Holy.

Another backblip; another day on the New York mission trip.

I can't remember the name of this church, which kills me.

It literally took my breath away as soon as I walked in. I'll have to set this one up to explain to you why this was such a big moment.

We were all exhausted; the temperature through the week ranged from 94 to 108 degrees with unusually high levels of humidity, we got next to no sleep on hard wood floors in rooms without air conditioning (me without a mattress), we went all around the city to different work sites, did manual labor for about 9 hours each day, had to wake up at 4am a few times and never got back to housing before 9pm, walked over 40 miles through the week; shared one shower stall between 37 people, ate cheap, unhealthy food in small rations, and were challenged emotionally as well due to the level of poverty and brokenness of the people we met.

I'm not complaining, I actually really loved living in those conditions because it's so humbling and it puts things in perspective, and it's actually quite fun. But nonetheless it's draining in every way.

So my group was walking along the street, in the middle of the day with the sun overhead, exhausted, in jeans and sweaty tee shirts, and one of the guys really needed a shade break. I had been eyeing this church for its architecture, so we decided to head in that direction. We discovered that the church's doors were open and we were allowed inside, so we all filed into the quiet, cold sanctuary. It was just instant relief. Everyone just silently spread out and made ourselves comfortable for a few minutes before heading back out. I decided to be really weird and lay down right in the middle of the aisle and look up.

It was a really great moment.