a hop, skip ‘n a jump

These last 3 months living here in Holland have been really really good. I am just starting to get used to living here and getting comfortable with the lifestyle. But tommorow we leave for our “trip”. So that is pretty weird but I know that God is going to do so many amazing things for these next 2.5 months. I have alot of expectations for this “trip”. One of those expectations is to be challenged in my faith, to grow closer to God than I have ever before. Our group will learn to be completely dependent upon God for guidance and protection. Being dependent upon Jesus is something that I have done in the past, but not with all my soul. I also expect to be challenged in the area of leadership, where as the leaders of the “trip” said they really wanted to encourage me to take a leadership role and to speak out when I have something to say. That really encouraged and motivated me alot because I have never been put in a real leadership position before and maybe it is an area in which God is calling me too. I guess we will see. In everything that we do, I pray that it brings glory to His Kingdom and His Kingdom alone. For He is worthy of all praise. the Holy Spirit will move through us and will move through the people we meet and I pray that we are a light to those believers who need strengthening and those people who do not believe in Jesus. I know that we will also be encouraged and strengthened in our faith from the people we meet because they have such a different lifestyle than the one I have been raised in. Being persecuted for your faith, living in fear and being restricted in how you can portray Jesus really brings out a whole new level of relationship with Jesus. The faith that people under persecution have should be an example for all of us who have the priveledge to live in “free” countries or more commonly reffered to as “western” countries.

Overall, I will put myself out there in this “trip” and challenge myself to the max. Taking each step day by day with Jesus at my side, allowing the Holy Spirit to guide my every step. If we listen to what we are led to do by God, He will make the impossible possible for nothing is impossible to Him.

I ask that anyone reading this prays for the people that we will encounter in the coming few months. Pray that they have open hearts to what we bring to them, pray that they are blessed, pray that the lost will come to the Lord, pray that those living in persecution are encouraged and motivated and strengthened and loved and continously reaching for Jesus, pray for the persecutors, pray for our enemies that their eyes and their hearts will be open, pray that we will show the love of Jesus through our actions, our attitude, our words and our willingness to serve, pray that the Lord will use us to impact these people in such an incredibly positive way, pray that we will give glory to Him and His Kingdom and spread His Kingdom across the places that we touch, pray that we as a group come to this country with love that overflows unto others and shows them that Jesus King, Lord above all Lords.

Prayer is such an incredibly powerful weapon against the enemy and for the people/people groups that you pray for. God will do great things in His name and I cannot wait to share my testimony with each and every person who is interested. I hope that what I experience and what Jesus shows me will bring people to the truth and bring people to the light. Jesus loves all of us and He wants all of us to come to Him and to be with Him in a close and meaningful relationship. GOD IS LOVE!!!

tellin stories and stuff

On our last normal week during the lecture phase, the persecuted focus dts and the classic dts have been separated. We had instruction on monday and tuesday about how to tell stories; stories specifically from the Bible. Carin told us alot about how on outreach it is important to be able to tell a story and if you have to tell a story, what not better than one from the Bible. We, as Westerners, don’t particularly learn in just an oral way, as does the culture in which we will be experiencing. So it is extremely important that when you tell a story from the Bible, you stick to the story as much as possible. But you also have to look at the fact that some english or dutch words don’t mean the same as they may, for example, in the Chinese language. The people you are talking to may think that a sinner is someone who only robs and murders people, but as Christians we know that is not correct. So in that context, observe and learn about their culture and most importantly their language. Over those two days, we came to the realization that it is difficult to not add or take away details from the story you are telling. When talking about a story from the Bible, you want to make sure you are giving the right message across of course. Prayer before and after would definately be a good idea in regards to telling the right story with the right message. Alongside that, just letting the Holy Spirit move through that room and into the hearts of the people you are speaking to. For it is not us who changes the hearts of people but the Holy Spirit. All glory to Him!

