One and half week ago we had guests from six different nations. Five new volunteers from Belgium, Germany, Great Britain, Lithuania and Poland came for ‘Taster Weekend’. Taster Weekend is to see what life in Mission House is about and to get a first impression of work in social projects.

I still remember when I came for this weekend one year ago. I was terribly nervous, afraid of speaking English and being on my own with a group of totally unknown people. My parents remember me coming back home with a smile from ear to ear.

Although we don’t know what Annabell, Elze, Hannah, Mehdi and Gregor (three volunteers couldn’t join us because of very important examinations) have told their parents and friends we utterly enjoyed having them here.

It was great fun to prepare a weekend with renting bicycles for visiting a whole slew of different projects we work in, to wake up at 7 o’clock to make breakfast for all of them, to restrain my time under the shower and to have a Sunday service with and about Mission House in the Lutheran Church in Amsterdam.

We also experienced ‘Herdenkingsdag’ and “Bevrijdingsdag’ (National Memorial Day and Liberation Day) on 4 and 5 May.

The thoughts turn to those who were killed by the Nazi dictatorship in World War II and those who died fighting for freedom. We attended a wreath-laying ceremony with Queen Beatrix, Prince Willem-Alexander and other nameable personalities on Dam square.

For me it was very touching, also because I knew that it was the very first time that a German president was invited to give a speech in the Netherlands. After 67 years there should be a chance to be approaching each other even though the existing reservations are very comprehensible.

On Liberation Day we went to an astounding and grandiose concert on (!) the Amstel. Watching and listening to an impressive program of various pieces of music presented by famous singers, dancers and other artists was worth waiting and standing for almost two hours.

The Lutheran church invited us to a Sunday service to tell about the experiences we’ve made in the Mission House and in our working projects since our welcoming and blessing service in September last year. We showed a self-made movie with drawings, slide shows and speeches. Highly recommended!

During the afternoon we saw the new Mission Housers heading for home. Now it’s really apparent that there are only a few weeks left for us.

We hope that they enjoyed it as well and wish them all the best for Mission House 2012-13!

Day One. (There is a new way of counting the days. The week starts with Thursday because of the housemeetings on Wednesday. Wednesday, Wednesday, the special way, You became the most important day of the week! When eveything becomes clear (mysterious music)…)

It’s 12th April today (what surprising information!). It was a mostly sunny day. I looked out the window before leaving home and checked three cyclist’s clothes to decide if it’s a jumper/hoody- day or still a coat-day… It was a coat-day according to them..

For some of us – for me, at least – it was a usual Thursday, with one unusuality, which was drinking a nice tea outside with Christie and Kaisla. Than I continued the day as usual.

But, there is always a BUT (OK, maybe not always but quite a lot of times). This “but” is now about those of us, who did something special today. About those heroes (magnificent music), who got up early in the morning (which means 5am,  4.45am for Christie, who made coffee and tea for everyone. She is an angel, now it’s completely sure (heavenly music).), and cycled 17 km to Aalsmeer to see and experience the flower auction. I can’t really talk about it, because, as above mentioned, I wasn’t there, but we have some photo’s about it. And as they said, it was really really good. And, before I forget, our guest, Robi (a former Mission Houser from Hungary), who also joined the trip, said that he liked it too.

The day’s next good event was a very delicious English (feat. Scottish) breakfast-dinner, with lots of kinds of meat, and then vegetables and eggs, and everything, that belongs there. Thanks for it again!

And now, lets see the pictures!!

Day Two

- Friday, 13th.

- Waking up. (Thirty minutes after the first ringing of the alarm clock.. Why do I still think, after 20 years’ experience, that I am able to wake up after hearing the first ring?! Hope never dies..)

- Going to our projects.

- Being at the project. Getting a phone call from Kaisla: she asks, if I am interested in going with the group to the cinema. I am interested.

- Watching the rain. Trying to find a rainbow. Then giving it up.

- Going to a museum. Taking pictures, being happy. (Kaisla, Christie, Willemijn)

- Going home from the project. Cycling in the rain.

- At home. Doubting about going to the cinema. Then deciding.

- Having a very nice dinner again, today by Willemijn. Thanks!

- Muntplein, Titanic, girl’s giggling (us involved) in the room, when Leonardo DiCaprio appears  on screen with his 3D-smile, in his (borrowed) suit.

- Cycling home.

- Going to sleep soon.

- Good night, good day, nice weekend!

