It’s the last month and so I turn to evaluations. Evaluations are useful little things, they help you to see what you’re doing well and also not so well. I’ve asked for evaluations from all my projects, from my Mentor and from others who have played an important part in my Mission House year. You notice the same points being raised and the same comments made. It helps confirm beliefs and give you a better plan of action.

Proverbs 20:18 (The Message) “Form your purpose by asking for counsel, then carry it out using all the help you can get”

Church on the other hand....I’ve been going to church for years and never in my life have I ever evaluated my faith, never once have I sought the opinions of others when it comes to giving my faith a check-up. We live in a society which medicates every possible aliment (and some which don’t medically exist), we increasingly turn to psychologists, counsellors and other “specialists” to answer our questions but across Europe organised religion is on the decrease. Many people (including myself) are turning away from God because he doesn’t give us that quick fix, in some way God’s authority is diminished because he doesn’t fill out a prescription detailing what we must do, when and how often.

            Story from Prayer of the Frog (Anthony de Mello page 139)

            A woman dreamt she walked into a brand new shop in the marketplace and, to her surprise,

            found God behind the counter

            “What do you sell here?” She asked

            “Everything your heart desires,” said God

            Hardly daring to believe what she was hearing, the women decided to ask for the best things

            a human being could wish for. “I want peace of mind and love and happiness and wisdom

            and freedom from fear,” she said.

            Then as an after thought , she added, “Not just from me For everyone on earth.”

            God smiled, “I think you’ve got me wrong, my dear,” He said. “We don’t sell fruits here,

            only seeds.”

One thing I’ve learnt from my relationship with God this year is following his advice isn’t like taking a pill, nor is the answer found by simply going to church once a week. For me the solution is found in growing my relationship with God, getting to know him and myself better, getting to know how we work as a team. Knowing where my faults lie, knowing where God wants me to improve. It’s only through growing my relationship with God that I can take a step back with him and evaluate my journey with him.

Take a look at this clip from Scrubs, take it with a pinch of salt but really think about it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FnkFesZSYk

Yet one month, one last weekend and a 5-years jubilee party left and the Mission Housers go back to their own country (or stay in the Netherlands, but leave the house). They don’t really turn back to their old and trusted world, because they left that already. They’re entering a new path of studies or a job, something that you and me maybe find normal, but for them means something completely new.

For me it means holiday, but also a new group of people on the first of September. Some arriving with a bagpack, some with a car load of stuff. And that is weird actually. I will say goodbye to this group of Mission House and after some time it starts again, but then with a different group of people.

A year which has it’s fixed moments with ’Sunday family-time’, Tuesdays housemeeting and zinmoment, Thursday housefriends meal and all the other fixed moments, like Christmas, in a year. Though the idea stays the same, reality will be different with a new group of people. The way somebody cleans the pots and the pans, the hiding place of the remote control or somebodies highly predictable jokes. In a snap they are gone en exchanged by complete new experiences with complete new people.

One thing though stays the same. At the end of the year they will also leave the house, being enriched with one bagpack or a carload of new experiences and things to learn. But that doesn’t stop me from having some sad ‘miss-you’ moments when this group of Mission House leave at the beginning of July.

Through my work with a lot of different groups of people in my projects I realized that I can learn from every group. From the children I can learn to be happy with small things, from the old people I can learn a lot about life and using the possibilities I get. From the women I can learn a lot about myself and about different roles and challenges in the life of the women. When I work with the homeless people and drug addicts I learn again to be thankful with the things I have in my life.

The pastor in this service said, that it is really difficult to be thankful with things you already have and to which you are used to, and I totally agree with this: I often catch myself out when I am thinking about the things I want to have. In the beginning we are often very thankful for things, but when they become normal for us we are not thankful any more, no we always seek to have more and better things.

I hope that I and also my house-mates learned through this year to be more thankful for the things we have and that we use the possibilities which are given to us.  

The Mission House functions because of team work. Everyone has a role to play, everyone pulls together for the common good. If you’ve  read the story about Jesus healing the paralytic from the gospel of Mark or Luke you’ll see that the man could have only been healed because of the team supporting him. Why is this important?

