Orchestration!

We had a team from Ohio stay with us at Street LIFE last week. It was cool because their church isn't too far from where my parents live and we ended up knowing some of the same people from UD and such. One of the days they were here we went to the Love Kitchen (a soup kitchen) in the Bronx to serve a meal for the poor. Long story short - there was a miscommunication and it ended up not working out (it was closed for other ministry purposes). And it was the last day of the trip so the team had already gone to all the other ministry sites planned for the week - they were the most excited about the Love Kitchen though. So there we were, 23 of us, standing on the sidewalk in front of the Love Kitchen, unsure of what the day was going to look like. It wasn't long before we started praying that God would work out the details of our day and that He would provide an even better opportunity to show His love to people in the city. The team particularly asked if there were any parks nearby. A few phone calls were made - we got some directions and the ok to go to a park. Now we had a plan, but not really. We arrived at the park and unloaded from the vans.

Here's what happened - dozens of kids were playing in the park because it was the one day of the year when their school had a field day. If it were not field day we would have went to the park and there would have been no one there. We walked inside the fence to approach the crowded area (usually people on the streets are not allowed to just go up and play with kids during school, for good reasons). Our leader finds the principal, who welcomes us to openly play with the kids, probably because there were a lot of kids and seemingly not enough staff. This is the best part - there was supposed to be someone to make balloon animals for the kids that day, but he never showed up. IT JUST SO HAPPENED that one of the girls on the team knew how to make balloon animals and brought her balloons and pump along with her. So she spent nearly 2 hours wrenching her hands making flowers, and swords and dogs for the kids (some who waited at least 10 minutes just to get one - that's a long time for a 6 year old). It ended up being one of the best days of outreach that we had that week. It may seem like a small thing, but it brought so much joy to the kids that day.

Coincidence that this all worked out the way that it did?
No.
The greatest orchestrator of circumstances and opportunities - GOD!