Day Three

Saturday /Old English: Sæterdæg, Sæternesdæg, lit. “day of the planet Saturn,” from Sæternes (gen. of Sætern, see Saturn) + O.E. dæg “day.” Partial loan-translation of L. Saturni dies “Saturn’s day” (cf. Du. zaterdag, O.Fris. saterdi, M.L.G. satersdach; Ir. dia Sathuirn, Welsh dydd Sadwrn). The L. word is itself a loan-translation of Gk. kronou hemera, lit. “the day of Cronus.” Unlike other day names, no god substitution seems to have been attempted, perhaps because the northern European pantheon lacks a clear corresponding figure to Roman Saturn. An ancient Nordic custom, however, seems to be preserved in O.N. laugardagr, Dan. lørdag, Swed. lördag “Saturday,” lit. “bath day” (cf. O.N. laug “bath”). Ger. Samstag (O.H.G. sambaztag) appears to be from a Gk. *sambaton, a nasalized colloquial form of sabbaton “sabbath,” also attested in O.C.S. sabota, Rus. subbota, Fr. samedi. Saturday night has been famous for “drunkenness and looseness in relations between the young men and young women” since at least mid-19c. Saturday-night special “cheap, low-caliber handgun” is Amer.Eng., attested from 1976 (earlier Saturday-night pistol, 1929). (http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=Saturday)

That was a very calm day, with a nice weather outside. (This is just a question, I mean about the weather, which a person here in the Netherlands is always busy with.) I met everyone at the same time only at dinner. (We had some pizza,  salad, ice cream with a pudding and ice cream with coffee – this is the other question, I mean the food, which is also always a topic in the Mission House. But only after other very important and much more serious issues, of course.)

Everyone had something to do today:

The boys were out of Amsterdam. Simon went to Antwerpen, Belgium, and he was completely blown away by the Saint James’ church in the heart of ‘such a vibrant city showing such an eclectic mix of modernity with rich heritage, so prominently displayed, uniquely, in each of its flowing streets’ (Simon). Lennard visited Wageningen to participate at the open day of the university there. Christie went for a jog and then to the city. Kaisla spent her time also in the city, enjoying the weather and trying to visit the opera with her friend (they were too late). Willemijn had a trip to Utrecht, and drank a good coffee. And me… I was just ‘saturdaying’ – I didn’t really do anything (special).

The current (9.59pm) activities in the house are: chatting; asking for a music and eating ice cream (it’s Peter a Hungarian volunteer); writing a postcard (Willemijn, of course, she is probably one of the biggest fans of postcards in the world, she is particularly interested in the ugly ones.); listening to the music that Peter chose (Pendulum: Watercolour); telling stories and giggling about them… and finally, finishing with the writing now.

Good night!

Day Four

15th April. Sunday.

Antoine  de Saint-Exupéry: The Little Prince

Chapter 6

Oh, little prince! Bit by bit I came to understand the secrets of your sad little life… For a long time you had found your only entertainment in the quiet pleasure of looking at the sunset. I learned that new detail on the morning of the fourth day, when you said to me:

“I am very fond of sunsets. Come, let us go look at a sunset now.”

“But we must wait,” I said.

“Wait? For what?”

“For the sunset. We must wait until it is time.”

At first you seemed to be very much surprised. And then you laughed to yourself. You said to me:

“I am always thinking that I am at home!”

Just so. Everybody knows that when it is noon in the United States the sun is setting over France.

If you could fly to France in one minute, you could go straight into the sunset, right from noon. Unfortunately, France is too far away for that. But on your tiny planet, my little prince, all you need do is move your chair a few steps. You can see the day end and the twilight falling whenever you like…

“One day,” you said to me, “I saw the sunset forty-four times!”

And a little later you added:

“You know– one loves the sunet, when one is so sad…”

“Were you so sad, then?” I asked, “on the day of the forty-four sunsets?”

But the little prince made no reply.

(http://home.pacific.net.hk/~rebylee/text/prince/contents.html; 15.04.2012)

Day Six

Tuesday, Seventeenth Of April.

About the weather, first. Today it was cloudy and rainy. That kind of day, when one constantly feels that it is four o’clock in the afternoon, all day (on a normal, not that cloudy day…).

What did we do today?

Christie was at her Tuesday-project (quite logically), named Thuiskomen (a church community project). First she had a cup of tea and then she went to do the shopping for the dinner with the chef of the evening. They went to a couple of shops and to the market (for the fresh vegetables). Then the cooking started. The menu was: stuffed peppers, spicy rice and vegetables. The dessert was strawberries and cream. After cleanin up, Christie came home, around 10pm, and she had another tea at home.

Kaisla went to Kuria, the hospice. She ironed for more than an hour, and did the housework, and she was visiting the bewoners (‘residents’). Afterwards she spent her time in a café reading a letter and had a conversation in Dutch, which made her really happy. (The man, she was talking to, didn’t even try to switch to English, which is really a good thing. Mostly, if someone notices that you’re not a native Dutch-speaker, and that you might have difficulties with the language, they switch to English to help you. Kaisla is, by the way, very smart with this – and also other – language(s).)

Lennard had today more duties in his projects. First he was the receptionist in De Kloof (a drop in centre). Then he was the coffee and tea maker. Then he went to the Wereldhuis, together with Simon, they were the “strong men”, they carried a glass(!) cupboard through two floors. Then he went to cycle. This time he didn’t have any problems with the police (because of endangering a couple of tourists with his fast cycling). He said he would be careful, and he was.

