Last Post

This will be my last post while still in Amsterdam. How crazy is it that I have already been here three months? I feel like I've only just started working, but when I really think back I have so many memories that it seems actually like I've been living in Amsterdam for years now. I feel such an attachment to the Shelter Ministry and to the city itself; while I'm happy to be going home to see my family, I'm going to miss this place. Rather than try to put into words my experience here, I'm going to do one last picture post! Thanks for reading my blog; I hope y'all enjoyed it, and got something out of my erratically posted ramblings. 

All the staff members/managers from the Jordan - we had an ice skating day!

People decorate their balconies in the most interesting ways. Yes, that is a cow.

Sunset from my room!

The graffiti matched the scooter perfectly; it reminds me of a set or something.

The Westerkerk is a very beautiful church that i bike past most days on my way to work.

I love all the plants on this houseboat! Their whole house is their garden!

On the way to work one day.

In the fall, all the ivy changes colors and it is spectacular. Guest starring a bike. 

So many canals, I want pictures of all of them!

Changing seasons....

....changing leaves!

From the window of the houseboat museum, which is absolutely precious.

This is not a picture of a person in black face, I swear! It's not a racist thing. It's part of Sinterklaas; instead of elves, Dutch people have Zwarte Pete or Black Peters. I don't even know how to explain this,  just accept it. 

Sunset on a stormy day!

I just really like sunsets ok?

Trusting God

I have an unhealthy addiction to reading. Reading in itself is not unhealthy, but I a problem with binge reading, where reading is literally all I will do for hours and hours until I find myself staying up crazy late because I just have to know how it ends and waking up in the morning (afternoon) with a serious reading hangover and no memory of the ending to the book I stayed up so late to finish.

 I have this problem because I can't stand not knowing how it all fits together. I will almost always try to finish a book in one sitting, now matter how long it is. It drives me crazy to see just one part of what I know is a larger story; I want to know all the details of the complete narrative, beginning to the end.
One of my biggest frustrations in life is not knowing my own story. I don't know where I'm gonna end up next or why or how what I'm doing now is going to effect me later. God has a plan for me, but God works in mysterious ways and as much as I love mysteries, I don't want to live in one. Trusting that God knew what He was doing in sending me here was the biggest obstacle I had to overcome in order to come to Amsterdam.

 When I initially had the idea to work here, I was completely enthused by it. School was making me so dissatisfied, I felt ready to really work and be involved in a ministry that I believe in. I was in the mood to work at something that felt tangible, rather than studying which was starting to feel pointless. Plus I had just read The Fault In Our Stars by John Green so I was eager to live in the city he describes so beautifully and with such love. Once I started the application process, however, I started to get kind of freaked out.

Missionaries are supposed to be outgoing, extroverted and energetic. I am none of those things.Working in a hostel requires a lot of interaction with people. In fact, so does evangelistic ministry work in general. Add to that living in a house with thirty other people and you have got an introverts worst nightmare. Being introverted is not a bad thing, but it does mean you have to know your own limits very well. The more I looked into the work I had ahead of me, the more it seemed like a challenge I was not ready to face. I started to doubt that this was was really where God wanted me; why would He want me doing work that I am completely unsuited for? Shouldn't I be doing something I'm actually good at, rather than exhausting myself trying to do something that someone else would be better at? I couldn't see how working at a hostel in Europe fit into my story at all; it seemed like I was trying to fit someone else's plot line into my life.

All I could do was pray about it. And every time I prayed about it I felt an unrelenting  peace about my decision. It seemed so obvious that God wanted me here and I couldn't come up with a good reason not to obey Him. My parents thought it was a good idea, I am a Dutch citizen so I didn't have to worry about coming over, and I had the money to pay for it. The only things holding me back were my doubts about my ability to handle it or, more accurately, my doubts about God's ability to work through my weakness. I didn't trust that God had a good plan in mind.

I wanted to know why God wanted me working here before I committed to obeying Him, but that's not how life works. You can't skip ahead a page and see how it turns out and there is no guarantee that the mystery will be solved at the end. You gotta just move forward in faith, trusting that God has already planned out the ending for you. So that's what I did! I kept moving forward, despite my fear, despite my lack of faith and it has paid off in so many ways.

