A New York State of Mind

Once I had been harassed by some students into taking a group from FUMC-K to NYC in November of 1994, I had to get serious about planning in a hurry.  I was used to having at least a year to put such a trip together; it was already July of 1994 when I started planning this one.  Transportation was a major issue; we had always taken buses from NC to the Big Apple, but from Florida we would need to fly.  I was able to secure rooms with my old friends at the Milford Plaza Hotel (the Lullaby of Broadway) with the same rates I had secured several years before.  We would once again use the United Methodist Center at the U.N. to plan our seminar;  it would be my first time using them as a Methodist, not a Quaker.  Everything came together rather quickly, and soon we were able to announce that we would be taking a group to New York the weekend before Thanksgiving, just in time to see NYC all decorated for Christmas!

The fact that we were flying was not the only thing that would be different about this trip.  I knew that the topics and discussions about world politics would be very "foreign" to some of the Kissimmee kids.  They had grown up is an environment that taught them that USAmerica is always right.  The seminar leaders at the United Nations would push their buttons in some major ways.  Another change was that I would be with an entire group that had not been on such a trip before, so keeping them safe and giving them a great trip was all on me.  It was going to be an exciting trip, but a bit stressful- and that was if I could get anyone to actually go!

It seemed that many of the parents were a little hesitant to sign their students up for a $500 excursion to a big, scary city on a trip led by a guy they had known about 3 months.  In the end, we would take 4 adults and 12 youth on what would be a landmark trip for our student ministry.  We would discover Broadway, see the Rockettes, do some great shopping, learn about foreign policy, see the sights and lose a group member along the way.  But first, we had to catch a plane...

Because of Jesus,