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

Mission Niagara Falls Begins

Will include pictures when I figure out how to on my I pad.

First of all, we apologize for not posting anything on the blog sooner.  We finally found wifi!
After a send-off prayer with parents we started the journey to the far northwest corner of our state.  Our first bathroom break was the first or second rest stop on the Thruway, in case you hadn't noticed, they all look the same after a while.  The vans were excited at first then settled into the quiet of sleeping and listening to music.

For lunch we stopped in the beautiful town of Utica, NY, nestled on the Erie Canal.  We bypassed our favorite upscale restaurant right on the canal and went to another upstate/Pennsylvania favorite--Moe's.  In not time we had 15 burritos or salads and were back in the vans for the afternoon.  We finally arrived in Niagara Falls and found our way to the manse of the Methodist church--our home for the week.  We unloaded our vans, set up our sleeping areas and then headed out for pizza.  After pizza we waited for Elisabeth to run into the grocery store for some supplies.  While the rest of us sat in the parking lot we had a free fireworks show, courtesy of a massive Great Lakes thunder storm.  It looks pretty ominous at first, but it blew through quickly.

Back at the house we circled up for a meeting and then headed to bed.


The following essay was a collaborative effort of Graham, River and Theo!
Greece lost and it made me sad.  We ate at Moe's and had great, filling burritos.  We saw a cat upstairs in someone else's house.

MONDAY, JUNE 30.

Everyone was slow getting up, but they did!  By 9 am we were at the Community Mission of Niagara Falls, ready to get to work. The staff gave us the background on the mission and it is amazing.  They serve 75000 meals a year and provide many services to countless thousands of people.  Our first assignments were to break into two groups.  One group went with Elisabeth to start getting ready for Vacation Bible School tomorrow.  The other group went with Sarah to organize a closet of donated toys that looked like something from the movie, "hoarders."  Sarah looked so excited, she couldn't wait to take charge and she certainly did.  Our youth started slowly, but soon got into the project and maybe even were having fun.  They tried on Halloween masks and checked out all the toys as they brought them out to be sorted.

Oh, and Dale saw the opportunity to get started on the blog.
We'll post at least one a day, so check back often.

Between Great Lakes

Pastor Dale, Rev. Tami Seidel, Leslie Mardenborough, Erica Restaino, and Stephan Valastro at General Assembly in Detroit

I just got back from the Great Lakes region on Saturday and I return to the area on Sunday.  Detroit was the home for the 221st General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) to which i was a commissioner.  The city is located on the Detroit River which flows from Lake Huron to Lake Erie.  Then on Sunday I leave with the high school mission team to Niagara Falls, NY, which is located on the river connecting Lake Erie and Lake Ontario.  Being on either end the Great Lake I used to call home is about the only thing these two trips have in common.  One was a week of sitting in meetings and the other will be a week of working hard to keep up with energetic teenagers.

The week in Detroit was a memorable and moving experience.  After a nightmare flight with two cancellations and a night on the floor of the Minneapolis airport, we settled in for a week of reuniting with friends, worship, committee meetings and plenary sessions.  Our delegation from Hudson River Presbytery included one person I knew well (Rev. Tami Seidel from Yorktown) and three others I would know well by the end of the week (see photo caption).  We were a good delegation that faithfully fulfilled our duties and had fun doing it.  We took turns writing in our HRP GA blog, which you can still review at Hudrivpres.org.

General Assembly handled countless issues that came before the church in the form of overtures from Presbyteries around the county.  HRP sent up several including resolutions dealing with gun violence, sex trafficking, marriage equality and fossil fuel divestment.  Other important issues included approving the Belhar Confession which came out of the struggle against apartheid in South Africa.  Copy and paste the web address below to download and read this inspiring theological reflection on social justice: http://www.pcusa.org/resource/belhar-confession/.

The real excitement of the Assembly came when we approved changes to the Book of Order and offered an "Authoritative Interpretation" to provide marriage equality to all God's children.  The vote was not even close, an indication that the church is finally coming to a consensus on this issue that was so divisive in the past.  We heard that we have lost 300 churches in the last 4 years (about 3%) and we will lose some more.  In HRP we have maybe one more church who will leave our fellowship, but otherwise our Presbytery and denomination are moving forward as a more inclusive and welcoming church.

The most drama was over the vote on the overture from the Mission Through Responsible Investment committee on Israel/Palestine.  The issue that has been before the church for a decade was whether to phase in divestment from three U.S. companies who are profiting from activities in the West Bank and Gaza that the church finds particularly offensive.  caterpillar, HP, and Motorola provide products and services that among other things, maintain the separation barrier and the surveillance and control of check points, and even home demolitions.  Our Palestinian Christan brothers and sisters along with Jewish Voices for Peace lobbied for divestment.  Other Jewish groups argued against divestment and brought considerable pressure to bear on the assembly through speeches and leaflets.  Both sides had young people in t-shirts supporting their perspective.  When it came time for the vote there was a gasp as the gap was unbelievably narrow--31- to 303 for divestment.  Immediately our new moderator, Elder Heath Rada, pleaded with the media to report that our love for our Jewish brothers and sisters is not diminished with this vote.  He was absolutely right.  In fact, the intensity of this debate has renewed my commitment to reach out to Jewish families and leaders in our community as well as to advocate for an end to the suffering of the Palestinian people.

This week in between has been busy and quiet at the same time.  Busy because I am catching up on being gone and planning to be away again next week.  But quiet because other staff members are on vacation.  I am looking forward to my third summer in New York with opportunities for ministry, planning and a little time off.  In July I plan to fly over those Great Lakes and spend some time with my family in Western Canada.  In the meantime, I look forward to sharing my experiences in Detroit and Niagara Falls in worship and private conversations.

See you in church,
Pastor Dale