Not in Guyana yet....

Okay, before the Guyana trip officially begins, we're stopping off in New York, mainly to visit our cousin Timothy who's working in Wallkill. But many other things happened during our trip too! Let's start with....

THURSDAY:
Before even going to New York we went somewhere else first, in this case the Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania College. Dad had been hired to do a mural on a wall in the gym, so we thought this would be a terrific chance to get that done before heading into NY. Bad idea. After working for about 5 minutes, some students came in and started working out. Then they decided it was vitally important to start listening to rap music very VERY loudly. Needless to say, we got the job about half-done before we fled the scene.

FRIDAY:
Now in New York, we went to Wallkill for a tour. Interestingly, one of the sisters in our tour group is from (drum roll please) Guyana! Not only that, but her father lives in the town I'm going to (Brighton). That was the highlight of our trip. Shortly after the tour, we ate lunch and then took Timothy with us to Patterson for another tour. Unfortunately, we didn't get there until near dinner time, so our guide gave us a brief tour.

Shortly after this, as we were heading out, guess who we ran into. Alex and Jackie! In case you're not familiar with them, they are a couple who were formerly in Marietta (and later a Chinese congregation) who are now enrolled in Gilead! When we ran into them they had just finished getting the official school photo taken, and were now on their way to dinner. It was so neat seeing them again. That was the highlight of the trip.

SATURDAY:
We picked up Timothy again (this is a recurring theme in our Bethel trip story) and went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. There are some local brothers who run their own private tours of the Met, but use the artifacts to correlate with Bible accounts. I don't have much time right now to describe it, but here is a link to their site if you'd like to read more about it. http://www.oasisgrouptours.com/Oasis_Group_Tours/Home.html It's a really really neat tour. I definitely encourage everyone to try it at least once. It was the highlight of our trip.
However, I can't say much for the traffic around there. We spent 2 1/2 hours in traffic. The whole time I had Alicia Keys stuck in my head singing "Empire State of Mind". It doesn't mingle well with sounds of traffic.

This is New York
HONK HONK!!
It's what dreams are made of!
"HEY YOU %#$&*!!"
These streets make you feel brand nHONK HONK!!!

SUNDAY:
Sunday. Today. We went to Timothy's congregation, and Steven had the public talk! (this was arranged a few weeks in advance) Afterward we went to this awesome seafood restaurant. Well, except it was too cold in there, but aside from that....

And so, that brings me to now. As I type this, I'm sitting in a hotel lobby because that's the only place that gets Internet signal. I'm really just killing time waiting until we leave for the airport.

2 hours.

Well, I'd like to now apologize for not having any good pictures. We took a bunch, but I don't have time to upload them. Maybe later. However, before I go I will say that undoubtedly, the coolest thing that's happened so far on this trip is....

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