God has used me is ways that I would never thought possible. I think every single week I end up leading a group or doing something that involves public speaking in some way. It's good to do things that I don't have confidence in, because then I am really aware of God being present and working things out. Working here has pushed me out of comfort zone, but also provided opportunities to use my strengths. It just so happened that they need someone to help rewrite the website and, as you will hopefully agree, writing is one of my strengths. Being able to balance out the times where I have to talk with guests and lead group activities and do all kinds of things that are scary to me with shifts where I get to do work that I am  confident in has been a huge blessing. God actually does know how much we can handle and gives us accordingly.

Now that I only have a few weeks left here, I'm starting to look ahead to the future again and it is as uncertain as ever. I don't know where I'll be in the coming months. I don't know what skills I've picked up here that I can use or how I'm going to use these experiences. I don't even know where I want to be, but I do know that my future is in God's hands and that God is good. That's all I really need to know to be confident.

Quite The Busy Day

Days here can start early. This particular day I'm gonna describe technically started at 6:45 when my alarm went off, but to be perfectly honest, I didn't get out of bed for another 20 minutes. By biking like a maniac I managed to get to work, if not exactly on time, almost on time at 7:35. Bethie, my partner in cafe, was already setting up the batter and bread for our main task of the morning: making French Toast. I set up some things for the cold breakfast options, turned on some music, and made myself a mocha because there was no way I would survive without some major caffeine in me. 

Before every shifts at the Shelter, we gather together and pray for each other and for the guests. After reading some in God's Word and praying for fifteen minutes, the manager smiled at Bethie and me and asked us who was on reception and who was cafe. Confused we looked at each other and explained that we were both on cafe, as is normal on a Friday. As it turned out, Ryan was supposed to be on reception and had overslept. The nightman stayed a few extra minutes and covered for him, so that worked out just fine. 

The morning cafe shift is usually quite busy, because breakfast is complimentary so everyone wants one. We have a few options for breakfast, which sometimes takes a while to explain to non-native English speakers. Fortunately breakfast is delicious, so language difficulties aside, people usually leave happy. 

Having already had our major rush fairly early and with a surplus of French Toast in the pan, Bethie and I felt confident enough to turn off and clean the grill half an hour early. Our confidence was misplaced and we received five more orders which we had to make in a pan on the stove instead. We had to close the kitchen a bit late, but at least the grill was clean early. 

The second part of morning cafe is cleaning the kitchen and preparing for lunch. For lunch we set up a table with bread and sandwich making supplies, plus leftovers from the night before if we have any. We opened the fridge, ready to get out cucumbers, tomatoes, etc, only to find that we had somehow run out of every single vegetable and the nest delivery wasn't due to arrive for three days. I was at a complete loss, but Bethie had the idea to use some left over noodles to improvise a pesto pasta dish instead of the normal spread. About halfway through making this masterpiece, our progress was interrupted by the very early arrival of the Monday delivery. While Bethie finished up the pasta, I sorted out the new veggies and set out the usual spread in addition to the pasta. Fortunately in addition to the normal staff members and cleaners eating lunch, we had some former staff and guests, so everything got eaten. 

My shift ended at one, so I headed home after lunch. After a bit of a rest, I did my weekly chore of cleaning the showers. Cleaning the drains is not so pleasant, but I prefer to sign up for it because otherwise I tend to blame whoever was supposed to clean for the nasty smell that develops every two days. If I clean it, then I know that it was clean at one point at least and that it is no ones fault there is no ventilation in the bathroom (seriously, though, the windows don't even open. It's awful and muggy and smelly). 

After taking a shower myself, I headed back to the hostel to help with hostel night! Every other Friday we provide a free dinner for the guests, with some sort of theme and a Christian message. This nights theme was "Funfusing", meaning fun and confusing. We played some games, which were very confusing at my table especially. There was four of us: me, a girl from Taiwan who spoke English pretty well, a girl from France who spoke less English, and a guy from Italy who really did not speak English at all. We made it work and had a lot of laughs despite the language barrier! Elizabeth spoke for a bit about how in the confusion of life, God is a constant. After the dinner was over, guests stayed in the cafe playing some of the games we provided. It is such a good feeling to be part of a team bringing people together like that.

Finally my work was done for the day, so I headed back to the community house where I hung out with fellow staff members and got to skype with some friends back home.

