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New York City
by Kirk Cameron
Ray and most of the crew arrived unscathed in New York
City on Wednesday. But Ron Meade, our cameraman, forgot
to remove a birthday gift of a Leatherman tool from
his pocket before going through the X-ray machines and
as a result, was held back by security and missed his
flight. He caught the next one and joined the gang in
the Big Apple later that evening. I (Kirk) arrived at
midnight the next day and found my way to the Days Hotel
near Times Square. I heard about the adventures I had
missed the day before. Great witnessing encounters on
the streets, a run in with a group of very well dressed
men in a restaurant. Judging by the subtle clues that
these grown men who publicly kissed each other on the
lips, traveled with their own priest, and were very
defensive about the Catholic religion, we surmised they
were probably part of “The Family.” They
were mildly amused when Ray gave them some Million Dollar
Bill tracts, they laughed, wished our group Merry Christmas.
Whew! Everyone in our group was glad to make it out
alive.
The first day’s shoot was in a fire station in
Jersey City, just opposite the Statue of Liberty. The
cold and dreary day accentuated our breath as it puffed
out our mouths and noses like smoke from a steam engine—perfect
for that day’s episode: “How to Get On Fire
for God.” The firefighters were very friendly
and let us shoot almost all day, even repositioning
the fire engines for us with lights flashing just to
make our set really exciting. For lunch, they even offered
us some real fireman’s chili. (That’s what
gives firemen such thick mustaches and hair on their
chests.)
Just after our sound man (Scotty) got out of our cab,
we heard a horn honk angrily, and a loud voice holler,
“That’s right—smash your door into
my car!” Carol (Scotty’s wife) mumbled,
“How embarrassing.” But when Ray got out
of the same door, he was amazed to see the driver laughing
and holding onto one of our million dollar tracts. Scotty
had said, “Sorry about that. Perhaps this will
make up for it.” The tract had put the man into
such a good mood that Ray was able to witness to him
through the window.
When the sun went down, our police escort moved us
to the Jersey City pier, directly across from “Ground
Zero”—the site of the attack on the World
Trade Center Towers. The night sky was clear, the lights
of the famous NYC skyline were beautiful, and we were
pumped with adrenaline. We tried to keep our fingers
and toes from freezing by eating lots of hot pizza and
drinking hot chocolate and coffee throughout the night.
Fortunately a friend of the ministry named “Brother
Charles” happened to work at the Hyatt hotel (100
yards from where we were shooting), and provided us
with a warm room to take refuge from the freezing cold
wind coming off the water. He had been given an Evidence
Bible in the Philippines, loved it, contacted our ministry
and was amazed to find that we were filming in his backyard.
This episode was titled “God Has a Wonderful Plan
For Your Life” and thanks to the Lord and the
crew’s hard work, it did turn out to be a truly
wonderful episode.
The next morning we began at Grand Central Station,
the heart of NYC, where thousands of people flow like
blood, through the veins of the subway system. That
day’s episode was about how to break the ice with
strangers. We talked about the effective use of well-written,
striking, gospel tracts. If you’ve never been
to Grand Central Station…go there. The people,
the energy, the rush, and the sound of the trains are
so unique they will be forever etched in your mind.
After completing the episode, we took a train back to
Times Square, on which Ray stood up, got everyone’s
attention and shared a Christmas gospel message with
the passengers. Another member of our team then freely
gave away “Good Samaritan” gifts of $20
to anyone who wanted one! People were blown away.
Times Square is truly “Vanity Fair.” HUGE
video screens, spanning entire office buildings, lights,
music, a sea of people crowding the streets…and
there we were talking with complete strangers about
their faith. We stop people and ask if they’d
like to answer some Christmas questions for our TV special.
One of the questions we began the interviews with was,
“So this Christmas, have you been good or bad—naughty
or nice?” Most would say, “Good,”
which led us right into asking if they’d kept
God’s Ten Commandments. One of our volunteers
named Warner spoke to a homeless man, bought him dinner
at McDonalds, and spoke to him for over an hour, which
resulted in the man asking for a Bible. Warner gave
him one. We also did some filming at Rockefeller Center
next to the world famous Christmas tree and ice-skating
rink. The night was electric and we were all exhausted
by the time we finished at midnight.
Some of the team attended David Wilkerson’s church
in Times Square, and then they went to Central Park,
preached open air, and afterwards recorded some more
interviews for the program.
On top of it all, we got to witness to cab drivers,
hotel employees, tourists and locals. This was a great
trip and will make for three wonderful new episodes
of The Way of the Master television program. Thank you
for all your prayers and support of this ministry. We
truly appreciate you and look forward to keeping you
up to date on all our filming adventures.
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Ray doing some open air preaching. |
Ray preaches while Darrel waits. |
Darrel Rundus open air preaching. |
The crowd listening to Darrel. |
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Scotty sharing his faith. |
Scotty and Carol (Scotty does sound for us, while
Carol is our photographer.) |
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Kirk, Darrel Rundus, and Ray |
Kirk and Ray with some firemen at a fire station
in Jersey City |
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Ray and Duane, our director, at the former location
of the twin towers. |
Going up in a helocopter for some arial shots of
New York City. |
Our half-frozen camera crew. |
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