Mission
The very centre of Christian life is community: this is where people meet God, each other and themselves. What better investment than a youth community can a church who believes in youngsters make? The Mission House is such a youth community. It is a community where youngsters from different cultures, countries and backgrounds spend 10 months with each other. They are challenged in different ways throughout their year to meet God, to meet their housemates, to meet other people and to meet themselves.
The Mission House is where:
You learn Christian ways of life by 'living a Christian life'.
You Learn by doing: by working with special people in special situations, by living together as a team, working together as a group, being linked to different aspects of church and Christian life and developing skills you maybe didn't know you even had.
If you are not ready for a life changing experience then the Mission House is not the place for you; you can't leave the Mission House without having grown by all that you have seen and experienced throughout the year...
On the 1st of September 2009, 6 volunteers from Europe became the fifth group to join the Mission House with houseleader Erjo Beitler (Netherlands). The volunteers are Alena, Tobias and Theresa from Germany, Buchanan from Scotland, Elsa from France and Erin from Northern-Ireland. To get to know more about them go to the community page.
The first month is spent visiting projects for which Project Leader Iain Majcher has set up appointments. This way, you can see the array of projects Amsterdam has to offer and the chance to talk to a coordinator in each project to fire questions at. It is then YOU as the volunteer who decides in communication with the Project and House leaders where and when you want to work, choosing up to 5 projects to work in. This allows great freedom and a huge variety in our work as we can all work in places that interest us, we find challenging, and giving us diversity in our year. There is of course a huge amount of volunteer work to do here in Amsterdam including working with homeless people, drug addicts, children, mentally handicapped people and many more. To read more about the work visit the Projects page.
Being one of the inventors of the Mission House concept Sjaak Teuwissen (youthwork adviser for the PKA) started the Mission House in 2005 with Houseleader Naomi Verstoep and a bunch of volunteers. 5 years a later the Mission House has grown strongly. With a new projectleader, Iain Majcher and houseleader Erjo Beitler as responsible persons, 2009-2010 is the fifth year of the Mission House. No need to say that this is the time for a jubilee party. On the 2nd, 3rd and 4th of July therefore there will be a huge party celebrating the place Mission House got in daily Amsterdam life.
The Mission House is part of the togetthere volunteer year in the Netherlands. Although we are part of the program we think we offer something different to other volunteer year projects. We live together as a community, which means we eat together every evening and share the house work. The community life is just as important as the volunteering side, supporting each other throughout the year. It is nice to know that there is always somebody there for you when it all gets too much or you just want somebody to have a beer with. It is a comfort to know that your housemates are experiencing similar challenges and are going through the same emotions and experiences.
The Mission House could not operate without the generosity of The Council for World Mission (CWM), the Protestant Church of Amsterdam (PKA) and togetthere who kindly support and finance this house. With additional financial support coming from the European Voluntary Service (EVS). Who together, gives us volunteers for this fantastic opportunity. For this reason there is a common house project every year to give something back to the church. This year we will carry on working with "Blikveld". This is a youth platform for all the teenagers in different churches in the PKA, set up by the volunteers in Amstefrom two years ago. The idea is to give youth in Amsterdam between 12-16 years old a voice in church.
Mission