Take this story from the prayer of the frog (page 145)

A farmer, whose corn always took the first prize at the state fair, had the habit of sharing his best corn seed with all the farmers in the neighbourhood. When asked why, he said, “It is really a matter of self-interest. The wind picks up the pollen and carries it from field to field. So if my neighbours grow inferior corn the cross-pollination brings down the quality of my own corn. That is why I am concerned that they plant only the very best”

All that you give to others you are giving to yourself

Think of what the team does in the story from Mark.

1. Hears of Jesus in the town, (organise?!) the team has to find and carry this person (friend) to him – didn’t give up
2. Jesus is surronded by people: followers, disciples, important local persons. The team disregard social manners and rules – they don’t give up
3. Jesus is preaching (must realise this as they get closer) – didn’t give up
4. Physically can’t get in – didn’t give up
5. Rip open the roof – rubble falling in, maybe the owner and others shouting – didn’t give up
6. Lowered this man down through a gap on a mat – didn’t give up

This team met many challenges, physical, societal, mental, spiritual yet they carried on regardless. Their goal wasn’t self satisfying nor glorifying; it was to help this man.

This story never fails to remind me of what the Mission House tries to accomplish, of course we rarely meet the same standard of team work but it never stops us from trying. We don’t give up.

We finished the day with a lovely barbecue in the garden of the volunteers from Den Haag.

The Mission House functions because of team work. Everyone has a role to play, everyone pulls together for the common good. If you’ve  read the story about Jesus healing the paralytic from the gospel of Mark or Luke you’ll see that the man could have only been healed because of the team supporting him. Why is this important?

Take this story from the prayer of the frog (page 145)

A farmer, whose corn always took the first prize at the state fair, had the habit of sharing his best corn seed with all the farmers in the neighbourhood. When asked why, he said, “It is really a matter of self-interest. The wind picks up the pollen and carries it from field to field. So if my neighbours grow inferior corn the cross-pollination brings down the quality of my own corn. That is why I am concerned that they plant only the very best”

All that you give to others you are giving to yourself

Think of what the team does in the story from Mark.

1.       Hears of Jesus in the town, (organise?!) the team has to find and carry this person (friend) to him – didn’t give up

2.     Jesus is surronded by people: followers, disciples, important local persons. The team disregard social manners and rules – they don’t give up

3.     Jesus is preaching (must realise this as they get closer) – didn’t give up

4.     Physically can’t get in – didn’t give up

5.     Rip open the roof – rubble falling in, maybe the owner and others shouting – didn’t give up

6.     Lowered this man down through a gap on a mat – didn’t give up

This team met many challenges, physical, societal, mental, spiritual yet they carried on regardless. Their goal wasn’t self satisfying nor glorifying; it was to help this man.

This story never fails to remind me of what the Mission House tries to accomplish, of course we rarely meet the same standard of team work but it never stops us from trying. We don’t give up.

This time we got to sleep a little longer as we only needed to get up at 8 o'clock. This day was also jam packed with the visit of the harbor of Rotterdam and the Kinderdijk. It's the first time I have been to Rotterdam and I was impressed by the modernity, size and traffic of this city. The Kinderdijk had a completely different charm to the harbor of Rotterdam with19 windmills spread over 2 km. It is a very peaceful place and the beauty of the mills and the landscape which surrounds them amazed me.

The last day was reserved for the visit of the Keukenhof. I have never seen so many varities of flower in my life! It was really impressive, and the smell was very pleasant ;-)

To finish the trip we stopped off in Leiden which is, without a doubt, a beautiful city but of course no city surpasses Amsterdam which will forever have a special place in my heart.

My family and I had a great trip and were truly astounded by the beauty of the country. The Netherlands is small but with a lot to discover. Be proud of your country which contains such wealth.

So why write about this? It's not like the book of Proverbs is hard to understand, all the verses are easy to understand and certainly there are many easily available explanations online. Yet the understanding isn't the hard part to the book of Proverbs, it's the challenge it sets the reader, the one that says, "ok, now you've read this what will you do with it?".

In "The Prayer of the Frog" vol II by Antony de Mello there is a story about Buddha. Insults are shouted at him all day long and yet he seems completely unaware of them. One of his disciples asks him the secret of his serenity.

