Ahoy from Holland!

So this week has been so amazing in so many ways and I’m learning so much about the culture, how to communicate the gospel to such  a spiritually complacent attitude and about my own faith journey that I haven’t had time to fully process it all. I don’t have time to even think about one experience before the next one starts. The first day we started our day off as a team examining God’s desire for us to reach the world, every nation and every tongue. And when we were discussing why our team is here and how we can reach the world my mind set was how can we reach this part of the world, this country, this group of people? But God was thinking bigger. As the day went on the number of conversation we have with people from many other countries, around the world. God really proved to me that he is bigger than my humanly tendency to limit his power.  Instead on talking to solely Dutch students we collectively had conversations with multiple people from other countries around the world. It seems like Rotterdam is stepping stone for international students to get their degree and then move on to the next chapter of their life somewhere else. And to be able to share with people who will go out to parts of the world I will never have the opportunity to visit is awesome.

 To be honest, today I was feeling drained. Drained physically from the lack of sleep and my body is still confused about or resisting the time change. I’m drained emotionally and spiritually from being challenged and stretched by God, by the staff and by the students I’ve talked to over the past few days. I think today was the day I had to really rely on God to get me through my tiredness and through my desire to want to just relax. In the conversation I had it was him taking through me. Had I tried to produce a positive spiritual conversation on my own strength I would’ve failed. However, this morning I was aware of my sluggishness and asked God to work through me, even more so today. And although today I faced more rejection than I had all week I was able to have a conversation and positive discussion about God and purpose for life. God provided a girl with similar interests to mine and I was able to have a good conversation to reenergize me and stimulate my spirit to get over the hurdle of my physical weakness.

Today our group of 14 split into two and half of us went to Utrecht and the rest stayed in Rotterdam. I was in the group that stayed in Rotterdam. Splitting up was weird, the 14 of us have been together constantly for the past 4 days and at first it I felt uncomfortable without the rest of my group. However, for the same reason the smaller group was refreshing. Tomorrow our group is traveling to Leiden to meet up with Agape staff and students on their campus to reach out to students there. I’m really excited to go spend the day there and see what God has in store for us. I appreciate the prayer support you guys at home have been offering, I ask you to keep praying. Pray for the students we’ve talked to this far that God will continue to tug at their hearts, pray that God tugs so hard on their hearts that they come to our American Party tonight, pray that he bless future conversations and pray for strength for the staff and students. The Dutch staff have be excellent hosts, offering their homes and their hospitality to such a large group has been so wonderful. Pray for those of us sharing, we are tired and worn out but pray that the Holy Spirit moves through us to reach students for Christ.

Thank you!! ~ Jessica