the Past and the Coming Weeks

Last week on Monday the 17th through Wednesday the 19th we had team building. At first I thought that this was going to be really boring and a waste of time because my experience tells me that team building is exactly that. I was pretty surprised that I found just the opposite.
We started off on Monday morning by loading up all our bags in the van because we were going to be sleeping at a different place than we usually do. After that we got together in the LID living room at about 830am and the guy from Sweden, Lars, did the introduction for the next three days (he was leading the team building). We then walked a few kilometers and along the way we would stop and get into our team building groups and do some different things with ropes, tree branches, pine cones, and knipers There are four different outreach groups and the three days of team building were for us to realize our strengths and weaknesses and how well we work together and find out more about each others character/personality. After walking for a while we cleaned up a part of the forest by picking up these large pine tree type branches on the ground. There are 35 of us, so we got a good number of branches. After walking with them for a while we got to the ywam base and put them all in one big pile. This pile of branches was going to be used for our fire, which was nice because it was a little chilly those three days even though the sun was shining!
We did alot of different team building activities over the three days. We would usually start our morning with breakfast at 7am and start with team building at about 830am and go till about 7 or 8 at night. Of course we had breaks for lunch and dinner over that period so that was good otherwise I would have been really bored of everything really fast haha. After every team building activity there would be a person who was leading the team building. They would ask us questions about how we could have done this better, or what did we do right/ wrong, what can we learn from this, did we accomplish the task and how can this relate to our outreach together. So that was good to have those questions because it made us think about some things, although I think they would sometimes go to far into the activity and I didnt think it was nescessary to do so.
I would say for the most part, the team building activities were pretty fun and I had a good time. Those three days helped us as a team see really what irritates some of us, how we react in certain situations, and what we are good at doing as far as leading/following goes. I did see certain sides of people in the group that I hadnt seen before, I wouldnt say that any of the sides were bad, just that its good to know for our outreach. As a team we get along really well and I believe with God, we will make a real positive impact on the people we meet. The best part of the team building was being woke up at 1am go out the upstairs window in a harness. At first I was irritated about being woke up, but then I just found it funny and started smiling haha. Not only did we go out the window but there was a story involved from both the Bible and from the real world (a story of a couple held captive for a year in thailand as missionaries, then released, and now they are back in thailand continuing their ministry). That was a real cool story.
Anyways, this week and next week we have what is called the Kairos Course. Its a course about God, the church and the world. It is focused on missions and how it is the basis for the Bible. We are supposed to get a better understanding of the world around us from a missions perspective and realize the call we have as followers of Christ to evangelize to not only your friends/family/nationalities, but to go cross-cultural as well. And of course Gods call on our lives is different for every human being but this is more of a general perspective.
Then the 2 weeks after that are filled with lectures speicifically for our outreach locations and for outreach preparations. Then off we go to be used by God to bless others!!! Hallelujah.

jij bent niet lelijk van dicht bij !jij bent niet lelijk van dicht bij !

