I’ve been meaning to blog for a while now, but never quite make it. Sometimes due to busyness, other times the internet stops working, or I simply get distracted. Right now there is no internet, but hopefully I can post this tomorrow, if I remember... The seminar is drawing to a close. I’m finally finished with the variety of assignments due (slavery map, book report, research project, presentations etc.) and now we’re in the final week leading up to the Network Gathering for work against Human Trafficking in YWAM Europe this weekend. It’s been an amazing 6 weeks of learning so much about so many different aspect of Human Trafficking. I have much to process and understand and think and pray about. What a privilege to be allowed to be here and learn this. I get to lead a time of intercession at the Network Gathering. A tad daunting to be leading 50-60 YWAMers. I love intercession, but more doing it then leading it. Still it’s another opportunity to grow with Jesus. As I was strolling around Amsterdam today in the gorgeous spring weather (eating my Belgian Chocolate ice cream) I was just asking God for strategy. How can I communicate not just that we need to pray, but really get hearts connected to intercession? How can I clearly pass on the revelation that things really do happen and that we need to not just be connected with the issue of Human Trafficking, but even more with God’s heart for it, which is so much deeper but also lighter to bear? I am glad I still have a few days to figure that out. In 10 days I fly home to Norway. Still not sure about the way forward, but today I had some more thoughts then other days, and hopefully by the time I leave there will be, if not a clear plan, some more clarity to the vagueness. But I have so much peace right now. Peace and joy and just feel so confident in God. I know my confidence shouldn’t and isn’t based on how I feel, because I can be confident in Him, because He is committed to me and faithful. But it is kind of nice when the feelings are there also, and in this very moment I feel at rest in confidence in Him (if that makes sense at all).
Just look like Jesus.
Today we had an amazing guy speak to us who is head of YWAM Mercy ministries. And it was so good to hear him speak about reaching out in the world. We just need to look around and see with Jesus’ eyes and do what He would do. It’s so simple and so profound. We are called to love and that can look like many different things.
Isolated in the midst of a group.
The other morning I went to a BodyBalance class which was really good. But as we were doing the final relaxation and the instructor was instructing in Dutch and I could understand hardly anything, it felt so surreal. Like I was in a different world. Shut out by not understanding the language. It was a strange feeling. It felt very calm and peaceful and safe in a strange way... I think because the lack of understanding removed the responsibility to respond. It wasn’t like I had to choose obey the instructions or not. I didn’t understand them and trying to wouldn’t have helped. So I could just relax; which was the purpose of the final part of the class anyways. And then I started thinking about people who are deaf. On the outside you would think they would understand if talked to, yet they are isolated by the lack of hearing. Or people in the same situation as me; present with no visual indicators that they don’t understand the language, yet talking could be going on around them and they separated by the barrier of language.
Calm in the city.
One Sunday morning I was strolling from the Poort (YWAM base) to the Lighthouse (ministry building in Red Light District). It was before nine, and being a Sunday the city was quite deserted, except for a few sporadic people. It was so peaceful to walk and I found myself taking in some of the little things that make this city beautiful. The architecture seems so detailed, and I was thinking how at some point a person thought of how to do it and how it’s almost a little reflection of something within that person. Some houses had the plant that grows on the wall of the house. And I wondered if it would have flowers on it when spring truly comes. And then there were snowbells springing up in a little flowerbed next to the pavement. So clean and pure and full of life. Looking into the canal I saw a few swans swimming by. It reminded me of the story of the ugly duckling and how she became a swan and how even something that seems ugly can become beautiful. And then I remember how someone said that there didn’t use to be swans in the canals in the Red Light District, until one day a bunch of them suddenly appeared. And to me they remind me of beauty, pure beauty and life and elegance. The way they carry themselves is so dignified, and then I was thinking that that is what Jesus longs to give the women in the windows. Dignity and life. Where they feel truly beautiful because God says they’re beautiful.