Simon’s Tuesdays are normally quite quiet, as it was today. However, there were three highlights which made Simon’s day, as the Hungarians might say, golden. These were, in order, first: the above mentioned cupboard-story with Lennard. Secondly: a conversation in Dutch with a man, who has lived for thirteen years in the Netherlands, from whom Simon received a compliment about his Dutch. Simon was, of course, really happy about it. Highlight number three: because of a slight problem with the number of available books, Simon was required to do some extra photocopying.

Our dearest housleader, Willemijn started with her work today, and then she came home and had a meeting with Iain, our projectleader. They had a couple of interviews today. After dinner she went to volunteer (by giving coffee and tea) in the Red Light District. She just arrived two minutes ago. She said, it was good.

I was at home today, cooking the dinner, cleaning the kitchen (This is my duty this week. More about our household duties tomorrow), writing e-mails, etc.

Tot morgen, slaap lekker allemaal!

Day Seven

18th April

I had some kind of travelling back in time today. It was completely unexpected. I was doing the shopping for one of my projects, and was walking unsuspectingly between two shelves when I felt a smell, that just took me back to the kindergarden. I didn’t even have to remind myself, where the smell is so familiar from, I just suddenly saw the little wardrobes of the dressing room in front of me, where we put all our clothes and little shoes. It was 20 years ago, when I was at that place for the last time. And this smell, that I felt only for two seconds – or even less -, was enough to recall those times. In the middle of Amsterdam there was a little island of home from the past. It faded away, of course – fortunately, because I don’t like the sad flavour of nostalgia. But that was a real surprise of the day. Hidden in my brain all this time. Then on my way back to Kuria I saw the first lilacs of this year at a house. At home it’s always a big news, when we see the firsts of them. And after that, you can see and smell them everywhere around you…

But… back to more practical (less sentimental and kitschy) questions of the Mission House..

I promised to write about the MHHD (Mission House Houshold Duties). Everyone has every week something to do, to clean. The week-duty looks like this from tomorrow:

Cleaning the kitchen and writing the blog: Willemijn.

Cleaning the toilets and the shower and taking the (selected) rubbish to the right place: Kaisla.

Cleaning the dining room and beeing responsible for the stock: Lennard.

Cleaning the living room and preparing zinmoment: Christie.

Cleaning the guest room and doing the wash: Me.

Cleaning the hallway and organising family time: Simon.

If everything goes well, we have beautifly clean surfaces everywhere in the house at least on Wednesdays. (Of course not everything always goes well… some things… sometimes…)

The cooking. We also decide on The Housemeeting Day about who cooks and when. Simon cooks tomorrow. Christie on Friday. Lennard on Saturday, Me on Monday and Willemijn on Tuesday. Kaisla cooks on Wednesday. That’s it.

And now, congratulations (and thanks!) to everyone, who red this very long post from the beginning to the end. Next post will be by Willemijn.

I wish you a nice week, weekend, month, Koninginnedag, April, May, June, July, etc., and all the best!!

Au revoir!

When?

3.00pm Saturday 7th April

Where?

The Dam

What did we take?

A pillow each and heapfuls of energy

Why?

For worldwide pillowfight hour!!!!

A pillowfight on the Dam has been the topic of many conversations since we found out about it in November but when the moment came and we started on our way there, I started to think that maybe other people weren’t so silly as us to turn up on a Saturday afternoon with handfuls of feathers in canvas sacks. It was a busy Easter Saturday and as we almost fought our way through the tourists huddling around maps. To Rembrantplein, past the Singel, no stopping at the dungeons, finally next to the Madame Tussauds, and then yess The Dam!

What did we see?

A white cloud of feathers surrounding people frantically hitting each other. Anyone with a pillow was fair game.

What did I learn?

In pillowfights you don’t have to pick on somebody your own size, but instead someone with the same size of pillow.

Males are often suprised by the ferocity a female can have when it is socially acceptable to pumel anyone in reach with soft furnishings.

Celebrating Easter doesn’t have to be all about eating chocolate.

There’s no doubt that life in Mission House is exceptionally exciting and memorable with all its fun, but also its challenges. Easter is here, inviting us to reflect, once again, on the suffering and dying which Jesus Christ went through, and to celebrate the fact that we did not need to go through it.

To fast from something like coffee, meat or chocolate can be difficult sometimes, but it didn’t hurt us in any way at all, and this period of minor irritation and temptation will come to a its conclusion tomorrow.

Something which puts this firmly into perspective is the work of one of my projects. Two times a week I cycle to the harbour of Amsterdam. Amsterdam was actually founded as a port town which is not really apparent anymore. But this might be one reason for its immense diversity and for the many different cultures to be found here. In many ways, the port even has its own society, composed of seafarers from all over the world.

