A significant day
September 30, 2009 at 9:56 am | In family, mission, personal | Leave a CommentMonday 28th September 2009 – a milestone in my life here in Holland. Why? Two reasons:
1. My wonderful wife had her own milestone – she became 40 years old! Had lots of fun celebrating, too many details for here.
2. I said to God, “No more using the phrase my Dutch isn’t good enough as an excuse. What do you really want me to be doing here?” Maybe a dangerous thing to say, but better than going round in circles saying, I can’t do this or that. For goodness sake, I’ve just started on a Dutch course for ‘far-advanced’ speakers. I battle with two thought patterns: I am constantly being complimented on my good Dutch and am pleased with my progress in the last two years, and; my Dutch is still the biggest frustration in my life, trying to express myself or explain something to someone. However, I am going to settle for the compliments and push on.
I recently had a meeting with the community centre in the Mors area to discuss the next computer course for beginners, hoping to carry on as an assistant. However, they persuaded me that my Dutch was perfectly good enough for teaching my own class and that people are not there to learn Dutch from a foreigner. Good point. So I start teaching my own beginners class in four weeks. Yikes!
During a quiet time on Monday I remembered the hymn that we sung at our wedding, “O Jesus I have promised” which contains the following line:
My hope to follow duly is in thy strength alone
I was reminded that if God is wanting me to do particular things here then he will give me just as many skills and abilities as I need. I was reminded of the following (Exodus 4, NLT):
Moses pleaded with the Lord, “O Lord, I’m not very good with words. I never have been, and I’m not now, even though you have spoken to me. I get tongue-tied, and my words get tangled.”
Then the Lord asked Moses, “Who makes a person’s mouth? Who decides whether people speak or do not speak, hear or do not hear, see or do not see? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go! I will be with you as you speak, and I will instruct you in what to say.”
So what can I do, except rely on him. And look what Moses achieved with his mumbled words. I’ll just keep using the excuse that I’m a dumb foreigner and rely on the Dutch folk’s goodwill – works every time!
I hope to follow duly, and in his strength alone.
An encouraging start towards greater unity
September 16, 2009 at 9:59 am | In church, mission | Leave a CommentHow good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity! (Psalm 133:1)
Monday evening I went to a prayer meeting called together by the pastor of International Church Leiden, my good friend Andy. It was aimed at getting as many local church leaders together as possible to pray together for the city. The premise was that if local leaders are praying together then we should start seeing some interesting things happen within the Church of Leiden as a whole.
Now ok, we didn’t get too much actual praying done, nor did we have very many church leaders turn up (2 actually, with three missionary workers), but nevertheless we did have a very encouraging meeting where the presence of God’s Spirit was evident. Indeed it is noteworthy that there is very little inter-church contact amongst the church leaders in Leiden, and previous efforts to get this going were unsuccessful (to understate a little). There is currently a group of the more traditional church leaders that meets, but reports are that the meetings are stuffy and that they discuss little other than their differences in dogma! (Come on guys…?)
The most significant line of discussion was that it is not just desirable but essential to make firm efforts to get the pastors of the individual churches in Leiden together to meet, enjoy spending time together, and pray together. During the meeting we recalled the story that Ed Silvoso tells of the ‘Church of Resistencia’ in Argentina (in his book ‘That None Should Perish’). This book begins when the local leaders all meet together for breakfast and share communion. This has a dramatic spiritual effect and is the beginning of a spiritual awakening of the church in Resistencia, largely outworked through everyday missional activities within the local society.
Here in Leiden there is now a visible sign that there is more emphasis on the need to be actively working in society. There are several initiatives here in their early stages which offer practical help (Serve the City, HiP – Help in Practice, and Stichting Present – the Present Foundation) with the idea to show the love of Christ through serving the local population through practical means. What is still lacking is a clear sense of unity amongst the local leaders.
The outcome of the meeting was basically to carry on meeting and keep inviting local pastors. We’re shifting to a morning spot so that leaders can attend more easily. On the way home, one of the attendees, a missionary worker with The Navigators, had a visual picture from God. As he drove through a village a lift bridge opened in front of him and he had to wait (unusual at 11pm!). He felt God say to him, “Watch for the name of the boat that’s coming.” He waited a while and then saw the name – Union. He sensed that God was impressing to him that as we move forward towards union, God will open gates/doors/bridges. What a tremendous sign of hope and encouragement! Thank you God.
If you pray, please pray that we will get a growing number of local leaders to these meetings and that unity will grow in Leiden, rather than division. There is a sense that things have been building up for that last few years in Leiden and that we are now on the brink of something. This next step is crucial for tipping us over the edge.
A couple of small encouragements
August 1, 2009 at 9:31 pm | In mission | Leave a CommentFor the last couple of weeks our team that is working in the Mors area of Leiden has been hosting fun afternoons for local mums and their kids. Most of these families are isolated from the bulk of society. The central part of the Mors area where we are active is roughly split half white Dutch working- or under-class, and half Muslim immigrants, mainly from Morocco (with some from Turkey, Egypt, Afghanistan, Iran, etc.).