a Song

Suffering for Jesus

Living and growing up in a country where we have freedom of religion is such a blessing from God, but it blinds many of us from realizing the truth. The truth that there are hundreds of millions of people that follow Jesus even though they may face unimaginable hardships or even death. The truth that it is actually normal for there to be persecution and people who live in countries where there is freedom of religion, actually live abnormally. The truth that persecution is actually more of a blessing than something to look down upon. Matthew 5:10 and 1 Peter 3:14 say exactly that. We should not pray for persecution to end, we should pray for endurance and strength for our brothers and sisters in persecution. Persecution of Christians will continue until the end of times. If you look through the Bible, you will find persecution and suffering for Jesus quite prevalent and necessary. It says in 2 Timothy 3:12, In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. If we were to live in a world free from persecution, we would have it so easy. So easy in that we would lose faith in our Lord, so easy that we would stray even farther from the presence of God. When we experience persecution, we learn to depend on God for provision and strength. Our faith increases and we come into a deep relationship with Jesus, a relationship in which Jesus wants all of us to have with Him. We learn to trust God. We have to understand that God is always there for us and that everything happens for a reason according to His plan and His will. We can see this in Romans 8:28 and Jeremiah 29:11.
Over the last two months of lectures on the persecuted church, there have been some pretty amazing stories of persecution. Some very strong testimonies. One thing that I found in common with all of these stories is that they found persecution to be a blessing in that they grew closer to Jesus and found the strength, through him, to survive.You can find stories of persecution just about anywhere. Living in a country where we have freedom of religion doesn’t mean that there isn’t any persecution. They just experience persecution in a different way. A way in which makes it easier for people to believe in Jesus and also a way that makes it easy for people to reject Jesus in their lives. In closed countries, persecution is more physical. Such as torture and death. There are so many different forms of persecution but even with physical persecution, there comes a psychological effect on your mind as well. In countries where we don’t face fear of retribution for what we believe in, comes persecution that is more involved emotionally. For example, you are evangelizing on the street and you try to initiate a conversation with someone and they reject you. They tell you they don’t want to talk or listen to you. Experiencing rejection is a form of persecution.

For every story we hear as a DTS, we feel a sense of inspiration and motivation to help our brothers and sisters in persecution. Whether that be praying for them or going into action to help them, God wants us to do something! These stories of persecution give us hope and encouragement to grow closer to God and to live a life on the edge by following His plan for our lives!

Evangelism in Amsterdam

I have to admit that when we arrived in Amsterdam late Sunday evening, I wasnt looking forward to evangelizing. I was starting to think of the rejection that I might face and the fear of starting a conversation with a random stranger on the street. I am definitely not the type of person that does these sorts of things. It was a huge step out of my comfort zone. By the end of the week, I was suprised at how much stepping out of my safe bubble had changed my heart.

The first full day of evangelism we went to the city square, where there is a WWII Memorial, a carnival type thing with rides and alot of people roaming around. We went out with a group of about 2 or 3 and then for a few hours we tried to initiate conversations with people. I didn´t feel very effective that day because I didn´t feel like I was getting through to people. Sometimes I would be at a loss for words from a question they may ask and then later on I would be like, oh I know that answer. So that wasn´t a very good feeling. I felt like I was being attacked by the enemy, because I could hear it saying that I wasnt good enough to do this or I dont know enough or that Im not effective as an evangelist.

The funny thing is, I recognized I was being attacked but I still didnt pray about because I was starting to believe those lies. The next couple of days we did more and more evangelism on the streets. We used big white boards and carried them around with a question on it. A question such as, What is real love? or What is your destiny? or What question do you have for God? We would also just go up to people and introduce ourselves and try to start a conversation. For two of the days of evangelism, some people carried this large cross through the streets and into the square. I never stood by the cross, but some people were just interested in why we had a cross. Another conversation starter was chocolate. We asked people if they wanted chocolate and that usually could get a conversation going. On Thursday we had 3 or 4 groups of about 10 people each, go into the streets with some musical instruments such as a guitar and start worshipping God. That was a little hard for me at first but I actually really enjoyed worshipping God in public. It was so liberating. People would smile at us and some would come up to us or maybe take a picture. Even if we didnt talk to as many people as we had in the days before, we were really showing the love of Jesus by making people smile. I could really feel that God was very very happy with what we were doing. I could just picture a big smile on His face.