So that's what a day here can be like! Some days it's way less busy and other days it feels like I'm living at the hostel. Even though it's an inconsistent way to live, I like it for now. 

Confirmation

Living in a foreign country, volunteering as a full time job, and sharing a house with 20+ other girls and 4 guys can be really friggin hard sometimes! In addition to dealing with all of that, I'm also trying to figure what to do after this: where to go to school, what to study, what I want to do with the rest of life, etc. As much as I love being here, I have occasionally regretted my decision to come, sometimes feeling unsure if this was the right decision. It's not always fun, especially on long days.

Mondays and Wednesdays are always long days, because in addition to having a normal shift, we also attend the Ministry Training Program on those days. MTPs usually consist of a guest speaker (a theologian, a missionary, one of the managers) giving a talk on something related to working in ministry or just being a Christian for about 2 1/2 hours. They can be really interesting, but when you've already had to wake up at 6:30 that morning in order to make a million pancakes, it can be hard to focus.

This past Monday, however, was about prayer. The last hour was set aside for us to spend in prayer; the speaker set up a several stations to pray for specific things and one station where he would pray over us. I spent some time in the requests station, praying for several different things, then moved to the forgiveness station. As I was praying at the second station, I thought of a request I had forgotten. I asked God to show my what my strength is, meaning somehow during the rest of my time here reveal something I'm good at so that I can sort out what to do schoolwise. I wasn't expecting any sort of concrete answer or anything, I just kinda threw it out there and then got on with my praying for forgiveness. 

When it was time for me to pray with the speaker, I sat down, introduced myself and he replied, "The joy of the Lord is your strength." I was so surprised! The speaker went on to pray with me, repeating several times, "The joy of the Lord is your strength." It took me a while to process getting an answer so quick and not at all the answer I was expecting. Instead of giving me some sort of outline for my future, God gave me hope. If my strength is through God, then I can do anything. I don't have to worry about picking the perfect school or major, because no matter where I end up I will have joy from God. I don't have to regret being here because He is so clearly speaking to me and how amazing is that! With one sentence, God totally confirmed that coming here was a good decision.

Joy is not something we should take for granted; it's a fruit of the Spirit, a gift straight from God to us (Galatians 6:22 yo)! Joy from the Spirit is pure and lovely and exactly what I need to focus on when life seems hard. Through Him, it is good!

{http://typographicverses.com/}

Pics, pow!

I'm doing another picture post, aw yeah. One of the things that I have found surprisingly beautiful in Amsterdam is the graffiti. The contrast between the highlighter bright colors and the brown, faded brick walls has a surreal effect. Amsterdam is all about unexpected combinations and collaborations between seemingly opposing resources. To me, graffiti is the perfect visual example of this spirit of beauty being created in a fresh way and being found in strange places.

I was biking back from work the other day, when I saw this piece that initially intrigued me because it was in English and seemed to be about America.

Later that day I saw a similar piece, that equally caught my attention and had the same tag. Now I was doubly intrigued!

The next day I was totally surprised to find a third Laser 3.14 tag. I did some research and found out that Laser 3.14 is a famous street artist in Amsterdam whose work graces both the streets and art galleries.

I bike by this door every day and it still continues to fascinate me how it continues to evolve. I took a picture of this stage because I was struck how the woman appears to be crying. The poster ripping to reveal the blue underneath completely changed my perspective of it. 

I just liked the colors on this one! No deeper interpretation, just general appreciation for the beauty and creativity found in Amsterdam.

Everyone's Story

Posts have been few and far between ever since I started this blog. It's not from lack of effort to put together a post; it's from indecision. I simply have too many stories and thoughts and things to share with y'all! Every day I meet new people from all around the world and everyone has a story.

There's the Muslim man who could not believe the peace he found staying at a Christian hostel. The girls from Hawaii who didn't even intend to come to Amsterdam, but after a delayed flight ended up staying two days and attending church with me. The Mexican architect who struggled with speaking English, but still attended our evening prayer. The Texan who was incredibly fussy about all his food, but enjoyed speaking with us about the differences in churches in America and churches here in Holland.

