We went to Amsterdam today. One of the most horrible places I have been thus far. The buildings and landscape were pretty, but the people are so lost. Morality has been replaced with marijuana pride and legal prostitution. I can’t begin to tell you the spiritual, emotional and physical trials we experienced. The darkness is so heavy here you can feel it the moment you get out of the car. We are all exhausted in every way, I don’t think I can write much more. All I can say is that my heart is so full of rage and brokenness due to the lack of morality and godliness. I can’t wait for today to be over…
Saturday, July 5th
Today was Kristen’s birthday so we got to do a lot of fun stuff. This morning we went to a cute little Kondetorei to have some pastries and hot chocolate, and the people there sung Happy Birthday to Kristen in German, which was pretty much all she wanted. Then we went shopping and prayer walking; soon following, we went to Julie’s house and had a real party. Julie and Chase went to pick Jared up from the airport while the rest of us stayed back, ate Chinese food and called our parents. Once everyone was back we just hung out, drank Chai, laughed, ate German junk food, and had an all around fun time. It was so great to get to know Julie better and hang out with her, the same with Jared. This has been the “funnest” night out of the past 2 weeks. I think we would all agree on that. God reunited us through fellowship tonight; I think we were all forgetting the importance of having fun with each other until now.
Friday, July 4th
Today we walked around the Altsdadt (by now, our second home..) and the park inviting people to celebrate with us. 6 people came which was more than we expected, but less than we had hoped. Then we had hot dogs and played baseball, which by now, all the Germans were crazy good at, and all the Americans sucked. It was pretty hilarious. We had a great time, but we had to say goodbye to the German youth group which was hard. Not that much happened today, it was pretty laid back. We needed the rest!
Thursday, July 3
Today we had a get together at the church we’ve been partnering with. We had a morning of different types of worship: fellowship, song, reciting, praying, confessing, reading His word, writing, etc. It was so great. It was definitely something we needed after a great, but hard, day yesterday. Then we went to the Altsdadt again (still pouring rain!) and surveyed. We were also inviting people to come to the park tomorrow to celebrate the 4th of July with us. I’m not going to lie, today was awful for me. I felt absolutely terrible (still do) I had no strength, no one wanted to talk at the Altsdadt because of the rain. It was the longest day EVER. But some really awesome things happened. We prayed over an Italian homeless man who was very small and had a hump on his back. You can laugh, but this man was an angel I think. We came over to him and tried talking to him, but he only knew Italian. By hand signals, we tried to tell him we were going to pray for him right there; he understood. So while people walked by and stared, we kneeled down to him and prayed over him. As we got up, he was smiling uncontrollably at us. Even though we couldn’t communicate, the Holy Spirit gave him a clear message. Hopefully we’ll see him in Heaven. After this we went to Chris and Shannons to watch The Hiding Place, but we all fell asleep within 30 minutes, so we just came back to the hostel and went to bed early (Hallelujah!)
Wednesday, July 2
Today we surveyed again in the Altsdadt and I was able to share the Gospel with two people. It was so amazing! We all seemed to have great conversations; I guess the Holy Spirit was working hard today! Then it was back to the sports camp. It wasn’t quite as long today which was nice, because yesterday was really a pretty long day. It started out in the 90’s today and then 5 hours later we had to pack up and leave early because it started to rain cats and dogs. Talk about unpredictable! Lightning and thunder are everywhere, its like being in a thunderstorm in Oklahoma. We were all running back to our hostel and by the time we got back, we were all soaking wet. Nothing is better than taking a hot shower after a cold, wet rain, and getting into nice DRY pajamas. It has been such a great day. Everyone is enjoying everyone and everything. The Spirit really is working hard today in all of Düsseldorf! The only bad thing is that I am starting to feel sick. Yesterday Brynne went to the Doctor because she was sick and no one wanted to be sick after we heard her doctor (more like horror) story. But I am so exhausted with a sore throat and sore sinuses. We’ll see if it gets worse though…
Tuesday, July 1
We began the Sports Camp teaching Baseball, playing Volleyball, Badmitten, Soccor (Futbol) and American Football. We basically just walked around the park, firstly, asking Survey questions:
1. If you had the power to change one thing in the world, what would it be?
2. Do you think your grandkids will live in a better world than you do today?
3. Who is your role model?
4. In your opinion, do you think that Germans/ Europeans are interested in Spiritual things?
5. If you could ask God one question, what would it be?
And should the surveying go well, and we make some sort of trustworthy relationship, we would ask them to join us in playing baseball. That first day really set off some relationships in the park. There was one particular guy who would come back and play volleyball with us almost everyday; he and one of our Field Worker’s (Chris) seemed to hit it off pretty well. So we are praying that their relationship continues. When we were finished at the park, we walked over to the Altstadt again to do more surveying. After such another physically demanding day, we are even more exhausted than yesterday. We have consistently prayed for God’s strength, but so far we haven’t received it.
