Queens Mission Trip 2012

Subject: Corona Park

Monday and Tuesday, the Non-Conformists, (my group), were picking up trash with poking sticks in Corona park. At first it was rough, especially for Jackie and Cameron (who were wearing short sleeves and t-shirts); it was pouring rain and icy cold. But nobody complained, we all roughed it out.

After an hour or two, we all went for a bathroom break and set our garbage bags and trash pokers by the door. When I was washing my hands, I noticed a guy walk by the bathroom. When I went back out to pick up more beer caps, our pokers were gone! The guy took them! I walked around for a minute or two, trying to figure out what to do, and decided to check behind the bathrooms. There he was, standing in some closet, wearing a NYC Parks and Recreation shirt. He thought we sat them down and left. I got em back and we went back to stabbing beer caps.

After about another hour, Later, after lunch, we came back outside to sunshine. A few minutes later it quit raining. Thank God :)!

Tuesday, we came back to another day of picking up trash at Corona Park. We started out cleaning by a soccer field where a Hispanic league was playing a game. We couldn't talk to them because they all spoke Spanish, but we communicated through our work. Actually, some people from the group there yesterday said someone watching the game walked up and said in a thick Spanish accent, "You clean park?" When they said yes, the soccer fan said "Thank you, thank you!" That really encouraged me and made me feel like we were really making a difference, even though I wasn't there for it. I wish I would have been.

For lunch Tuesday, we went over to the big (omni-spere?) globe in front of the Queens Museum of Art (its in the intro song to The King of Queens.) We could see the big space ship things from MIB!!! I thought that was really cool. Anyway, we sat on the edge of the pond around the globe thing and ate lunch, then we went and got ice cream from the Mister Softee truck parked there. The only problem was, several (I think five?) of us didn't bring money. So, thankfully, Robbie came to the rescue and bought us all ice cream :).

After that, we cleaned up some more around the globe side of the park for a few more hours, went back to the church, and dreamt about stabbing bottle caps the next two nights. I miss it.

Anyhow, we're having a great time here in Queens and really appreciate all the prayers and encouraging comments! Be back soon!

-Sam M.