Many, if not most, of the residents of the Mors will not get any kind of summer holiday away, something that us Westerners take for granted. We thought it would be a nice idea to just gather on the grass field by the youth centre with some juice and games/craft ideas. These afternoons have been organised on the back of the regular weekly Tuesday afternoon Moroccan mums group. However, for these holiday afternoons we have also had another white Dutch family coming along too, actually the mum is a member of the discipleship group here that I lead.
What has been interesting to see is that, other than the female leaders, the group has been basically split Muslim-white and the two have not been able to effectively mix. For my part my efforts to integrate with the Moroccan ladies and their kids have really not worked. I could speculate on several fronts here as to why, but basically it boils down to culture differences.
All this has made me think about whether I am called to work with immigrants here in Leiden. It’s certainly not what I envisaged before we left the shores of England. However, I didn’t want to ignore the call of the poor and rejected here either. Not sure what lies ahead in this respect.
Just as I was wondering where I fit into it all I got an email from the above mentioned Dutch mum in the discipleship group who came to faith last year. Here are a few translated extracts:
You all know how negative I was (and still am) about this area.
You guys really are a picture of people living in God’s will.
These kinds of ‘pictures’ give me genuine hope again, just like I used to feel. And you really need hope to live in an area like this!
I had lost this sense of hope for the last few years, but now it’s creeping back – thank you Jesus!
Great to read when I was personally wondering if I was being of any use here. Thank you Jesus.
The second little encouragement was that we had only planned 6 such afternoons, partly because we wanted to start fairly small, and partly because of our own holidays. How wonderful then to hear that the Moroccan ladies have organised another similar afternoon all by themselves for the following week. Just what we had hoped for. We are being catalysts for growth in the community.
On a separate note, I have enrolled on an advanced Dutch course starting September. It’s called ‘Dotting the Is and Crossing the Ts’. This should take me properly to level 5 language. I still find language is my biggest hindrance and I really need to keep improving. My fears that my learning would stall after I finished my previous course last October were well founded. I also need to be speaking more Dutch through the week. I am really looking forward to getting back in the classroom again. I haven’t seen any higher level classes than this.
Quick news update
March 23, 2009 at 8:41 pm | In mission, personal | Leave a CommentI am now a volunteer assistant computer teacher! I am currently helping teach a couple of old ladies in a local community centre, here in Leiden, once a week. Only done it the once so far, but turned out to be good fun and a great way of getting to know people.
If all goes to plan I should be starting to teach my own English conversation class in the same community centre straight after Easter. The centre manager is currently putting together a flyer to advertise the new course. Please pray that I will have the 6 required people signed up soon.
Quick update (14 April 2008) – I was supposed to do my first English class this evening. However, I have only had three people sign up so far. I am planning on extending the advertising, and doing some local publicity in the area where I am currently focusing (the Morswijk). Please pray that I will have enough people to be able to start in the next few weeks. I’d really love to have 10 or 12 people signed up, but 6 will do. In the meantime I am still enjoying working on my online course to learn more about teaching English.
Some Northern grit
March 24, 2008 at 8:11 pm | In family, mission, personal | 2 CommentsI reckon that I’m allowed to be honest about things on this blog, what with being a Northerner (from somewhere North of Birmingham, England), call a spade a spade, etc. Actually, Ruth and I were discussing this sort of thing last night. She is reading a somewhat useful book written by the wife of a fairly well-known American church leader. But Ruth was describing that reading the book is a bit like watching a Hollywood film. The author is trying to be fairly honest, but doing the usual ‘author thing’ of skipping over the usual crap in our everyday lives and ending up painting a rather glossy looking US family with their plastic smiles and living the American Dream, in a Godly way of course. So I will try and avoid this nonsense in my blog and leave the make-up off.
So now time for some real life crap. I’m bored. Yes, that’s right, I’m bored. But aren’t I one of those saintly missionaries who has faithfully obeyed God’s call to move abroad to spread the Kingdom in a heathen land? That’s all technically true. But right at this moment I’m pretty fed up. The kids are off school and driving us potty; the weather is freezing cold and wet so no-one wants to go outside; I only have two evenings a week where I get out of the house and meet other real-world people at my Dutch classes; Ruth is still waiting for her own course to begin; the only DIY jobs left in the house are the ones that I was leaving until last because I don’t want to do them; I need to rebuild the back wheel of my bike in the freezing cold; the part-time job that I had an interview for two weeks ago is still interviewing new applicants, indicating that I’m not the one they were looking for; the list could go on…
Yesterday we were so bored that we bought a family ticket for the bus and stayed on it for a full hour until it got to the Hague, went to McDonald’s for a hot chocolate, then caught the next bus home to kill another hour! I think I must have missed the lecture at college where we learned that cross-cultural mission can be tedious, for weeks at a time as well.
Anyhow, having got all this off my chest and foisted it on you all, I feel much better now, thanks! I now see a break in my clouds and can remember again some of the many blessings that God has poured on me. It was great to focus again yesterday on the resurrection of Jesus and remember what is at the heart of the Christian message – that God is alive and kicking and busy today transforming our world.
Thanks for tuning in.
P.S. Ruth and I are meeting with the Director of the boys’ school tomorrow. He and some others started a church in his home near us about a year ago and we wanted to exchange our stories and visions. Hope to report back here soon.
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