Even though there were people who werent at all accepting to what we had to say, It was such a blessing for them to allow us to pray for them. Prayer is such an incredibly powerful thing that can truly change people. I learned that even if you dont feel like they are at all listening to what you have to say, you are still planting a seed within their lives. Seeds grow into trees and trees produce fruit. It may take that person to hear the Gospel 30 times before they accept Jesus into their hearts. Even if you only get one word inside of their minds, it is still planting a seed within their lives. Accepting Jesus into your life is a decision that is completley out of free will. Love is not Love unless freely chosen. God is a God who created us out of free will. He gave us free will to choose whether or not we want to live in His presence or fall into the sinful desires of this world. He gave us free will because He loves us. Love is the basis in everything we do! Just think of how much the world would change if every person were to choose Jesus!! Anyways, I also learned that it is not our responsibility for someone to accept Jesus into their hearts. Its impossible for someone to accept Jesus without the working of the Holy Spirit. I finally realized this on Wednesday night and it made me feel so much better knowing that we cant be responsible for the people to take the free gift of eternal life. After Wednesday night, I knew that one word can make a difference between someone choosing eternal life or death. God is Amazing!

After our dts group was finished with the week, we could really see that people were hungry for something more. Something to save them from the emptiness and lonliness they may have been feeling. Something to give them peace and joy and love and laughter and a life full of blessing and a life full of purpose and fullfillment. Someone on our DTS had lived in Amsterdam for a short time and he was right when he said you could feel the dark, heavy, lonely, empty atmosphere hovering above the city. It literally brought tears to my eyes to see the women in the windows just waiting for some selfish dirty man to buy her for some sensless pleasure.

By the end of the week I felt so incredibly happy that I experienced street evangelism in full for the first time. I feel Gods heart for the lost, the broken and the needy. I feel what He feels and I hear what He hears. My heart breaks into pieces for those people who do not yet know Jesus. Its hard to fathom how many people need Jesus but arent willing to accept it. I want others to experience the peace, joy, love, happiness, fullfillment, purpose, and a life full of freedom through Jesus Christ. Freedom from sin, guilt and shame! Thats why Jesus died on the Cross!! So that we dont have to bear all the pain we may feel and the sin in our lives!

I now feel confident that I can talk to someone about Jesus without fear because I know that I can make a difference in their lives regardless of whether or not they do accept Jesus. Evangelism is so much fun and I had a blast!!!!!! Prayer is powerful in the lives of others, as well as in yours. God sure answered my prayers by the end of the week and I am so thankful for His consistent faithfulness. I will continue to pray for the people we touched this last week in hopes that they can connect those dots that have been placed in their lives. Amen!

Placing Jesus First

Over the last two weeks, the one thing that still stands out in my mind from the lectures is about surrendering your rights before Jesus. I did not quite understand the meaning of this at the beginning but it all started to fall together by mid week. Your rights can be anything that you feel you entitled to have as a human being that you put ahead of the Lord Jesus Christ (i.e. pride, independence, control, comfort, safety, happiness, financial stability, materialistic things, clean drinking water, decent size food portions, ect.) The question is, What do you hold so close to you that when asked by God to do something or to go somewhere you say, ”Ok Lord, but…” For example, you feel God is asking you to go to Eastern Europe and join a team of missionaries. The conditions where you will be living are going to be very primitive, with a completley different lifestyle than your own, with only a small blanket and a dirt floor to sleep on. You answer, ”Yes Lord I will go, but I must have a bed to sleep on first.” In this example, this person feels like he/she is entitled to comfort as a human being. You must askyourself if this right you have, whatever it may be (it can be pretty much anything) is getting in the way of answering God’s call on your life. We are called to surrender ourselves completely to Jesus and put all of our trust in Him. Luke 9:23, ”Then He said to them all, If anyone wants to come with Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow Me.” When we surrender, we don’t just surrender a few things here and there in our lives, we surrender everything! We surrender our cars, our money, our family, our comfort, our house and our lives completley to Jesus. It takes faith in Jesus Christ our Lord to let go of all that holds us back from following God’s plan for your life. By doing so, we place ourselves completely in the hands of Jesus! 1 John 1:5, ”God is light, and there is no darkness at all when in union with him.”