Chinese, Indians, Indonesians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Russians, Philippinos, Egyptians, Germans, Turks, French, Britons, Italians, Burmese, Koreans, Spaniards, Ukrainians, Poles, Nepalese, Romanians, Dutch, Greeks, Swedes, Portuguese, Bulgars, Danes, Irish, Croatians, Lithuanians, Estonians, People from the Cap Verde Islands (don’t know what to call them!) and even Tuvaluans. I hope I didn’t forget anybody.

What the Seamen’s Mission does – apart from running a club which offers a bar, billiards, table tennis, internet, books, television and last but not least being around other people with very similar backgrounds – is visit seafarers on their ships at the jetties.

Much of the time, a seafarer doesn’t have any opportunity to leave the vessel where he or she is serving. They normally live on the ships between two months and one year – without seeing their family and friends. An involuntary way of fasting.

Normal days comprise eight-hour shifts of working and not-working. A normal workweek has seven days, and even the concept of a “vacation day” is usually nowhere to be found in their contracts.

The environment seafarers are surrounded by does not offer any diversion from the steely vessels and cranes, black coal heaps and grey metallic scenery. Not to mention the bald facilities on a ship.

On a big vessel the hierarchy can be so strict that the captain/officers and the ordinary crew have separated floors and dining rooms. If there are arguements or any kind of altercation, they try to shun each other. On a very small vessel again one has to share everything.

Why would somebody choose this life? Well, in fact, most of them don’t. I met a high school teacher from the Philippines who couldn’t sustain his family with his income. Now he’s washing the dishes and cleans the galley and the mess room. He earns enough to enable his children to go to university. At the other end, however he has to pay a lot for this salary, particularly in terms of not seeing his loved ones for months on end.

On the other hand, there are still young men (I also met one woman within seven months) who have, particularly, chosen this job.

It often doesn’t seem that I can do very much for them when I visit them. I can have a conversation with them, sell phone and internet cards and explain the free bus service to the club. This is all we can do. And mostly it astonishes me how much they appreciate it. Just to see a new face, to talk to another person and to share a little bit of their own life stories makes such a huge a difference to them.

In the end when I leave the vessel – which is often accompanied by a strange feeling because of not knowing whether you will meet these people again one day – I often marvel at how they continue, ever on, in such a harsh and cold environment and I notice, many times following a visit, that it was me who received even more from them in terms of their experience, knowledge and attitude to life. I must also admit to benefiting in a materialist way, to be honest as a tasty Indian lunch, a cup of Turkish tea, British ginger bread, a Chinese Coca-Cola or some Ukrainian money are only some of the gifts which these stressed, rugged and rough seadogs have offered, so humbly and graciously to me.But one needs to be flexible. There are windy, rainy and cold days without any lunch or nice conversations.

There is a small vessel which comes very regularly to Amsterdam and we are on a friendly footing with them. I can always go there for a cup of tea or for lunch. We can share our stories and it makes me fell really happy when I can do something special for them, such as ordering a special internet cable which they desperately need or posting personal mail for the crew.

The impressions I take home at the end of the day are quite moving, in many ways. When I reflect on them I am very glad that the only thing I had to fast from was liquorice dropjes!!!

“F*~! you!” “You’re useless!” “Why are you here? Go back home!” are only a few of the comments which have been thrown our way over the past few months as our respectively full and challenging schedules have taken hold of life in the Mission House.

For myself, it was clear before I even got in the car to travel to Glasgow International Airport on my way to Amsterdam, all that time ago, that the following ten months would stretch, challenge, push and transform me. What remained very much unknown, however, was the seriousness with which my experiences on the ground, with real people, in real situations, were about to violently shake the foundations of my theory-reliant, idealistic world to their very core, particularly my encounters with those clients whose situations, issues and problems have brought them to a place where everything and anything which appears to be, in any way, connected to the establishment, system or, in many cases, Church, becomes a target for upset, anger, hatred, impatience and, occasionally, violence.

Despite the great strain which this has put on me, however, yesterday, as I sat amongst a group of illegal immigrants, currently held in detention awaiting a decision on their right to remain in the Netherlands, playing dominoes, chatting and whiling away what can be tremendously boring and soul-destroying hours for people who have committed no crime other than traveling around and have, in most cases, never even seen a prison, less live in one, a rather flabbergasting, yet very helpful realisation came to me, for it was in the challenging confines of a prison chapel that I was told by a colleague that all of us in the Mission House had, that day, reached the precise half-way point of our year. Immediately, all of the doom and gloom of my negative experiences with difficult clients, the depression of missing home and the slowly growing impatience and annoyance associated with community life lifted from my shoulders as I accepted that, despite these challenges, I had managed to survive in this new and difficult environment for precisely half a year!

This thought cast my mind back a few weeks, when this tremendous achievement was celebrated, albeit a little ahead of schedule, with our Mid-Term Seminar , bringing home just how quickly time has passed for us. Immediately prior to our first Seminar back in September, one of our trainers had a baby. That child is now half a year old! Unbelievable and amazing!!! During our mid-term seminar we took some time to reflect on our experiences so far, what has been helpful, what has been difficult, what has been shocking, what has been comforting, how do we feel about what we have seen, done and heard during our time in this very beautiful and culturally rich, yet troubled and difficult nation?