Two nights ago, a physicist from Israel taught us line dancing at open mic night. When we closed the evening with prayer, he was shocked to learn that we didn't have to go to church to pray, that he could pray with us right there in the cafe. It was his first time experiencing Christian prayer.

A Korean man came planning on spending a week with us, but has kept extending his booking so that he has nearly been with us a month now. He eats most of his meals with us and attends every Bible discussion, always eager to learn and to share his knowledge of the Word. When I asked him why he choose to spend his vacation in Amsterdam rather than moving on, he replied that God had sent him here.

Then, there's the Albanian man who initially came to Amsterdam to reconnect with his son, but had difficulty with his ex-wife and was unable to meet with his son after all. When he first showed up at the hostel, he was contemplating suicide, wondering if there was a way to donate all his organs so that his death would benefit society. After talking to staff members, he became less attracted to suicide and more attracted to God. He also has continually extended his booking and, in fact, become good friends with the Korean man. The longer he stays with us, the more he opens up to the hope of Jesus Christ.

The problem with most of these stories is that they don't have a complete ending. I don't know what conclusion the Muslim man came to about finding peace at a Christian hostel. I don't know if the physicist thought any deeper about our evening prayer. I don't know if the Albanian has accepted Christ into his life. All I have is hope that somehow we have helped them on their path to God. I know God has a plan for all of the people who come through our hostel and while we might have an impact on their lives, we may never know. All we can do is trust that God knows what it is they need and to do our best to serve God by serving them.

Pics Now, Post Toast

I have no idea when I'm going to finish writing an actual post, so here are some pictures of places I've been instead!

This is the Norde Kerk or North Church, located about 2 minutes from where I live. There is a food market here every Saturday and a market with clothes and thrift store stuff every Monday. Also I think this is where my parents got married! I am not positive though, parents please confirm. (edit: confirmed!)

Me and my new bestie. Taken at Waterlooplein Market, guest starring Mary's bright blue jeans.

I love the houseboats everywhere! I would like San Antonio a lot more if there were houseboats on the River Walk.

The view from the seventh floor of the library is one of the most amazing in Amsterdam. Plus the building itself is absolutely gorgeous. The interior feels like an Apple Store mixed with a warm, cozy cabin. It's modern, but so comfortable.

 It rains a lot, but I have only seen one rainbow. It was a gorgeous one though

 This is the street where I live! I'm lucky.

More houseboat goodness. I just love the little entranceway on this one!

 I just thought this building was pretty. And look how blue the sky is here!

Amsterdam at night! Plus another houseboat, this one featuring sparkling lights, ohhhhhhhh

Training and Training and Training and...

I cannot believe I have already been here three weeks. I don't feel like I have learned enough for it to have been three weeks already! It seems like just yesterday I was arriving here early in the morning, so early that no one was awake to answer the door. So early, that I just kept on ringing the bell until someone let me in. So early that once I finally made it into the building, my sleep deprived brain told me I had to force myself to stay awake for the entire day, prompting me to attend a small group breakfast and Bible study despite my fatigue. I made it through the breakfast, but fell asleep about ten seconds into the Bible study. Not a great first impression probably! I managed to make it through the rest of a day that felt very long indeed and started work the very next evening.

My first training shift was evening cafe, normally a shift that requires very little cooking. However, this night happened to be a hostel night meaning we were supposed to provide food for everyone who attended: about 30 people. Plus the guy they assigned to train me, Ryan, is actually a senior receptionist, who has only worked in the kitchen maybe five times. It was close, but we managed to get the food out in time. Trainers without a lot of experience is kind of a recurring theme here at the hostel. Lukas, who trained me on morning cafe had apparently not done morning cafe for five years. Not weeks or months, years. Thankfully there is a checklist of things you need to finish each cafe shift, so we were able to follow that.

For cafe, you only get three training shifts, and then you are on your own. Then, after being on your own for two days, you are apparently ready to train other people. I arrived at the hostel about a week before a major transition of staff. In the span of about three days, most of the old staff left and a whole ton of new people arrived. This meant people who hadn't been here very long and didn't have a lot of experience in the kitchen were expected to know things well enough to explain it to other people. I trained Molly on the afternoon cafe shift, which meant making dinner, despite the fact that I had only been on that shift once before. We had many questions about the chicory casserole we were expected to make, including "How do we turn on the oven?" and "Where are the potatoes?" and "What is a chicory?". Fortunately, there was someone being trained on reception that day as well, so whenever it was slow, one of the receptionist would come and help us out.

