NYC

Sleeping on planes is always a challenging proposition and I’ve tried various different ways on all the different plane rides over the years. I never sleep sitting up. Lowering the seatback tray and laying my arms and head on it is a little better. The best results come from lying flat but that is usually the greatest challenge.

First is the two-seat-by-the-window option. I can usually fit into smaller spaces but with this option you have to constantly watch that your limbs are out of harms way from the carts going up and down the aisle. Every once in a while you get more than two seats in the middle. You can get relatively good sleep on those seats but you still have to contort your body to avoid the base of the buckles digging into you.

The one other option I have tried is not the most sanitary – on the floor. If you have at least three empty seats you can get enough space to stretch out a little. You still have to contort because the base of the seats in front stick back to get you.

So I made it to New Jersey and King’s Kids. And it was there that I made another great life friend. Tom Giglio (pronounced Jooleeo) was a New Jersey father of four boys. He lived on Long Beach Island - a long, thin, barrier, summer vacation-type island off the coast of New Jersey. He had spent summers there when he was in college working with a guy who owned an awning business which he ended up buying and moving to the island. Some of his boys were on the King’s Kids team and he was helping with logistics.

During the outreach, we stayed in a university on Staten Island and performed all around the New York City area. Tom drove the van and we were both part of the set up team which was part of what was called the advance team. However, we messed around so much that we began to call ourselves the delay team. We became fast friends and I picked up yet another dialect of English I call New Jerseyan where they call the coast, or Shore, The Shohwa.

It was my first time in the Big Apple and we got to do all the touristy stuff like the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, Times Square and the Twin Towers. We also went to some of the not-so-famous parts to try to help people in need. My friend, Jan Applegate from the ship was also part of the team and I performed in a couple of numbers alongside my duties running the sound.

As I said, my parents were involved in the outreach and as it began nearing an end and my plane ticket back to London had expired, they began to get concerned I would have no way back. In YWAM, we grew up being taught something called living by faith. If you believed God wanted you to do something, you believed that He would provide. But time was running out. 

My parents decided to buy me a ticket and let me pay them back when I could. Then Tom stepped in. He decided that he wasn’t ready for me to leave. He wanted me to stay and hang out with him and his family on Long Beach Island. I could work with him to earn the money to pay my parents for the ticket they had bought me (which was also going to expire) and to buy a new ticket.

Once again, working with friends who were having mercy on me, I’m not sure if I really earned the money. I don’t know that I helped Tom much but he really wanted me to stay a while so he made it happen. We had fun together and I got to experience the New Jersey beaches where non-residents have to pay to frequent. I did not see any of the syringes that New Jersey beaches had become infamous for. So we had our fun and it was time for me to get back to reality. 


My buddy Tommy
Doing sound for King's Kids


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