During our stay in our well suited and ideally located venue in De Glind, a wonderfully secluded and gorgeous little village, perfect for reflective practice, two questions seemed to come to the fore very quickly. “How do you feel about where you are?” and “What are you going to do about it?”

The quiet and secluded De Glind is ideal for reflection and meditation

The group, including members of the Mission House Team, were able to reflect openly and honestly about a lot of the achievements they had made and tell stories about how proud they were of how they had managed to move so far since their arrival. I, too, acknowledged many important steps and milestones which I had reached and was, indeed, very rpoud and excited about these, but I have to say that, in all honesty, I don’t believe that I have ever, in my whole 23 years, responded to any reflective question without some hint of positivity, even a simple suggestion that things might get better. For the first time, however, I found myself almost wholly dissatisfied with my progress and, to make things worse, unable to find even a scrap of positivity to complete my answer.

It is without any doubt that the past few months have, indeed, seen a whole range of positive encounters, many of which will remain with me for years to come, particularly when people have shown their appreciation for my work or trusted me enough to tell me a bit about their situation or circumstances. In fact, when I think about it, it seems that the vast majority of my encounters with people who have not simply asked me for cup of tea or coffee have, actually, been very good indeed.

The main problem, however, is that things do not always go so well when you’re working with some of the world’s saddest, angriest, most heartbroken and difficult people. And this isn’t bad in itself. These negative experiences are as much part of our voluntary work as the most positive ones, particularly as it is in those things with which we find most difficulty that we will gain the knowledge and experience we need to move forward. What upsets me and leads me to feel so dissatisfied is the unshakeable feeling, no matter how wrong it may be, that people whose lives are so focussed on Christ should not have the attitudes or reactions which I have been showing over the past weeks.

And I’m not alone in this. Everyone in the Mission House Team have been fast to respond, sharing similar worries and concerns about the challenges they face and the questions which these raise. There are days when all of us wake up and simply want to sink back into the warmth of our beds rather than face another onslaught of difficult and tiring encounters.

Friends have been quick to jump to our defence when we have offered these thoughts to them. “But you all go to your work every day, faithfully!” they say, “You are all wide open to new experiences!” “You have moved on so much since you came here!” and we acknowledge that they are, indeed, correct to point these things out. It doesn’t matter what they say, though. There are times when we cannot move from our minds the thought that Christ, if working in a homeless shelter, would not storm off into the back to find something do in the kitchen and avoid having to encounter someone who was nasty with him earlier. Neither would He be afraid to speak to someone in-case they didn’t understand his language. We also know, from Gospel accounts, that He was certainly not afraid of turning up at a stranger’s door to visit them, talk with them or even tell them what He thought about them, without holding back!

These constantly returning feelings of failure and uselessness can lead, very easily, to a strong sense of regret and over analysis.  Questions including “What if I had done this? Or said that? Why did I make that stupid mistake? What use am I to anyone?” become etched, seemingly irremovably, in our minds, sinking their ever enquiring claws into every last little action, thought, word and deed, weighing us down and preventing us moving forward.

I must say that, despite my strong commitment to avoiding placing judgement on people, the very last place I expected to find an answer to these ever increasing doubts, surrounding my own abilities and talents and how these relate to God’s plan fort my life, was in the home of a drug addict. This week was, however, to prove very different.

Now and again, when the recipient lives near the Mission House, I will be asked to deliver the flowers from the Drugspastoraat church service, on Sunday, to someone who is in great need of them. Perhaps someone who has been ill, or is celebrating their birthday, or, in a lot of cases, grieving the loss of a loved one. From the outside, this sounds like a very simple, yet powerful task, as it reminds the person, in their moment of need, that there is always someone thinking about them, praying for them and supporting them through the times when they feel like the world is their oyster, as well as those when they feel like it is resting on their shoulders, while requiring the deliverer merely to knock the door and hand them over.

In reality, however, this activity has become a source of great nervousness. You never know what will meet you behind a closed door. There might be a vulnerable, scared and lonely soul who longs for you to come in and share some tea with her. There might also be a large, angry, confused, stoned person, prepared to destroy this potential threat who has had the nerve to disturb their nerve-troubled sleep. This has caused a feeling of great dread to come over me each time I have tied the wrapped flowers to my handle bars, ready to transport them to their unknown destination.

Who would have thought that flower delivery would be so difficult???

This feeling was very much in attendance as I approached the Salvation Army sheltered housing building round the corner earlier this week and knocked the door of a person whom I only had three facts about. She was a woman, I knew her name and I knew that she had just moved in.

After realising that I was a volunteer from the church, she invited me, very graciously, into her very small and humble, yet lovely new little flat. Our conversations unfurled her status as an artist and I was able to see some of her brilliantly expressive paintings, showing both the glory and the pain of loving and serving God. These were breath-taking images which could only have come from someone who had experienced both the tremendous highs and depressing lows that our varied and ever-changing human life has to offer.

