What's Happening NYC

 It's hard to believe March 1 we will have been here three full years! Our blogging has dropped off, to say the least; I had hoped to be a bit more consistent that I have.  But anyway, things have changed substantially since last fall as far as my (Tim) involvement with the homeless. Here's a brief update.

Upon our return to NYC following our summer trip to Oklahoma, my volunteer hours working with the homeless increased significantly. To keep a longer story short, I was asked to become the director of the Career Center of The Bowery Mission, effective October 1, 2012. Since then I have worked full time. My duties with the men in the Residential Recovery Program include daily counseling, career and job development/training, GED prep program, teaching life skills and basic computer, and managing volunteers. 

The Bowery Mission is one of the oldest missions to the homeless of New York City, dating back to 1879. More can be learned about the legacy of The Bowery Mission at www.Bowery.org. The Mission is located on the lower east side of Manhattan, which is one of the oldest areas of the city. Our funding is 100% private, which enables us to maintain a Gospel-centered ministry. The Bowery Mission ministers daily to the city by serving three meals a day to the street homeless of the area. More than 370,000 meals are served per year--and it’s the men of the Residential Recovery Program who do much of the work. Daily, food trucks are loaded with meals which are served to homeless persons at various parks--including Central Park--throughout the city. The homeless may walk in anytime day or night for food, shelter, or clothing. On an average winter night there may be 250-300 people sleeping in the pews of the chapel. 

I am thoroughly enjoying working with the men in the residential recovery program at the Mission. To say everyday is an experience would be an understatement! God has truly given me an incredible opportunity to be involved personally with men who are trying to get their lives back in order. At least half the men have criminal records or have been in prison, 75% have substance abuse issues, and all walk in homeless. Every story is heartbreaking, but the Mission gives them a place to call home, an opportunity to hear the Gospel daily, and a place where they work serving the street homeless of the city. 

My job is to help these men develop the skills necessary to re-enter the workplace. By giving them the basic skills needed for life, relationships, and work, the program enables them to move back toward meaningful lives. They receive vocational training, certification, spiritual stability, and most of all, hope.

As for the girls, Lindsey and Bethany are singing their hearts out with The Young People’s Chorus of NYC. They have had so many neat opportunities over the past year, including performances at The White House, the 9/11 Memorial Service at Ground Zero, Good Morning America, Stockholm, Jazz at Lincoln Center, and Carnegie Hall. Suzy seems busier than ever. Between homeschooling the girls, working with the Westside Women’s Group, hosting our weekly Bible study, and doing church, her schedule seems downright hectic. Several of you have expressed constant interest in our lives here in the city--we so appreciate that and especially the prayers on our behalf. We wish you all well and look forward to seeing you again.

Until then, may you all be blessed!

Tim, Suzy, Lindsey, and Bethany

An Update From the Knapps in NYC

You will find this post to be more of a "letter" than a post; my apology in advance for the length. Many of our friends have asked for an update on what’s going on with us in New York City, so here you go. 

I have been amazed at how busy we have all become over the last couple of years! But what’s new, right? You, me--all of us--we’re busier than ever. I always laughed at our guests who would come to our home at Rivers Edge (in Oklahoma) and talk about how nice it must be to live in the nice, slowed-down pace there in the woods. Now I look forward to every break I can get back there!

I’ve had at least two or three churches call me to do online interviews or skyping, because they considered us “missionaries”. We don’t consider ourselves that--we’ve simply come to live in NYC and be what we were there in Watson--people living Christian lives, alongside other people, some believers and others not. God is at work in southeast Oklahoma as well as here in NYC. One thing being a Christian (or a missionary, for that matter) means is watching for what God is up to and doing what you can, whether you’re a preacher, banker, teacher, or whatever. Being a minister, missionary, or church leader is not the high calling; being salt and light and helping those in need is.

The first two years in the city Suzy, the girls, and I did a number of different ministry assignments, trying to find what would be a good fit for regular involvement. But after volunteering for some work at a shelter for the homeless earlier this year, I felt incredibly drawn to find out if there were more ways I could be involved there. The shelter is known as the Bowery Mission, which has been ministering to the homeless since 1874. It serves three meals a day to the poor of NYC and has a resident program for homeless men. These men range from 18 to elderly, and consist mostly of men coming out of prison or treatment programs. It also has a large number of immigrants, many of whom found themselves on the street after fleeing to the US from places in turmoil. 

