New York- food, the fifth love language

5/29

We arrived in Nyack, NY with the trip odometer reading 1424 miles.

Our hosts near the Big Apple were the McCaffrey's. Quentin McCaffrey was my roommate sophomore year, and his family opened their house up to us for three nights. Our time there was marked by relaxing mornings spent journaling and reading, trips into the city and dinners with the McCaffrey clan. Quentin took us on into the city two days in a row, which was fantastic because we learned in Boston that it is imperative to tour a big city accompanied by a local. The first day we toured around, and he treated us to a viewing of the new Star Trek film in a big theatre downtown; it seemed appropriate to catch a movie downtown, and it was also the relaxing activity that we needed at the time. On Sunday, we had the opportunity to visit Redeemer Presbyterian, a church pastured by Tim Keller with several locations downtown. The thing that struck me most about pastor Keller was his humility. He has gained a reputation through his books (The Reason For God; Ministries of Mercy; The Prodigal God; etc...), but in his preaching he did not act like people should know who he was and his speaking was not phenomenal, but God is blessing the ministry of Redeemer Presbyterian as they humbly approach God and ask how to best serve Him in the city.

I have been hearing about New York's food for years, but I always thought that Quentin had a superiority complex about his home food. I must admit my poor assumption as even the bagels in New York were better. On Sunday morning Quentin brought Kyle and I to a bakery, but the word bakery is such an understatement to the bread production that was happening there. This bakery was the "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" equivalent for bread. We walked around and picked hot bagels straight out of the oven. He also shared New York pizza with us and his family provided some incredible meals as well. Kyle joked that if food was a love language, it was Quentin’s, and that Kyle was feeling a lot of love during our stay.