed up with a great staff and both local and far reached support (Like us). There is another group of kids helping the same center from New Hampshire who serve lunch to all the folks under the Center's care and us too since we sit companying the folks. We on the other end wake up bright and early to make breakfast for a time with kids and family every morning.

Matt Brewster

Wednesday was another full day.  The second day of VBS was small in numbers, but big in the joy of new relationships.  It has been fun to watch these children bond with our youth.  Over lunch in the Center's dining room, two of the children insisted that Jenna sit with them and they kept the attention of other PCMK youth as well by tapping them on the shoulder and then running off.

Speaking of lunch, it was very gratifying to see our youth sitting with the clients who come to the center for a free lunch.  There were genuine conversations happening between people who otherwise would have very little in common.  The clients are sometimes slow to open up to conversation, but once they do we discover they are regular folks like us.  The gentleman across the table from me said this was "the best restaurant in town."  I'm not so sure, but it was a hearty lunch of roast chicken and instant potatoes (gravy would have been nice, but who's complaining?).  He mentioned he was looking forward to the 4th of July picnic barbecue.  It made me glad that we said we would help put it on this year, because otherwise they were planning to cancel it.

Pastor Dale

For a work project, part of our group cleaned up the picnic area where the 4th of July event happens.  We plan to paint the tables today.  In the afternoon they had us painting a busy hallway in the main building.
On Wednesday my group woke up early to make breakfast for the members of the Vacation Bible School (VBS). We made French toast, scrambled eggs, sausages, and fruit salad, and served it. Afterwards, some of the group went to do work around the shelter, and we stayed with the kids from VBS. We played games outside with them and then learned a bible story that said the world is a mustard seed. We did some arts and crafts, sang songs, then went to a lunch provided by the shelter. After that we painted the halls of the shelter which took a lot of work and was pretty difficult, but turned out looking really nice. Later we went to Fort Niagara Park with a kid from the shelter named Anthony, and went swimming in a pool and a lake. For dinner we had a cookout with hotdogs and s'mores at the park then went to Niagara Falls for our evening meeting and prayer. Overall, this was one of my favorite days of the trip so far because it was a perfect mix of work and play, and I got to meet more people that are being helped by our efforts on this trip.

-Gianina Bueti

More photos

Tuesday, July 1st, Canada Day!

As the camel in the commercial likes to say, "It is Hump Day," Wednesday is the day we cross over the hump and head into the second half of our week.  We have had two full days of work and fun and look forward to three more (including today).  These days in Niagara Falls have been hot and full of hard work, but there have been many rewarding experiences.

Our main goal has been to provide assistance to the Community Mission of Niagara Falls.  They help hundreds of people every day in so many ways.  They feed the hungry and provide emergency shelter.  There is a home for young mothers who have nowhere else to go.  There is a toy closet for children and a clothes closet for families.  And this takes tons of volunteer hours to keep going.  Our youth provided dozens of valuable hours of work and one on one time with people.

One on one, even more than, was the ratio for our first day for Vacation Bible School for the children.  This was a new thing for Community Mission and there was some breakdown in communication, so only two families showed up with four children.  Our six youth gave them such a good time they promise to come back with all their friends and the office will call to remind those who had registered.  We'll get some stories from VBS into this blog.

The other team went back to the home for young mothers and finished the clean up of the yard (it looks professionally landscaped, I might add).  When the youth started to wonder why we had to do this I simply asked, "Do you think these girls (ages 16-21) deserve to have a nice-looking home and yard.  They all realized that they do and they took real pride in their work.  Sarah led a team that weeded and then planted a raised vegetable garden.  What a great way to supplement the sense of "home" for these young women, to say nothing of the excellent vegetables they will be eating later this summer.

In the evening we went as promised to the Anchor Bar (no it is not just a bar)--the home of the original Buffalo wings.  We got an order of the "suicide wings" which were off the charts on the heat index.  Some of the boys wanted to impress everyone with how they could handle them, and some seemed to be able to.  Others gasped for air at the first taste.  As we ate we followed the exciting, but disappointing soccer game between the U.S. and Belgium.

After dinner we went to see the falls for the first time since our arrival.  We went to the park on the American side.  I can't wait to show them the Canadian side on Friday.  One van went home while some of us stayed to watch the Canada Day fireworks over the falls.  Pretty good show, but just wait till the 4th!

We got home late so there was not time for our evening meeting.  We will have a longer one tonight to process how the week has gone and what we hope to get out of the rest of the week.

Pastor Dale (in case you hadn't guessed)

Yesterday we built a garden for the young pregnant women shelter. The women were from ages 16 to 21, and all came from pretty bad situations (abusive partner, kicked out of house by parents, etc.) The facility was made to not only give a home for these women for absolutely no cost, but also helps put them back into school, get jobs, and overall get prepared to live alone. Its really such an impressive and amazing facility.
For the day, We ripped out the weeds and roots from this huge section of the ground, and for hours. Now I understand my mom's pain. Anyway, after lunch, the ground was perfectly clear (thanks to the girls amazing work) and the boys covered the section with mulch. We then planted tomatoes, peppers, Brussel sprouts, and more, and somehow the girls ended up painting our bodies  and faces with mud. The boys, on the other hand, were terrified of the mud and distanced themselves from us >:). In the end, though, I knew building a garden would be not only praising to the women who run the shelter, but also very helpful for the whole facility. I knew that a garden can not only give peace and relaxation to the struggling, stressed pregnant women in poor situations, but also be rewarding towards their children to grow up with, as well as teaching the moms to be self sufficient with healthy food. It was truly a privilege to help such an incredibly facility, and I was so galvanized to help from the moment we arrived.
-JULIET KRAUS

Kids club yesterday was very fun. I got to meet 5 kids by the name of Anijon, Anijah, Anthony, Alexa, and Lindsay. We made them breakfast, played outside, and sang songs.
Akin

photo album

First day of Work!

To start the day, my group decorated the room where the Vacation Bible School is going to be for the next three days. We took the themes of the sun, sky, and clouds and translated them into colorful streamers of yellow, blue, and white. The streamers were strung around the room along with posters and smiling suns that we picked out. After the finishing touches, we went upstairs to eat lunch in the kitchen along with other people in the community. Later, our group trekked upstairs to organize two separate room that consisted of tons of toys in one room, and goods for the house in another. It was extremely humid with only two fans running compared to the Bible School room that was completely air conditioned. The group from the morning had already completely cleared out the boxes so we could see most of the floor. The next step was to try and organize as much as possible between dolls, trucks, puzzles, and stuffed animals. We organized as much as possible and then returned home to take showers and prepare for dinner. - Lindsay

My day was very similar to Lindsay's. I spent half the day decorating the Vacation Bible School in the colors yellow, blue and white. After decorating when the whole group went to eat lunch with the people in the community I found it hard to strike up a conversation with the person sitting next to me. I found myself wanting to say something to the small family but I couldn't think of anything. It was interesting to see the different people in the lunch area and the amount of people that were there. It really made me realize just how blessed I am to have the things I have and to be able to do the things that I love to do. - Jenna

The staff at Community Missions is amazing.  So many smiles, such positive energy amid the pretty deep need all around.  All they offer is free to all, so impressive.  Working alongside them is actually quite easy - so far!  Looking forward to the week ahead as we try to stay flexible and share our time wherever needed.  They seem excited about us bringing VBS as they've never had it before - we hope it is as successful as ever - giving the children and their parents a lift this week.  How does this staff keep those smiles day after day and week after week?  Life is tough for so many here.  Elisabeth