I can’t believe it! Our baby is growing up so fast! Today Adriana and I took Claudia to Nyack College on her very first college visit. She was really impressed by the friendly community atmosphere on campus. While there we also had the opportunity to take our friend Rebecca, one of our former Shelter Rock Church students, out for lunch. She is wrapping up her freshman year and is having a wonderful experience at Nyack. It was great re-connecting with her!
Today we took 50 Shelter Rock Church students out for day 1 of 2 of serving our community over Spring Break for our 3rd Annual Love Long Island!
Team 1 served at Shelter Rock Church‘s food pantry in Manhasset. They helped clean and painted a room.
Team 2 served at Guardian Angel, a ministry in Sea Cliff which ministers to women and their children in crisis. They cleaned the garage and basement and sorted and cleaned donated toys for children, and organized clothes for their boutique.
Team 3 served a family in King’s Park. The wife has cerebral palsy and is also recovering from shoulder surgery. The husband has just finished battling bladder cancer. We rejoice that he is currently cancer-free, and we are praying for that to be a permanent diagnosis! Our team did some much-needed spring cleaning for the family.
Team 4 also served in King’s Park. They did spring cleaning for my long-time friend, and former volunteer youth worker, the legendary 93-year old Granny Franny (She said she’s 93, but she was apparently 90 when I met her about 8 years ago, lol!). Granny lives alone and except for the senior citizen bus which comes once a week to take her shopping, and Meals-On-Wheels, she doesn’t have many visitors. She was so excited to have our team there, and she gave them her Granny-pep-talk and showed them her Kwanza room.
Tomorrow we are doing 4 more service projects to show God’s love in our community, which I can’t wait to share with you.
Last night I finished reading Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by Eric Metaxas, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I have read Bonhoeffer’s books, but it was really insightful reading about his life from which those books were born. While I in no way would ever compare myself to the things he faced, I couldn’t help but feel an affinity with Bonhoeffer on many levels. His desire to live as a man of principle and according to the Word of God; His determination to think deeply and theologically; his battles with depression and yet seeking to remain positive, optimistic, and hopeful; his experiences in seeking to follow the Lord upstream against the tide of popularity, trusting all results completely to the Lord; and perhaps most surprisingly, his work with youth and children. I never realized that Bonhoeffer was in fact a youth worker. I was pleasantly surprised to see this side of him! I was so blessed to see his relational approach to ministry. He taught Sunday school. He had young people over to his house for discussions for his Thursday Circle. He took time to talk to them about their real-life issues. He took them on retreats and helped them learn how to spend time with God, in the Word, in contemplation, and enjoying nature together. I loved learning this about him, because they are things that I am passionate about in my own youth work. I am a teacher by gifting, and I love sharing God’s Word and helping them learning through discussion. I also love shared experiences which allow us to think deeply about God. Small groups, retreats, trips. Bonhoeffer was my kind of youth worker. Biblical. Practical. Relational.
When I finished reading the book. I hit my book shelf to find my next book to read. Coincidentally, I found that I recently grabbed a book by Andrew Root during my book shopping at the National Youth Worker Convention entitled Bonhoeffer as Youth Worker, which I am about to read. I am excited to see how he develops this idea of Bonhoeffer’s work with students.
In an effort to express our faith in and dependance on God, to be more intentional about praying specifically for one another, and to grow in encouragement this year, I came up with the idea to create Prayer and Encouragement Journals for each member of our family. The idea is simple. Whenever we feel led to pray for or share an encouraging word with one another, in addition to expressing our care verbally, each person is invited to write their prayer or word of encouragement in the journal of the person they are thinking about and praying for. My hope is that these books will be a way for us deepen our heart-to-heart connections, and that as we read them, the journals will serve as a resource to uplift, inspire, and infuse us with hope. Maybe you’d like to do something similar in your home this year.
Today, after months and months of prayer and hard work, our daughter Natalia’s dream of starting the first-ever Christian Club at Roslyn Middle School came true! They had 11 students there for their first meeting, and they all left saying they had a good time. We are very thankful to the school administration for their support, to Mrs. Marx for supporting the club as their advisor, and to Emma Rucci and Long Island Youth For Christ for their guidance in walking Natalia through the process of getting the club started. We are SOOOO proud of our daughter who is such a courageous leader. Yeah God! Way to go Natalia! You are making an impact and leaving a legacy!
We now have 2 teenagers in our house! Happy Birthday to Natalia who became a teenager today!!!! We love this very special girl who is funny, passionate, friendly, kind, athletic, and a real leader. Please join us in praying the Lord’s blessings over her life. She is in the middle of starting the first ever Christian Club at her middle school, seeking to shine her light and leave a legacy in her school. We are so proud of her!
Two weeks ago we traveled down to Yorktown, Virginia for the Mahaffy Family Reunion. The last time all of our families were all together was 21 years ago (we’ve come close at a couple of weddings) , and that was before any of my generation were married. Each family was assigned a different color t-shirt, and the numbers on our t-shirts represented the order in which we joined the family (really cool idea!). There were 55 of us in total from 83 years old to less than 2 months. In addition to the obvious joy of being with everyone and catching up, few highlights for me personally:
It was the first time my parents and all of my siblings were together in 5 years.
It was the first time I’ve seen my only brother in 3 years. 
Seeing my parents with all of their 11 grandchildren at once for the first time ever.
One night all of us “older cousins” and our spouses went out together (There is a 14 year gap between my grandparents’ oldest 3 children and their youngest 2, so those of us born to the older 3 all grew up together, and the children of the younger 2 are in the age range of my daughters.)
Seeing my daughter walking with her great-grandmother.
Seeing my grandparents with all of their 5 children and spouses, 17 grandchildren and spouses, 18 great-grandchildren. What a legacy!
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