"Imagine what would happen if someone placed an offering before you and you did not pick it up. Or someone sent you a letter that you refused to open; you would be unaffected by its contents, would you not? Do this each time you are abused and you will not lose you serenity" (page 83)

Similarly if we turn to Proverbs (19:18) "A man's wisdom gives him patience; it is his glory to overlook an offense". Ever tried it? I have and I don't find it easy, you don't simply decide to not take offense. We react differently to different people. Thus should your mother/father criticise you that will result in a different reaction than should someone who you care little for who always complains about you in a hurtful manner. So often it feels more rewarding to prove another wrong, or prove your intellect over another, this is almost always the case for me when in discussion with people who are arrogant or egotistic. Yet this reaction, regardless of circumstance, is counseled against in the book of Proverbs. We must be wise people and rise above the egoisms of the world. The ones that tie us to competing, the ones that compel us to constantly compare ourselves to others or even to our own trumped up expectations of ourselves.

The great advantage of the teachings in the book of Proverbs is the ability to develop us to be more thoughtful humans (in every sense of the word).

"By wisdom a house is built, and through understanding it is established; through knowledge its rooms are filled with rare and beautiful treasures."

But with the firm part the service is not finished; Cola and crisps invite to stay, chat and get to know each other, and the band cares for a cozy atmosphere.

The 18th Ziel goes in the next round and we are all excited to meet new young faces there!

As you see it's a lot of fun and source of a lot of laughers to see the Mission House during the 40 days of abstinence; especially if you are just observer as me and don't have to fight with it yourself!!!

Well I'm attempting to learn Dutch and it's no walk in the park! Aside from the grammatical differences the pronunciation is exceptionally hard forcing one to spray it opposed to saying it. Don't mistake my comments as representative of someone who dislikes the language, far from it. In fact I deeply enjoy the challenges that come with learning a new language and genuinely enjoy the Dutch language. However in the course of learning the language mistakes are bound to be made.

Recently I told an elderly couple to go out instead of coming in resulting in an exchange of peculiar glances and a hurried apology and a second attempt; laughter ensued! Sometimes the simplest words can escape you. I was climbing earlier this week and forgot how to say down. Normally this wouldn't be problem but of course I was at the top of the climbing wall and was trying to communicate that I wanted to come down. So I attempted to shout "eh…hey….opposite of up" (in Dutch). Thankfully my climbing partner has an exceptional command of the English & Dutch language and so I made it back to the ground.  Of course some mistakes are far more embarrassing. For example, since September I had been mistranslating an expression that is meant to mean "flying keeper" whereas I translated it as flying chicken…

Aside from the funny aspects of learning a new language there are of course serious lessons to learn. An example - paying much more attention to a person's body language to help you understand what is being said, or appreciating the need to speak clearly and carefully in stressful situations. I do believe that I am far better off having put in the time to learn this language and while mistakes will be many so will the lessons.

As I plan a career in the police I can't think of any better example to show how I fully appreciate the importance of communication in everyday life.

All newspapers around here have a daily news update on the ice conditions and on where to skate and where not. It seems like it's the most interesting topic at this time of the year. The snow this winter is a lot and Amsterdam has not seen so much snow in a long time. Therefore a lot of people think the ice will be thick enough soon. Snow is actually not a friend of the ice. Snow makes ice grow slower and makes it uneven. Therefore the ice needs more time to grow thick enough and if it's thick enough it's not nice to skate on, because all the little

Two weeks ago I bought a pair of skates for my own. Some people they're no real Dutch people without ice skates. I already found really Dutchmen and Dutchwomen without.

All in all Iwas really impressed by this event and had a lot of fun joining this with the whole Mission House.

I've been thinking a lot about identity this week, largely given the fact that this year, for me, is about challenging "the self". Identities are important as they give yourself "order" but also allow you to "place" yourself in society. As you can see from the extract above we can "belong" to many different groups. These different groups change in importance in different situations. The fact that you might be trained in first aid will matter more in a road traffic collision than if you were trained as a computer technician. Of course this fluid motion (of different identities changing in importance) goes unnoticed and is of little importance in our life. However if a law was passed saying all those trained in first aid were to receive money from the government because of their sensible nature in being able to prepare themselves for emergencies then it would matter a great deal more that you were trained in first aid, to the extent that you might find yourself aligning with other first aiders. Suddenly a seemingly benign identity becomes important.

