"It's not a good idea to go up to people and ask, 'Are you homeless?'" It's mid-Saturday morning at the Ministry Training Center (MTC) in Elmhurst, a neighborhood in Queens, NYC. About two dozen Lancastrians have just gotten off the bus in the Big Apple and are getting a crash course in local demographics and street ministry. "There's about ninety thousand people per square mile here in Elmhurst. Most of them are immigrants or the children of immigrants. Many of them don't speak English." … [Read more...] about A Day in Queens
Archives for June 2021
17-Year Cicadas—Visitors from the Underground
"They sound like a chainsaw starting up," is how my sister Joanne described the noise that the Brood X cicadas make in the woods near her family's home. The 17-year cicadas have emerged from their underground dwellings, and are crawling up trees, shedding their nymphal skins, and filling the woods with the sound of their singing. "Our dogs love to eat them," my friend Linda said on Sunday evening. Linda and her husband also live in a wooded area, and she showed us pictures of her garden … [Read more...] about 17-Year Cicadas—Visitors from the Underground