A Weekend in Amsterdam

Living in Europe has a lot of advantages. This weekend, I was able to travel to Amsterdam, Netherlands to visit the Grand Valley State Cru Spring Break team! They spent their spring break on some of the campuses in Rotterdam, doing various ministry activities with the staff of Life Agape [Campus Crusade’s International name].

My journey actually began Friday morning around 9am. My roommate and I took the train into Paris. We were meeting up with the Paris Metro team, who do campus ministry in Paris. We met Margo, one of the team members, at her apartment then headed to the university. The Life Agape staff led us, two of Margo’s teammates, and 4 students in a short devotion. We focused on prayer, the power it has, and how it can bless others. We paired up and prayer walked the campus.

I partnered with Heidi, one of the Life Agape staff. As we walked around, we approached people explaining we were praying for Paris, the campus and wanted to see if they had anything we could pray for as well.

The spiritual atmosphere of youth in Paris, well Europe in general, is very apathetic or nonexistent. Almost everyone turned us down. As we walked, Heidi brought up the story about Philip when he was led by the Spirit to a man in chariot to pray for him. Not ten minutes later, we approached this girl sitting on a bench in the garden. When we asked if there was anything we could pray for her about, she declined and said she was an atheist. Heidi noticed she was reading a bible, and asked if she had any questions about what she was reading. She said no, that it was only for class. We were still curious, so Heidi asked if she could ask one more question: “what book are you reading?” She responded “Job.” Talk about meaty stuff!

1. It is ridiculously rare to see a student reading a bible on campus, much less a non-believer!

2. I just wonder what this girl was thinking after we left – reading the bible for class, and two Christians come up and ask if there is anything they can pray for.

3. Please pray for her! We didn’t exchange names, so I’ll call her “Sofia”. Pray that God would continue to make Himself know to Sofia and that see would see that, rather than conscience. Pray also that God would lead more Christians in to Sofia’s life and that she would start having deep questions about God.

After our time of ministry was done for the day, I eventually headed to the airport to fly to Amsterdam! I was so pumped to see some old friends, hear how their week doing ministry in Rotterdam went, and share with them all about STINT and Summer Project.

During the flight, I started talking with two American girls sitting near me. They were studying abroad in Paris and headed to Amsterdam for a weekend of fun – and by fun, they meant legal drugs and partying.

To be honest, it caught me off guard. I casually tried to ask why they did drugs, being one who has never been high. “It makes life better”, “It makes me numb”, “It feels good.” I was saddened for them. In return, they asked why I was headed to Amsterdam. I saw this as an opportunity to bring up Spiritual subjects and hoped I could lead into sharing the gospel. Both had gone to church and labeled themselves as ‘Catholic’. Neither felt that it was the right time in their life to go to church or “get into that stuff.” They then bi-passed questions I followed up with, and led the conversation onto other things.

I did get these girls names: Kaitlyn and Leeda. Please also pray for them – they are trying to find satisfaction in material things. Pray that they would see that NOW is always the right time to meet with God.

Once we landed, my next task was to figure out how to get to the hotel. The information desk suggested a train then tram. I’ve learned some ‘travel smarts’ these past couple months so I knew I’d be fine.

As I walked up to the hotel, Kelsey Perras, Erin King and Curtis Blackwell were waiting for me! It was so refreshing to see them! We dropped my stuff off in the room and went out to explore and get a late dinner. Back at our room, I got caught up on life with Erin and Kels! Bless their souls; they shared their bed with me. One word: SPOONING.

The next morning, I was reunited with the rest of the group and we all headed to the Anne Frank house museum. It was really interesting to be walking through the historical place this little girl wrote in her journal of her secret, sad life. Afterwards, we all headed to a pancake place for some European style pancakes! I actually got one with spinach, garlic oil, goat cheese and pine nuts. It was so delicious!

Pancakes!

Through out the day, I was able to have many good conversations with some individuals on the team about STINT and also Summer Project. I think talking about STINT also helped me process a little what I have been doing these past 5 months. I can’t believe STINT is half over!

Some of the Spring Break team

The next morning, the team left the hotel at 7:45 am. I walked with them to the bus stop and said our last “see you laters”, and I went back to bed! Later in the morning, I packed, checked out and walked the streets of Amsterdam in leisure.

Amsterdam

Sooo many bikes!

I got some last minute souvenirs and headed to the airport... and now I am back at my apartment, ready for another week!

Until next time...

Campus time!

My STINT team and myself went to “de-code” the local college campus a couple weeks ago. What's "de-coding" you ask? As a team, we observe the campus, students, hot spots, passing hours, fashion, and things like that to help familiarize us with the campus. At lunch, we met some students, which was a bit interesting, as most of them did not speak English! Fortunately, one of my team members, Nalani, speaks French pretty fluently and was able to be the bridge of communication. [Hopefully soon, the rest of us will have the basic conversational skills to communicate for ourselves!] One of the girls we met, Celia, wants to hang out and also practice her English!

Last week, we went into Paris to team up with the Paris Metro STINT team - they are campus staff as opposed to office staff, like me! The campus was similar to the campus we went to the week before. I was paired up with Jen, one of the team leaders of the Paris Metro team. We ventured out into the cafeteria, around lunch time to meet some students. (French colleges tend to have class 9-12, lunch from 12-2 and then class 2-6.) We ended up sitting with two different groups of girls who spoke some english. We casually started the conversation, asking what they do for fun on the weekends, what they are studying etc. As the conversation continued, we explained that we are working for a non-profit organization, asking students their point of view of spiritual topics. Sadly, neither of the girls from the first group had an opinion. As our conversation continued with them, I found it hard to take things to a deeper level.

The second group of girls sat down next to us mid-conversation with the first group. I started talking to them, asking similar questions to break the ice. I learned that each of them were Muslim and also did not really have an opinion of Jesus. They seemed to "bob and weave" the more thought-provoking questions I asked about spirituality.

Later, when I was debriefing with Jen, she explained that is the typical atmosphere on any college campus in France.

If you think about it, it make sense. Logically, if you don't grown up attending some sort of religious organization, you tend to not have a care, opinion or value about spiritual things - why? - because you don't know any better! Europe has been spiritually dead for a long time and it is evident in the responses given by college students.

Fortunately, God is faithful and Sovereign and can do anything even with the brief spiritual conversations we had with those girls.

Please pray for Europe. Yes, that's big, but God is bigger.
Please pray for the 5 girls Jen and I were able to connect with - that God can use anything for His greater good!
Please pray for encouragement, faithfulness and fruit for the Paris Metro team - this is what they face everyday. They have started an "English club" for French students to practice English - great relationship building opportunities!