So at first it seemed like this week was not going to be too exciting,
business as usual with classes, but then I was invited to IV:XLG with
the WPU Intervaristy Christian Fellowship. IV:XLG stands for
Intervaristy Extra Large Group and was held at Essex County College in
Newark, New Jersey. We carpooled from campus, and I quickly discovered I
do not do well in the backseat in city driving. I was incredibly happy to
get out of the car and find out they had free water bottles being handed
out to the students, which helped with the motion sickness.
The gorup itself consisted of six or seven different IV chapters from New
Jersey and New York that met for a night of worship and a sermon. The
theme of this year's message was Human Trafficking and was extremely eye
opening in the vulnerabilities of young girls and women and how easy it
is to fall into the trap of human trafficking and how easy it is,
especially for children to fall into the never ending cycle. My previous
knowledge of this issue was definitely lacking and most of that came
from Liam Neeson's movie Taken. The speaker gave his testimony and
his experiences with exploiting women and how it took a second look at a
music video for him to figure out that maybe the culture he had been
raised in was not beneficial. It scared him when he saw a
woman mostly naked pole dancing, thinking it was his sister the first time he viewed the video. He then went on to explain how the majority
of these women in music videos probably
have a history of sexual violence and then segued into what that means
for us as Christians. He then talked about us and practicing our faith
and what it means to truly be a Christian and not just go through the
motions. I do not have to words to describe how his message impacted me.
I can only say that I was definitely overwhelmed and extremely glad to
be part of such an awesome chapter of Intervarsity while on the East
Coast.
On a completely different topic: New York. What comes to mind when you
think about NYC? I had a vague idea of what to expect, but it was
definitely a shock. It was gritty, loud and crowded, and I loved every
minute of my time in the city yesterday. Everyone is selling something,
and I mean EVERYONE. From comedy shows to ripped off Broadway tickets
to "here have my CD, oh and tip me for it." I went with James into the
city and throughout the afternoon we counted twenty-four Elmos (from Sesame
Street) four Cookie Monsters, two Woody's from Toy Story, several Marvel
characters, Mario, and other assorted characters wandering around for
photo opportunities. I caved and took a couple pictures with Elmo and
Cookie Monster. We spent most of the day in Times Square. Seeing the
number of people there yesterday really puts into perspective how many
people fit in there for New Year's Eve to watch the ball drop. The ball
is out year round and I was actually able to see it. We were also able
to get $77 tickets for Wicked at the Gershwin Theatre Box Office and had
fantastic seats. I was surprised to get them that cheap spur of the moment, as any experience I had with shows was over $100 for one ticket. Lindsay Mendez, Derek Klena, and Katie Rose Clark did
an amazing job and as it was Jame's first time seeing it, we were both
blown away. Walking around Time's Square, it is also easy to get cheaper
tickets for the majority of shows on Broadway and it is easy to find
any given theatre, leading me to understand why it was called the theatre district. There is everything in Times Square including a huge Toys 'R' Us
with a Wonka candy headquarters located inside and a gigantic Ferris
wheel inside the store, which blew me away. Most stores we went in (Disney, Hershey,
M&M, souvenir shops) are all multiple floors, which I kind of
expected, but was suprised to see there were multiple stores in one building. The only other time I'd seen something like that is going to the mall.
I will for sure go back into the city to explore some of the museums and
attractions we passed, like a free museum about the NY area and a
Ripley's Believe it or Not museum. I do want to go to the Met, Central
Park and Ground Zero. We did have some slight issues with bus timing,
but thankfully it did not affect us getting back to campus.
That's all for this week, now off to do the homework I still have for the upcoming week.
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