You will find the most blessing in your life by truly placing yourselves at the feet of Jesus. The blessings you receive from the Lord aren’t nescessarily going to be something that you personally desire, but what God knows will truly change you. Jesus Christ needs to be our #1 in our lives. Not our #2, #3 or #4. For if we do not trust the Lord with our lives then we cannot fully live in God’s presence. Place Jesus First!!! Ahead of EVERYTHING and ANYTHING!! Isaiah 43:2-3, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they will not flood over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched, Nor will the flame burn you. For I am the LORD your God, your Savior.” I encourage anyone reading this to sit down in a quiet place with your Bible and ask God to reveal to you what it is that you allow to go ahead of Jesus. Pray and be patient. James 4:8, ”Draw close to God, and he will draw close to you.”

Revelations 3:20, ”Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.”

Here is a great song by Jeremy Camp called Letting Go, it directly relates to surrendering or ”letting go”.

New Beginnings

Over the last 5 days I have traveled over 5,000 miles to Europe in the country of Holland city of Epe. I have met over 40 different people from all different backgrounds who are all so incredibly nice. I am really getting a taste of the Dutch culture and it is quite different than the United States. I am really starting to like the way of life of the Dutch. It´s so amazing to be with so many different people who are all here for two reasons, to know God and to make God known. This YWAM DTS was the best decision I have ever made, I will definitely look back on this and truly miss the friendships that I will make here. Communication is difficult without a phone to call from and internet access all the time, but I am managing. These first few days of the DTS have just been the introduction. I have talked with many different people for long periods of time and the Dutch students are very enthusiastic in teaching me some Dutch. I am starting to get a few phrases here and there haha but it is hard. I know that God is really going to transform me over the next 6 months as I really begin an authentic and close relationship with Jesus. This DTS will shape the man I will be for the rest of my life. I can´t wait to see whats next. Oh and the daily life on the Heidebeek base looks like this. Breakfast in the morning, tea-coffee breaks about 3 to 4 times a day haha, lunch, lectures, riding the bike to the classroom for a total of 4 miles a day. Its so relaxing and very nice. People ride more bikes here than they do cars so that is pretty cool. I am having a really good time and I will update as soon as I can for the next time!!!

Psalms Chapter 40

I am particularly fond of Ch. 40 of the Book of Psalms, specifically verse 8. But in general, this chapter really lifts me up and shows me just how much accepting Jesus as our Lord and Saviour really transforms our lives. Jesus lifts us up out of our sinful lives, out of depression, out of hatred, out of anger, out of jealousy and relieves us of our regret, shame and the guilt in our lives. This is true freedom!

Psalms 40 (NIV):

1 I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry. 2 He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. 3 He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear and put their trust in the Lord. 4 Blessed is the man who makes the Lord his trust, who does not look to the proud, to those who turn aside to false gods. 5 Many, O Lord my God, are the wonders you have done. The things you planned for us no one can recount to you; were I to speak and tell of them, they would be too many to declare. 6 Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but my ears you have pierced; burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not require. 7 Then I said, “Here I am, I have come– it is written about me in the scroll. 8 I desire to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart.” 9 I proclaim righteousness in the great assembly; I do not seal my lips, as you know, O Lord. 10 I do not hide your righteousness in my heart; I speak of your faithfulness and salvation. I do not conceal your love and your truth from the great assembly. 11 Do not withhold your mercy from me, O Lord; may your love and your truth always protect me. 12 For troubles without number surround me; my sins have overtaken me, and I cannot see. They are more than the hairs of my head, and my heart fails within me. 13 Be pleased, O Lord, to save me; O Lord come quickly to help me. 14 May all who seek to take my life be put to shame and confusion; may all who desire my ruin be turned back in disgrace. 15 May those who say to me, “Aha! Aha!” be appalled at their own shame. 16 But may all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you; may those who love your salvation always say, “The Lord be exalted!” 17 Yet I am poor and needy; may the Lord think of me. You are my help and my deliverer; O my God, do not delay.