Now I am again finishing up a series of trainings. This week, I was trained on reception as I mentioned in my last post. My first shift on my own is Monday, so please keep that in your prayers! My training has gone well, though. Reception is a neat job, because you get the chance to introduce people to the idea of a Christian hostel when they check-in and you get to see how it's effected them when they check-out. It's really amazing to hear so many people tell me they can feel something different about this hostel, that they can sense a calm here they don't feel in other parts of the city. It's a great opening to talk to them about the presence of God and often people are actually willing to talk about it. One morning I met a woman\named Julia who seemed very reserved and reluctant to talk. That evening, I sat down with her and another staff member, Thirza, to eat dinner and to my surprise Julia completely opened up. She explained that she wanted to know more about God, but had always found church to be uninviting and hard to understand. Being in the atmosphere of our hostel, however, she felt welcomed and able to talk about God and ask questions that she normally would feel uncomfortable sharing. I don't know if she is a Christian now, but I do know we made an impression on her life that God can use. And ultimately that's what this is about: talking to people to the best of our ability and leaving it up to God to change their hearts. No matter how much training we have or how prepared we feel, God can always use us in some way.

Pics Now, Post Later

I'm not sure when I'll get the next post up (hopefully later today) so here are some pictures of the view out my window to make y'all super jealous.

A Video I Did Not Make

This video explains everything I wrote in my last post, but in video format. Enjoy!

What This Ministry Is

Most of y'all probably have never heard of The Shelter Youth Hostel Ministry and have no idea what I am even doing here. I only know about it because it's a part of my family history: my parents met working here way back when, despite the rule against dating (yes, there is a rule against dating here haha to everyone convinced I'm coming back married. I'm not a rule breaker, unlike some people). Since I've basically grown up hearing about this place, it's actually kinda strange to me that not everyone immediately understands what I mean when I say I'm volunteering at a Christian Youth Hostel.

First of all a hostel is not a brothel. A surprising amount of people make that mistake, including one of my friends' boyfriend, who was under the impression that I was moving to Amsterdam to be a Christian prostitute. A hostel is a basically a cheap hotel, where you share a dorm and bathroom with several different people. Our largest dorm has 18 beds in it and our smallest has 4.

The Shelter Ministry consists of two different hostels: Shelter City and Shelter Jordan. The City is a large hostel located right on the edge of the red light district. The Jordan, where I work, is located in the Jordaan district (hence the name) and is small for a hostel, with less than 100 beds. It's much more calm than the City, where they frequently deal with people coming in high or drunk.

What we try to do is provide an atmosphere where travelers feel relaxed and to create opportunities in which we can talk to our guests about the gospel. We do this through several different methods, most of which just involve getting to know our guest. Every night we have a Bible discussion, at which we provide free drinks and cookies and Bibles. On Saturdays, we do city walks which are short tours of the city. On Friday's we have different events, such as Hostel Night where we provide free food in addition to some sort of entertainment (last week was an improv comedy night) or we do Open Mic Nights. We also try to eat meals with our guests and just spend time with them.

Almost everyone who works at the hostel is a volunteer, apart from the managers and the cleaners. The cleaners work for us for around a month, cleaning the bedrooms and bathrooms in exchange for room and board. Some are Christians, but many are not so we also try to minister to them.

Day to day work means working in the cafe, working reception, or working as a cleaning supervisor. I have been doing cafe work up till now, cooking and cleaning, etc, but will start training on Monday to work reception! I'm quite nervous about it because reception is more responsibility, so prayer would be nice! I think that explains the work pretty well. Next post will be about living here in the community, stay tuned!

What This Blog Is

Hello and welcome to my blog! This is where I will keep y'all updated on my work here in Amsterdam. I plan on writing about both things strictly related to the ministry and things just about living here, so be prepared for both. If you aren't interested in hearing about just day to day things, then don't read those posts. I will probably also ask for prayer about specific things from time to time; I really would appreciate all the prayer possible! Ministry work runs on prayer from people physically working in it and from people supporting from the outside. Thank you for taking the time to look up my blog and I hope you enjoy what you read!