Then came what I thought was a familiar moment in every conversation I have here in the Netherlands. “So,” she asked, “why did you decide to come to the Netherlands in the first place?” “Well,” I began my well-practiced reply, “I am thinking of becoming a Minister and need to build up my practical experience.” There are usually two responses to this statement, either very much in the affirmative, confirming how “lovely” or “fantastic” it is that someone wants to serve God in such a way, or very much in the negative, with questions such as “Are you nuts?” and “Why on earth would you want to do something like that?” It took all of fifteen seconds, however, for this small, frail-looking, recovering heroin addict, not only to destroy this well rehearsed script, but to launch my thoughts regarding my voluntary year, regarding my abilities, regarding my life, into a completely different realm.

“Aha!” she smiled, “Well,” she said, “If you want to become a Minister you will need to concentrate constantly on the moment you are in, otherwise your mind will wander and think about stupid things that don’t matter!”

These are words which I have read, said and written literally thousands of times. They are present, in various forms, throughout my entire academic portfolio and are reflected in almost every other piece of work, action or speech I have conceived. Yet is was not in some great lecture theatre, or museum, or library that the full extent of these words hit me. It was sitting on a second-hand sofa, in the middle of a complex full of people whose lives you would never want to even imagine, less encounter, in your own journey.

It became clear, at that moment, that I have entered into a pattern in which, despite tremendous difficulties, I feel fantastic at work in my projects, where I truly encounter the people of God and His work through them, whilst, at the same time, despite the great comfort of having my dear friends around me, I feel awful when sitting alone in my room at the Mission House, where, as opposed to engaging with the world around me, I reflect and analyse the happenings of the day, allowing all the benefits of my encounters to leak slowly away, piece by piece.

In other words, I feel fantastic when I’m working and terrible when I’m not, and this, I believe, is no accident.

It seems that, no matter how hard it is, no matter how nervous it may make me, no matter how much I may wish to avoid it, there is something inexplicably pulling and pushing me, each day, further and further into the work of each of my projects, for my projects have, and always will, offer something which my beloved personal reflection and meditation cannot, the chance to truly ENCOUNTER God’s people and, through them, to recognise, first hand, His presence in the creation which surrounds me.

Reflecting on all that has passed is not a bad thing. Indeed, it is vital that we each take time to analyse our lives and to gain a wider perspective of all that we have done which will, in turn, assist us to recognise the value of our experiences and to acknowledge the advantage which they have brought to us and our development. But a simple fact will always remain, namely that it is when we engage with the subject of our reflection that we truly experience more of what it actually is, as opposed to what we believe it is through our reflective practice.

This is why the most important lesson of all our time here in the Netherlands, a lesson which will remain with us throughout our lives, is, without doubt, to live each day as it comes with the courage and faith to simply get on with it. For it is in getting on with it that we can truly ENCOUNTER all that surrounds us.

Sitting amongst immigrants in detention can be a very daunting experience. There is always a jovial atmosphere among the residents, but it doesn’t take much to realise that there is a tension in the air. People are scared of the authorities, angry about the way they have been treated, frustrated at being locked up when they have brought no harm to anyone and, together, these feelings cause people to give the impression that they are rude, abrupt and ungrateful. It wasn’t until I had a proper conversation with them, however, that I understood that far from being aggressive and confrontational, these people are ordinary human beings pushed to their absolute limits. In light of the fact that someone has spent six months spending most of the day in confinement with only a pack of cards and a notepad for entertainment, following a life in a country where torture, violence and death are common fare, the shortness of their request for, “Orange Juice, NOW!” seems rather insignificant.

It is in through our encounters that we gain and learn the most. This is why we must spend as much time as we can in the moment where God has placed us, rather than constantly seek to be in another place or worrying about where will be in future.

There still remains, however,  the question of Christ’s apparent ability to simply “get on with it” and how this should shape our response to the plan God has for each of us.

It strikes me that there are two things, ultimately, apart from His status as Son of God Lord and Saviour of humanity, that we can claim of Christ. He was a very faithful young boy, committed in His service to God and He was also a very faithful man, prepared to sacrifice His own life in the service of His Father. When it comes to the part in between these points, however, we have virtually no idea what happened. What did the teenage Jesus think about the world around Him? When he was 24, like me, how was he responding to poverty, injustice and sectarianism? We just don’t know.

What we do know, however, is that, even as an adult, ordained at His baptism into the Ministry in which He engaged, He changed and grew as a result of His experiences. The woman who touched his cloak, turning the tables in the Temple, that moment in the Garden when He prayed for the cup to be taken away from Him are all moments where we see the humanity of Jesus, the frailty of Him and, most importantly, how he responded to that human weakness.

The last person you would expect to help, yet the most powerful...

