Viva The Porch!!

I am happy to break the relatively lengthy silence of this blog with some news - The Porch has begun! So now, the question that you are most likely asking is: "What in the heck is the Porch? Why do you guys feel it necessary to keep naming things differently? What is the meaning of life?" Well, I intend to answer all the above questions, except for the meaning of life, which you can figure out on your own.

It's really a long story, and Kelly is preparing a fabulous post that will describe our crazy journey of the last several weeks with the eloquence that only she can provide. In the meanwhile - I'll give you the "bullet points version:"

- A few weeks ago we randomly met up with our dear friends Chris and Shannon from Portland while walking around the Lower East Side. Hilarity ensued, along with plans to start a church - right NOW - in Tompkins Square Park. How's that for fast-forward on the whole planning thing?

- After several intense, midnight-oil burning meetings (or not) a plan was devised for the birthing of this as-of-that-moment-unnamed church gathering.

- This past Sunday, June 8th (interesting 1 year to the day from when we left Portland) we arrived at Tompkins, 1pm, to a crowd of about 25-30 of our beautiful new friends, waiting for church in the park. Over the course of the next 3-4 hours we fed about 50 people, made a lot of new friends, heard some great music, played with water, got harassed by a lovely Pharasical woman, got not-harrassed by the cops, had many deep and many shallow conversations, nearly melted in the sweltering pre-summer record NYC heat wave, and generally made much merriment. Next week we're gonna have a barbeque down at the East River Park and play wiffleball. Waddya think of that?

- Oh yeah, The Porch. Well I'll let Kelly explain that too, since it was her idea. But everyone seems to be down with it, so that's the name, for now - The Porch. So just to clear things up:
- 141 NYC is the name of the non-profit/ outreach
- The Porch is the "church in the park"
- Tortuga House is where we live in deep south Brooklyn. Come over some time, sit on the floor, and meet our kitty who is not female, as we suspected.

Well that about sums it up for now, and helps to clear my conscience about not updating the blog enough. Have a wonderful day, because wherever you are right now, it's probably not as hot as NYC is today.