I’m presently working several days per week in the “career center” of the ministry, helping men get their GED diplomas by teaching basic GED classes in math, social studies, and science, and helping them learn to build resumes, interviewing skills, and find jobs. Another “class” I’m doing deals with dressing for success and personal hygiene--things these guys tend to forget when having been on the streets or in prison for several years. The director recently asked me to do presentations on communication skills and workplace etiquette. I’m also taking groups of these guys on work trips at summer camps in Pennsylvania.

As with many ministries where there’s an endless supply of needs, money is always an issue with the Bowery Mission. These men need decent clothing and shoes for interviews once they make it through the 6-12 month program to get them back on their feet with a job. There’s also need for transportation to get these guys to and from interviews, training seminars, and GED test sites. Here, they have to go by train, bus, or cabs, and it all takes money. These guys basically only own what they have on, and much of that is lacking. It has been very encouraging that a few friends back home have wanted to contribute to the ministry I’m involved in, and every penny of what has been sent us has gone directly into that program to meet these needs. It has helped tremendously! 

I’ve had so many who have asked what and how we are doing. Thanks for your encouragement and interest. Jesus made it clear...“When you did it for the least of these, you did it for me.” As so many of you have prayed for us, you’ve been a part of something special in NYC. Working with these men has been a huge privilege, as has being involved with ministry through our church, Redeemer Presbyterian. If you’ve been among those who have prayed--thank you. Please continue to pray that needs will be met and lives will continue being changed for Christ’s sake.

As for Suzy and the girls, well they are doing great and getting so many opportunities. Both Lindsey and Bethany (16, 14 now) are singing with the Young People’s Chorus of New York City. The chorus does 30-40 performances per year, some of them at such places as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Natural History, and Carnegie Hall, just to name a few. Lindsey recently sang at the White House for the President and First Lady. Their chorus did a week of performances at Stockholm, Sweden recently, and have trips planned for China, France, and Canada.

Suzy is also singing. She joined a ladies’ chorus this year and is enjoying it immensely. She is active with a large ladies’ group which meets weekly, as well as hosting a Bible study that we lead each week at our apartment. Just keeping up with the girls is a full time job which leaves Suzy little time to herself!

To say we are having the time of our lives would not be entirely accurate. Now in our third year here, we are enjoying the city, but we still find it very challenging at times. More than anything we are grateful for the opportunity to live here and have a small part in what God is doing in New York City, and the world.

In Him,

Tim 

What do you think?

By Lindsey Knapp

It was 120 degrees here in Oklahoma last week, and I was at church camp with 30 other youth that I’ve known as long as I can remember. We laughed and sang and screamed and danced, and I did my share of crying and learning and feeling.

Do you ever have conversations you come out of feeling very much enlightened, and yet not quite able to say what it was you learned? I had at least three of those last week with a wonderful person named Sarah. And while we were both exhausted from the heat and a great lack of sleep, God did something in those conversations that I hope I’m still thinking about months from now.

What does it mean to be me? What does it mean to honor God in situations that do not have clear right or wrong answers? What does it mean to wait, and grow, and be open, and be honest?

Honesty, transparency, and truthfulness are things I value so very highly in others, and yet I’m not sure how much of them I possess. I’m realizing for perhaps the first time that being hard on yourself and being honest with yourself are two very different things.

I live in two very different places. Sometimes, when I am in New York, I’m tempted to not think about the issues I face when I’m in Oklahoma, not to investigate my feelings and desires about the issues, and I certainly would not call that being honest with myself. And in Oklahoma, I wonder, how does everything I’m learning in New York apply? If I were ever to move back, what would I bring back with me? How would I be able to say I had changed?

Well, I don’t have answers. But thanks to the very wise Sarah, and the infinitely wise God working through her words and into my life, I’m thinking about it.



Oh, it all looks different
But that doesn’t mean anything has changed

Still I reach for You
When I am afraid
And this breath that comes from You
Helps me say Your name

- song Say Your Name, by Bethany Dillon

The City That Never Rests

By Tim Knapp

As I walked the streets last night from 7:30 to 10pm, it seemed the longer I was out the busier the streets became. How is it that on a Monday evening the activity seemed to pick up the later it got? It’s nothing new, here. It is not unusual to walk past hundreds--no, thousands--of people dining along the streets on mild evenings at tables outside the myriads of cafes and restaurants, past 10pm. Not here, anyway. After all, this is the city that never sleeps.