He didn’t want to heal the woman who touched Him, but her faith and theology made Him realise that it was the Father’s will that He should do. He went into the Temple in a rage, but only set authorities further against Him. We read of no similar activities and exceptionally few other negative responses from Him. Perhaps he realised that this anger would not help, but that peaceful work towards justice and peace for all would have a greater effect. In the garden, he asked that if it were possible for someone else to die in His place, that they would. God said no to this request and Jesus carried on, despite the fact that it was not His own will.

Jesus was human, just like us. He made mistakes, just like us. He changed, grew, evolved, learned, experienced, ENCOUTERED, just like us. And when these everyday human frailties took their toll, He took the lessons which they taught Him and applied them to His work, Ministry and life, allowing Him to root Himself firmly in God and to develop in the light of His service and love.

This willingness to engage in the difficult, challenging, exciting, glorious, painful, joyous work of God is strong amongst us and we know that our faith will lead us, no matter how difficult the route may become, to the place we need to be and so we each, in our own way, continue to move forward in love and service.

In a few weeks, I know, I will be asked, once again, to deliver the flowers. I won’t want to do it. I’ll be very nervous about it. I’ll try to think of excuses as to why I couldn’t possibly do it. But that’s not the point. The point is that I will take those flowers. The point is that I will wrap them, tie them to my handle bars and transport them to their destination. The person might be very happy to see me and welcome me in for tea and cookies, or they may be scared and nervous and tell me precisely where to go, but the point is that I will do it. I will visit them and I will tell them in words and actions how much Jesus, the Church and myself love them and wish them well because I know that, whatever the outcome, I will encounter all that God wishes me to encounter in the place, in the moment and with the people, He has placed there.

When I heard the term of fasting for the first time (many years ago) I couldn’t stop being think about anything but suspicious: is it another kind of diet? Over the years I got more to know about personal reasons to fast for 7 weeks. Some fasted literally to take the opportunity to lose some weight, others wanted to free their minds through waiving something which isn’t actually mandatory (e.g. being connected and reachable at any time or going to work in a car).

Nevertheless, I couldn’t see any wide-ranging consequences after those 40 days (I just politely said to somebody that it was very becoming to her or him).

But being in the group of the Mission House makes me now far more thinking about Lent.

For me it is a kind of reflection – on myself but also on my surroundings.

Of course, the first thing we thought about was to give something up: toetje, koffie, sinasappelsiroop, snoeps, vlees (dessert, coffee, orange syrup, sweeties, meat) or not tidying up ones room regularly. The thing we wanted to do additionally was to learn five new Dutch words every day.

Well, I haven’t noticed big withdrawal symptoms so far, but what I have to admit myself is that temptation makes me feel as if I wouldn’t have any control about what’s happening in my own brain. I always thought that it would think and do what I would like it to do. But it evidently does not. To calm you down I haven’t broken or given up my attempt not to have sweeties (especially liquorice dropjes).

But what I’m even more curious about is whether the time of Lent will leave some positive marks – not only with regards to self-discipline and less calories, even though we’ve celebrated the pre fast with a stack of pancakes and still give into our temptations on Sundays.

no dropjes, no toetje, no vlees, no koffie, no chocolade

During our stay in the mission house we get to know ourselves better and better. Most of the things are positve. We find out that we can do many more things then we expected. That we are able to deal with many different people, that we enjoy diffetent kinds of food, that even with dubble vision we can be good at Sjoelen, a typical Dutch game, in which the player must slide small, puck-like pellets across a table, aiming for particular slots at the other end, worth one, two, three or four points. From the outside, this seems a rather simple game. However, it doesn;t take long to understand why this game has survived the test of time as one of the most popular and competitive games in Dutch culture. For one thing sets it apart from all other competitors in the game market, the scoring system. (decription of the game by the only Simon Peters) The score system is not that complicated, but unnecessary to explain here. Sometimes however we discover less positive things about ourselves. Like me, recently I developped a strong disliking towards doing the shopping for our food. Once a week it is our duty to cook for everyone. Included in this task is the shoping for the meal and breakfast next morning. Before, I really enjoyed going to a supermarket. As I have worked for three years in one I enjoy wondering around supermarkets seeing what products there are. (especcially in foreign countries) As a little girl I always asked my dad go with him to do the weekly shopping. (only rarely I was allowed to come with him)

This all changed. Entering the Albert Hein I already see the big lines in front of the checkout I take a basket and try to find everything I need. This goes smoothly, but my basket gets heavier and heavier. I try to remember what we need. Do we have enough bread?? Not sure, let’s buy one I can always put it in the freezer. Do we have enough milk?? If not what kind of milk should I buy?? The milk makes shopping even more annoying. As we are all different, we like milk differently. Some  (me Willemijn) don’t like milk at all, some (Kaisla and Lennard) like skinny milk with as less fat as possible, some (Àgi and Christie) think that milk without fat is white water and want to drink full-fat milk, and others (Simon) don’t care at all. After days of long endless discussions where we  tried to compromise at half-full milk (this is milk with a little bit fat) we decided to buy both skinny and full-fat.

