Staten Island Here I Come: Meet Boston and The Boston Robinsons

So, this blog post has been a long time in coming. A lot has happened, and I was supposed to have left Boston this past Monday, but am still here. The first 6 days of my visit were FANTASTIC! I got to hang out with 4 really great kiddos and spend some time with two really great friends who love God and love their family. It doesn't get much better :) I got here on Halloween night and was thrown into the mix right away doing the school run for Lauren and Samuel, who go to the elementary school down the road, and Mia, who goes to a preschool just a bit further away. Then I got to sit in Amy's moms soul care group (small group) at 7 Mile Road Church. It was awesome. It was great to see moms get together for the sake of digging into God's word and sharing how it impacts and challenges moms to become better parents. I think it was Thursday night that Jacob and Amy's regular Soul Care group met at their house and that was cool too! Jacob shared his "life line", which is basically a more in-depth personal testimony. Each of the members in the group will share theirs as a "get to know you" tool. All of the couples in the group have little ones, so it was fun to get to meet them too.

Friday my gut gave me quite a bit of trouble, so I spent the day laying on the couch feeling pretty lousy. By about 6 pm, it had relented enough that I was able to eat some chicken and rice, and enjoy family fun night. One of the things the Robinson's do every week is family fun night. Their kids are 9, 6, 4 and 2 and they have a time of giggling and dancing and silliness. It was wicked ahwesome (insert Bahstahn accent here)! In addition to the 6 Robinsons and me, Grace Kruse, their Pastor's wife and her two little girls came over to join in on the fun while her husband Matt and the 2 boys went to a football game. The Kruse's have 4 kids as well, and they are all right in the same age range as the Robinson kids. Grace is one of Amy's closest friends here in Boston. It was certainly a time of semi-organized craziness and fun.

I woke up Saturday feeling really pretty good, which was awesome because we went to down town Boston for the day. What an adventure. I love history, so this was like a dream come true for me. I felt like all the stories I read in my text books and novels growing up came to life. I stood in the area that the Boston Massacre took place, I got to see some of the graves of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and got to experience one of the oldest cities in the United States. It was really neat. It's certainly a city that I would love to come back to and spend some significant time getting to tour and hang out in. I also got to walk through the Holocaust Memorial. It was enough to bring tears to my eyes. I wasn't able to get any good pictures of it, but it's something I encourage you to go look up on line. It looks like a glass tunnel, but if you look closely at the glass on the sides, there are numbers. It's all the numbers of the Jews taken prisoner in the Holocaust divided by concentration camp. There are quotes from individuals in the camp that moved me to my core. The weather was pretty cooperative Saturday as well. It was a bit crisp, about 50*, but it was sunny and the wind was calm, so it was fairly comfortable for the way we were all dressed. The kids were in great moods, and there weren't any melt downs :) The meal of the day, maybe even for my East Coast experience so far was Mac and Cheese with Lobster and Shrimp. It was a party in my mouth! I ate way more than I should have, and was pretty sure I was going to pop the button off my jeans. But it was SOOOOO good!!! I ate it for lunch and for dinner, and told Amy if her breakfast idea didn't work out on Sunday, I'd eat it for breakfast on Sunday too. It was uh-mazing, as Emmary would say.

Sunday I got to go to church with the clan. They go to 7 Mile Road Church in Malden, MA. Paul has told me about this church and how much he enjoys the preaching here and the music and the fellowship. He said when he comes here, he finds himself singing louder than he sings anywhere else, and that he finds it really easy to engage. So, you can imagine I was pretty excited to be a part of this community. It was great! Matt brought the Word and handled it very well. I felt welcomed like family, and it was easy to see that the people were the same on Sunday as they were the rest of the week. They meet in a gym just like home, so it was really familiar. I loved it. I still miss my church family, but God has been really gracious to plug me into church bodies here on the East side that I can relate to and connect with. I'm really thankful. Sunday is about where my good times end.

Sunday night my gut really started to feel lousy, and Monday I started throwing up and it hasn't stopped. I have been throwing up and in pain since then. I have had 3 ER visits in 3 days, and my doctors back home have not been much help to me. They basically told me today that unless I get on a plane and come home, they can't really help me at all. The problem is that I don't think I could get on a plane and fly at this point. I can't go more than 20 minutes without throwing up. This was the only thing I didn't want to deal with on this trip....but I also know that God is not absent in this and he isn't leaving me to deal with this on my own. So, please pray for me. I really want to get back to New Jersey and Staten Island to do ministry--that's what I am here for, after all. I'll keep you all posted. Enjoy the pictures! Love you guys!