Monday (part 2), June 29
We got together with the German Youth Group and worked with them for the first time. Four girls in particular I have grown close to: Natalie (the caretaker), Melanie (the wise, Catherine Zeta-Jones lookalike), Lisa (the sweetheart), and Judith (the pure-hearted). We all went prayer walking at potential parks to hold our Sports Camp, it was a physically demanding day since we walked and walked and walked. The prayer walking was especially difficult since after a while, we all felt repetitive and were getting irritable. But God showed me something that day: Prayer walking is hard. But so is being a Christian. Simply being in a relationship with God is hard, but we continue on for His glory.
We repetitively prayer walked today out of obedience, and it was hard. Dinner was a relief, we went to a beautiful park (where we ended up staying the entire week) and ate Doner’s (pronounced “Dooner’s”: the “o” is supposed to have the 2 dots above it.) and Turkish Pizzas.
Monday, June 29
Well, yesterday was quite an adventure. It was Sunday so our team split into 3 groups and we all went to different churches. Chase and I went with one of our Field Workers (David) to his church; a small Baptist Church in Wupperthal. The Church was relatively similar to a small Baptist Church in Riverside, only everything was spoken in German. Then we came back to the Hostel for lunch and exchanged stories. Hearing the other stories made everyone laugh–there were some interesting experiences where they went! We finally got a short nap (which was greatly needed among us all). After the nap we walked over to the Altstadt (Old Town) which is a short distance from the Hostel and ate at a cute little Italian Restaurant. Yesterday was the Euro-Cup game between Duetchland (Germany) and Spain. The restaurant set up big screen TV’s for everyone to watch; it was an incredible experience! Everyone, of course, was drinking beer and smoking, but the environment was not the same as we had expected. These people were responsible and respectful, not crude and in your face. They were not drinking to rebel or anything, it was simply just to fellowship and celebrate. It was very much how I imagine a traditional Jewish Wedding from the Bible would be like. It was so much fun–even though Deutchland lost =[
Friday, June 27
Yesterday (Thursday) and today were so long. Long flights, long waits, no sleep for over 24 hours. But they have been good. God is teaching me to have a good attitude regardless of sleeping arrangements. Basically, we didn’t get into the hostel until 12:30 AM last night (or this morning!) then we had to get up at 7:30 for breakfast, but for me- it ended up being 6:30, I think God woke me up to pray and be with Him before the day started. Then breakfast (which was really good–this Hostel is soooo nice. Probably better than a hotel) and a few short lectures specifically about the German culture. After that we split into our teams and had a scavenger hunt across Düsseldorf so we could get used to the transportation system, be more familiar with out surroundings, and just have some fun making contact with the local “Dusseldorfians”. Things went well, but we are all exhausted and getting a little irritable. We definitely need God’s grace today.
Wednesday, June 25
Today was definately not as early of a day as Yesterday. We all accidentally slept in 40 minutes, but I think God knew we all needed to sleep in. Not a whole lot of activity today, we had another simulation where we split into 2 teams: the Alpha’s and the Beta’s. The purpose of the simulation was cross-cultural examination. We each played separate games and each team had to guess how to play the opposite team’s game worked. My team (the Beta’s) played a game called BAFA BAFA, it was a lot of fun. Hopefully I’ll remember how to play! For breakfast, we had a simulation about bartering in India. It was very interesting, hard, but fun. Some guy stole my apple.
After that we had more lectures, then we returned to get ready for the commencement service that night. But first another simulation took place (yes I know, there were a lot of simulations). It was dinner time and we were all split into 3 uneven groups. The first group was called “First Class” the second group “Middle Class” and the last group “Lower Class”. I was in Lower Class. First class people ate at a table with nice silverware, plenty of food, servers and all sorts of luxuries. Middle class sat in folding chairs with paper/plastic utensils to eat cooked rice and beans, they also had clean water. Lower Class sat on the ground with no utensils except for dixie cups, we had leftover rice and beans but even that was taken from us sometimes. We had to ask the other classes to give us food, but they weren’t always allowed to give it to us. So that was our dinner: rice and kidney beans. But it was okay, we got to eat ice cream later that night for a birthday party, so it was good. We had the commencement service and finally got to see our parents after what felt like 3 weeks already. God relieved all of our hearts from the culture shock and revived our spirits and our bodies to leave for Germany tomorrow simply from seeing our families. It was a much-needed day.