Back to the shopping: The basket is full now and too heavy to carry so I move it in frond of me with my legs. People look strange at me, but I don’t care. I line up before the checkout. OOPSss I forgot the sugar. Leave my basket at the line, quickly get some sugar and coming back I see my place at the line has gone and I have to go at the back again. When I finaly went through and payed (again more then I thought it would be) I notice that the two bags I brought from home are a bit too small to take everything home with me. I don’t want to buy another so I put everything in the bags and go try to go home. The bags are so heavy that  I have to put them down to shake my arms a bit befor I can go on. Halfway, ofcourse one of the bags breaks. GRRRRRUMBBLL A businessman with a briefcase passes me: `Heavy?` I look at him as if I could kill him `Not everybody has a wife at home who has a nice little car to take all the shopping home with`, I think in myself, but I count till ten and smile friendly. `Yes it is heavy, but I´m almost home.` Two stairs later the shopping if finaly done. My arms feel as if they are ten cm longer. Puting everything to the places they belong I notice I forgot something. Such a pitty, but I’m not going back to the shop. I’m done for the week, tomorrow somebody else goes.

While I peel the appels for the appel pie, my bad mood goes away. This is what I like doing, I realize that without going shopping there is nothing to cook or bake and quickly I forget all the negative emotions. A nice smell is filling the kitchen and the rest of the house. The pie is in the oven and looks good. And so I end with I big smile on my face

Christie, Christie, you are a curious person!
-     What’s gonna happen on Sunday??? (archy and trusting smile)

-    I don’t know, why do you ask me? (pretending face)
-    How could I know, I am not a prophet! (pretending face)
-    Well, the Sun will rise, and set, as always.. (pretending face)
-    Why, what should happen on Sunday? (honest face)
-    Eeem…nothing? (pretending face)

And, you certainly got the answers. Not about Sunday, but at least, about Saturday (4th February). Let’s see, what happened:

We (Aino, Anna, Christie, Freja, Kaisla, Lennard, Willemijn, Simon, me) have dinner – tomatoes, eggs, onions, meat, something looking like meat but vegetarian (I don’t know the name..), salade, sauces, ketchup, cheese, bread…. Hamburgers!

Meneer Ost and Meneer Derben arrive. And eat the rest

Christie and Willemijn go for a walk (Poor little ones, it’s very cold outside), during that time we become "cats"

Lennard. Before...

...after

The finnish “cats”, Kaisla and Aino

Christie, cat-version

Playing a game

 It was the last birthday in the MH, but there will be always an other reason to celebrate!

The End

For the first few weeks of living in Amsterdam I kept my camera with me at all times. I didn’t want to miss any opportunities to take a photo of yet another pretty bridge or gracht. And then also of the houses with the hooks at the top. And of the parks. And….As you can imagine, soon I had built up quite a collection of photos. But as I got used to whizzing about the city on my bike and no longer needing a map, I also got used to living in such a beautiful city.

And then…

last Friday…..

When me and Kaisla went into the Krenkelhuis (where we both work on Fridays, in a choir for people who are homeless) it was brown and grey. When we came out?It was white, white, white everywhere. Snow had finally arrived! Ever since I’ve been taking photos of snow on houses, snow on bikes, snow on my shoes.

Shortly following was the best present a Dutch person could ever wish for: ice. Now all we can talk about in the Mission House is where, from who and how we can get six pairs of ice skates.

January, coldness, bleak thoughts, tiredness, drained of energy and still quite a number of freezing winter weeks left. Simply sitting around waiting until it has turned into summer is unlikely to make you feel better.

What we, in Mission House, do to combat these negative feelings, is engage in delightful activities. For example playing games in which you have to be a mean financial shark in the big pool of free markets and to eat up every opponent before they consume you! In short: We played Monopoly. After hours of play the long anticipated result eventually came into play: Willemijn pwned. We had to watch powerlessly as her business empire gobbled up all our timid tries to get a slice of the pie. We almost forgot that it was just a game. But enough about that.

More delightful for all of us was a big present we bought ourselves. And an indispensible one at that.

What would we all do without PHIPS? Not having him would spell doom for one, for us. Doom in dust. PHIPS is not impressed by all our excitement and adventures. He is content to wander around the Mission House as we gallivant across the city, day by day. He likes to sit there, looking all-powerful, brawny, full of the energy and enthusiasm which befits such a new product and is eager to make many of our much enjoyed, yet often ill-advised, misadventures unhappen. He just does what he’s supposed to do: vacuum the Mission House floor as his late and sorely lamented predecessor did before.
To get him engaged, a delegation of us had an exciting trip to the media market to choose from a huge range of potential candidates. 2200 watt input power, an airflow velocity of terrific 42 litres per second, massive alloy wheels, metallic red coating and much more. It’s just a great pleasure to let him hoover twice a day.
To keep on having nice activities we will soon look for a new electric whisk.