A fair portion of those you will see out and about after 10pm on a week night in New York City are tourists. Wild-eyed, excited, exuberant tourists who have come here to take in all they can. Sleeping is something they’re not here to do. But most of these people are not tourists. They’re New Yorkers. And they’ll be up again in the morning and off to work by 7 or 8 am. Back to work. Back to the grind. So what gives?

It’s not that they don’t sleep. They sleep, but not much. There’s simply not enough time for it. Not here, anyway. So many have come to make a name for themselves, to break into their field, to get ahead. Others have come because their high-profile, high-demand position required it. And it comes at a price.

Putting in ten to twelve hours of work per day is not the only requirement for getting ahead. There’s much shoulder-rubbing and networking to be done. One must spend a certain amount of time in the right places with the right people, doing the right things. And even though some have families, it is still what must be done. Or is it?

One might argue that as long as you’re young, why not go for it? Or, it is simply the sacrifice required to be here, make the big bucks, get the big break. Is sleep really that important? Well, yes and no. Some who sleep plenty, never seem to rest. And others who don’t get enough sleep, tend to rest well. So what’s up with that?

It could be that something is going on beneath it all. That perhaps underlying our desire for accomplishment, there’s a deep-seated need to be seen, recognized, or heard. Something that shouts for approval, even disrupting our sleep. How will we ever rest from this continual, nonstop quest for notoriety? Perhaps by realizing our rest is found not by sleeping, not in less work, and not in vacations; it is found in a person. One who said, “Come to me, all you who are weary...and I will give you rest.”

Fourteen Months

By Lindsey Knapp

After fourteen months in this city, what amazes me is no longer simply that I’m here; it’s that I belong here. Sometimes it just amazes me to come home. To turn off Broadway, walk up the tree-lined street, cross West End Avenue, in the front doors, through the lobby, up the stairs, and in our red door. It’s our door now! Our building! Our street! I didn’t have neighbors for the first thirteen years of my life; now, there’s the Jewish family down the hall, the French foreign exchange students who once borrowed a casserole dish, the little girls above us who sometimes sound like they’re studying to become clog dancers. I know my way around the Upper West Side now; Bethany and I have scouted out the best pizza places and we know where the ice cream trucks hang out. Taking the subway, the bus, a taxi, or walking somewhere does not require a map. We have our weekly schedules--I have chorus twice a week, Beth has co-op classes Wednesday mornings, Mom hosts a prayer group once a month, Dad has a mens’ breakfast every so often.

Life certainly looks different here. Homeschooling and working from home means that all four of us are in this apartment for a good bit of every day. That’s mostly a good thing. Sometimes this place feels so small, particularly in spring days when it doesn’t feel like spring. On the other hand, the times that we all go somewhere together aren’t as often; oftentimes, we converge at church from four different places. And each of us having our different activities means that we have less mutual friends. Before telling my Mom a story about what happened today with so-and-so, I first have to explain who so-and-so is and how she might know them. And, to all you friends of my parents’ who have invested in me and loved me during my short life: thank you. I never realized until moving to New York how much the influence and interest of adults has encouraged and grown me. I don’t know all my parents’ friends now, and sometimes it bothers me!

Since coming to this place, I feel a bit like I’ve discovered, or more fully realized, the beauty and the grittiness of life. There is so much beauty in people; you discover this when you live on the same square mile as 60,000 others. People encourage me without even saying a thing; the woman walking past wearing an awesome melon pink coat, the girl crossing the street who looks contently happy about something, the children playing in a sprinkler below my windows, the baby who looks like a small dumpling. And the grittiness. Living on the same square mile as 60,000 others also means you have to deal with their humanness. Our kitchen ceiling is much worse for wear because of a running--and running, and running--faucet in the kitchen above us. And people are ugly. Walking past two grown men yelling at each other on the street is not particularly pleasant.

So. Life is good. Life is very busy. Mostly I feel very thankful for where God has put me; for the passions he’s given me. There is much to muse about on a Sunday evening.

A Year in Manhattan

By Tim Knapp

This month marks a full year for us in the city. Wow. We've been here for that long? In some ways it seemed to have gone by quickly. In other ways, though, it hasn't. We've had to make an amazing amount of adjustments, from the cramped living space, to the incessant noise, to the constant challenge of interaction on all sides. The cost of living is another issue altogether. Just after we moved I saw an article on the cost of living across the US. The lowest cost of living for US cities was none other than Ft. Smith, AR, where we did all our major shopping while in SE Oklahoma. The highest and most expensive city in the US? You guessed it, New York City. Specifically, Manhattan.

