First Day of LiT!

After months of prayerful preparing and planning, the first day of Lit has finally arrived. As part of the Action/Reflection model that will be an integral part of the daily processing for LiT participants, we will be asking each of our ten young adult to be blogging about their experiences as the program goes on. Here is a model/example, a reflection on the very first day of the LiT program.


My name is Lydia Nelson, and I am the associate pastor at St. Paul Lutheran Church in East Windsor, NJ. St. Paul is not located in Trenton, but we are part of the Lutheran Church cluster of Mercer county. I am originally from the Midwest and lived there my whole life until now, and before we moved to NJ most of the things we heard about Trenton were negative. I am participating in this program to support my colleagues in their work in Trenton and to see for myself what God is "up to" in Trenton.


Yesterday (July 2) was the very first day of our seven week LiT program. We met at St. Bart's Lutheran Church and Pastor Becky from Abiding Presence led some getting-to-know you games while everyone arrived. Together we learned that some of us live in Trenton and some don't, some were born in the US and some elsewhere, some play sports and others are musical, very few of us prefer summer, and one of us knits. Then it was off to the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen (TASK) where we met the Executive Director Dennis Micai. He gave us a tour and then we hopped in line and had lunch. Two things struck me: 1) there were not a lot of people there. Dennis told us that the beginning of the month is pretty slow, though it picks up a lot as the month goes on, becoming full to capacity at the end of the month, when money is the most tight for many families, and 2) It was bright and airy, especially since bright paintings and art from local artists decorated the walls. It was a very cheerful place to be in. I typically picture dark and sad places when I thought about soup kitchens, and TASK changed my perception.

We then drove to The Lutheran Church of the Redeemer to visit with Pastor Raymond and to walk around the area. The whole downtown area seemed to be under construction, so getting there was an adventure all of its own. Once we arrived, Pastor Raymond told us about what his congregation is like and gave us a tour of the building and beautiful sanctuary. Then we got an impromptu tour of the Lutheran Social Ministries building which is connected to Redeemer. They were so excited to meet us, and they showed us a ESL (English as Second Language) class, where we and the ESL students took turns introducing ourselves to one another. It was very powerful to see people from all over the world helping one another learn English, and we were glad to help them practice. We may be able to help LSM in one of the later weeks.


We walked around a bit downtown and saw both vibrant life and boarded up businesses. Our next stop was Crisis Ministry of Mercer County, where the Executive Directer Carolyn Biondi told us about what they do - giving aid both with food and with homelessness prevention programs. Three students from the Princeton Theological Seminary are doing internships there during the summer, plus one AmeriCorp volunteer, and all of them shared with us their passion for helping others. They also shared about how the community reached out to THEM when their building burned down last December.


In the last picture, Pastor Aaron is giving us his own highlights of the downtown Trenton Area.


As will be the pattern, our first day of LiT began with a devotion (morning prayer, scripture, and song), and also ended with reflection as a group and midday prayer. To listen as our young adult participants share such insightful and honest reflections on the very first day floored me - it revealed to me the depth of dedication that this group already has for this project. I can see that God is already at work among them.


As our day came to a close, we sang together a new verse to an old song:


When we're in Trenton, Lord walk with me.
When we're in Trenton, Lord walk with me. 
All along my pilgrim journey, Lord, I want Jesus to walk with me. 


Please continue to pray for these brave young people and their leaders. You will be hearing more from them in the coming days and weeks.