Spiritual growth

First, a quick update--one of the girls behind the windows became a Christian a couple of weeks ago! One of the other teams was sharing with her and asked if she wanted to pray to ask Jesus into her life, and she said yes! Now comes the hard part of discipleship and a desire on her part to leave the windows. There's also a girl new to the windows (I think from Romania) whom two different teams remember seeing. They both said she looks timid and scared to death; we're afraid that she's either abused or a victim of trafficking. Although I don't have her name, please keep her in your prayers.

I feel like I'm learning all over again how to make my faith my own. It's a lesson I learned after being out of college and living on my own, and am re-learning now in another country. I'm learning to incorporate as many different aspects of worship as I need to to be fed spiritually. I had a really hard time at first, because YWAM is a very charismatic group, which I didn't grow up with, and then I was also going to a charismatic church with some friends on Sundays. I felt like I was constantly on edge since the atmosphere was so different from what I'm used to. Not only at church on Sunday, but also at YWAM staff meetings and worship time.

In order to mix it up a little, I went for the second time this past Sunday to Christ Church, an Anglican church near here. I loved it! It was so nice to be in a service that was calm, reverent, and orderly. Afterward, there was a time for coffee and tea and I was able to meet some neat people from the city. I really liked this church a lot and left feeling refreshed and fed. In my previous blog, I included the lyrics of a hymn we sang that have really been a challenge to me. I've discovered that I really like a liturgical service. As a student of history, there's something in me that really responds to reciting the Apostles' Creed every Sunday, knowing that millions of my Christian forefathers have repeated the same words for centuries. It sums up the whole purpose of the gospel so succinctly. They also had a Scripture memory verse that we all worked on together as a congregation. That was really special. This church really reaches out to international students in Amsterdam, so for that reason they have more modern elements in their service, such as praise choruses.

Also, I realized that Mike Lumpkin, my pastor from UBC in Fayetteville, has his sermons on a podcast that I can download every Sunday. That has been great! He's been going through the book of John, and will be for the next year or two, and I've hated missing that. I love the in-depth study of Scripture like that. So I've also been able to keep up with that in addition to my own personal quiet time. His message this past Sunday was extremely convicting to me as he preached on being wholly satisfied with Jesus as the living water.

I didn't realize before I left how difficult it would be to integrate all of these aspects of my spiritual walk here in another country. But I've been so encouraged this week by the way God's meeting all of my spiritual needs here--exciting, vibrant worship here on the base; reverent worship in an open, friendly congregation; and solid, convicting study of God's Word. Thank you to those of you who have prayed that I would find a home church and somewhere to be spiritually fed; it's made all the difference in the world!

"Make Me a Channel of Your Peace"

These are the lyrics to a hymn we sang in church this past Sunday; it's a prayer commonly attributed to St. Francis of Assisi. The words perfectly sum up a lot of things I've been thinking and praying about regarding ministry in the Red Light District and life at de Poort:

1. Make me a channel of your peace:
Where there is hatred, let me bring you love;
Where there is injury, your healing pow'r,
And where there's doubt, true faith in you.

2. Make me a channel of your peace:
Where there's despair in life let me bring hope;
Where there is darkness, - only light,
And where there's sadness, ever joy.

3. O Spirit, grant that I may never seek
So much to be consolded as to console,
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved as to love with all my soul.

4. Make me a channel of your peace.
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
In giving to all that we receive,
And in dying that we're born to eternal life.

Last weekend, I went to the beach with Jolanda, Rebeca, and another lady named Lianne. I didn't realize that the beach was only about a 25-minute train ride from here, so that was a nice surprise! Here was a shocker: you're allowed to go topless on the beaches--there's not even a separate beach for that! This is one crazy place. A lot of the Dutchies thought it was weird that I thought it was weird! We spent about six hours on the beach, then came back and went to a sidewalk cafe for apple pie and coffee. I really needed a nice weekend like that!