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.
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Friday, November 9, 2012
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.
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.
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