I just this month signed on for another year of rent at our upper west side apartment. Huge by NY standards, yet half the size of our average-sized home in Oklahoma. And the cost of groceries. Good grief! Sticker shock still grips us as we search weekly "specials" for relatively decent prices. And yet, we're still glad to be here. God knows we didn't come to NYC to save money. But why did we come here? We still get that question a lot. 

In the beginning, that question mainly came from our friends and family back in Oklahoma. It continues here, especially when New Yorkers discover we didn't come as a result of a job transfer. Most people come because they have to, or because they're looking to make a name for themselves as an artist of some kind: actors, writers, painters, etc. We came because God stirred our hearts for change. We didn't want to move, we felt compelled to move. There's a difference. Yet it's often hard to verbalize.

I recently listened to another of Dr. Tim Keller's lessons where, in speaking to church planters, he described how when one encounters God personally, the result is you go. Throughout scripture we see that when a person meets God--when one gets a new glimpse into the reality and person of God--the result is you can't just return to life as you know it. Some how, some way, you simply have to go and live out this new life, this new realization, you’ve received. For some it’s a new endeavor or a new job or ministry, but for others, it means you go. It’s hard to explain why at times. But you just have to go. And you hope they’ll understand, even support your going. 

It’s at times like these that one’s life takes on a whole new meaning, and it’s exciting. It’s never easy to leave, not knowing what’s ahead or how you’ll go about things. I’m the kind of guy who never leaves home without a map. But for this sort of journey, one rarely is supplied an atlas or GPS. Now please don’t mistake me; I’m no Abraham or Moses, LOL. I’m just a guy who has been completely overwhelmed with a new realization of what Jesus’ work on the cross was all about, and it has completely overpowered my personal sense of reason. We left not really knowing what it was all about, except that we should go. 

And go we did. We didn’t expect everyone to understand, and they haven’t. In fact, most still don’t. But it has been nice that along the way, every now and then, God has supplied us with just enough encouragement to keep us going. In fact, I just received one such bit of encouragement from a guy I didn’t even know, until now. I’ve pasted a part of his message below:

...As he told me about the drastic move your family had made there were some things that sounded a bit familiar to me. I decided to google your name and came across your blog... 

Anyway, I just wanted to connect with you as a former SE OK guy who "gets" what you are doing. I am sure the decision was incredibly difficult for you and your family. And I'd also guess that folks didn't quite understand! All that to say, there is someone out there from your neck of the woods who is inspired and understands why. When we really grasp what God has done for us in Christ, it usually leads to these sorts of life-altering moves.

I hope you and your family are growing through this process. 
Take care.

I must say, I am only beginning to grasp what God has done for us in Christ. But I do know it has resulted in a much-altered life... and a life-altering move. And I know my family is growing through the process.

Thanks be to God, and to you, Greg, for getting it.

Sidewalk Sleeper

By Tim Knapp

As I sit in front of my computer by the window, I can see the abandoned cardboard mat in front of the building across the street, where a homeless guy has slept until around noon for the last two mornings. This is a little unusual for our upper west side neighborhood. Although I've seen and met several homeless people on the streets near our apartment, they don't usually hang out here. As I stared out the window at this man yesterday morning it occurred to me what a gulf there is between him and me.

I can't help but think what a contrast this city is to the place I've just recently come from. I wonder how friends or family would respond to this view of pathetic poverty, right outside our window. I watch as a mom and her young daughter swing wide to go around this guy, asleep and oblivious to all passers-by. What a lesson this little girl has gained without knowing it, just pushing her baby-doll stroller around this homeless man.

When you walk the streets here, you're forced to deal with this chasm between the haves and have nots. You're at least forced to view it. You're reminded again and again of its reality. And during more introspective moments--if you're honest--you realize that the gulf is not that wide. After all, was it my choice to be born into my family? Did I choose to have this ability to think or reason or make a buck?

Many of us have come to the conclusion--whether conscious or no--that I am to credit for the life I have. That it's the result of my good decisions and hard work. That I choose to be what I am. And what's more, if he would just choose to, he also could have more. That if he would just get up and get with it, he'd not be homeless either. We can't imagine being that aimless, that lazy, that unmotivated. Then we apply a similar reason to the other areas...how could she have that opinion, that affiliation, that view? And the chasm gets even wider.

Tim Keller recently stated, "It is in encountering others unlike us that we begin to see how the greatness of God's mercy can overcome our prejudices." I am beginning to understand what that statement means.