Think about the identity of Muslims 20 years ago and how seemingly non-important that identity was. Now the Muslim identity is very important and largely misunderstood. There is generally a misunderstanding of the complex history to Islam and Muslim history, there is no singular "Muslim" identity of course and given 10 seconds most people would realise this. That said given the events since September 11 it would not be wrong to say that the Muslim identity has been reshaped into something easier to...broadcast?! So while identities are important and certainly we have the power to change them (get first aid training/admit you have first aid training) often identities are subject to external forces therefore trying to create the idea of "me" demands cooperation of external forces which confirm your identity.

A student walked up to the clerk at the language laboratory and said. "May I have a blank tape please?"

"what language are you studying?" Asked the clerk.

"French" said the student

"Sorry, we don't have any blank tapes in French."

"Well, do you have any blank tapes in English?"

"Yes, we do."

"Good, I'll take one of those."

It makes as much sense to speak of a blank tape as being French or English as it does to speak of a person as being French or English. French or English is your conditioning, not you.

(Taken from "The Prayer of the Frog" by Anthony de Mello, page 193)

What Anthony de Mello is getting at is that some identities are needless, and result in the person being conditioned, often unquestioningly, by external forces. Do we make our identities or do they make us?

However it would be absurd to totally dismiss identities as they do provide sensible order: I speak to a Police officer about a crime instead of a bank teller (that is provided it isn't to do with my bank account!).

Jesus' disciples have identities, John the Baptist is known more as a 'hell, fire and damnation' disciple than, say, Matthew. Jesus has identities which help us to feel connected to Jesus in some way.

Amartya sen coins the term "diverse diversities" to explain the importance of identities in positively shaping our life and instead of walking into the naivety of "….there is more that unities us than divides us". He is trying to say we don't need to find common ground to feel compassion for another instead we should respect diversity.

Tova Yedidia, Professor in the School of the Social Work, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel published an article exploring the identity problems which face the immigrant population, an example he highlights is the difficult task of forming an identity which is accepted by society and themselves. With an estimated 590,000 people arriving to live in the UK in 2008 (http://www.statistics.gov.uk/CCI/nugget.asp?id=260) the UK faces over half a million people how will need to adapt to a different culture and way of life, yet the government itself must adapt also. Due to immigration the public service sector has had to completely change communication strategies to take into account different beliefs, languages and cultures. This is not a bad thing but a reminder of how far and wide the effects of immigrant are felt. Yet there are inherent dangers present, as presented by the terrorism expert Peter Waldmann in his article on www.Qantara.de. He highlights that ideology is secondary to identity problems in the driving forces behind radicalization and jihad.

Peter Waldmann: "Radicalisation processes of Muslims in the West are usually triggered by a combination of international politics events and personal experiences of disadvantage and discrimination"

The riots in the French suburbs were a clear signal to the government that rights were not being upheld and that labeling a section of the population as seemingly second class was going to be fiercely fought.

In Jean-Pau Sartre's "Portrait of the Anti-Semite" he explains

"[t]he Jew is a man, whom other men look upon as a Jew;…it is the anti-Semite who makes the Jew."

The minaret ban by the Swiss is an up to date example of identity intolerance and has rightly received wide spread criticism from other countries and religions. Yet it highlights the importance of identity and that while we are facing climate change, terrorism and the evolution of privacy (or lack of) we face the challenge of "self" and "society".

How do we know which identities to hold on to and which ones to shrug off or how to respond to other people's identities? Well I've not got a clue but as long as I am thinking about this and reading my bible then I know I've got a fighting chance to one day find out!

I can understand it, because yes it is a very difficult language to speak and yes for foreign people it sounds ridiculous, especially when your country is so small. Yes, it is like a tiny little Hobbit language.

When I see my housemates struggling with it, screaming in despair, throwing their books out of the window and humming yes to something they don't understand, I have a dubble feeling. I feel pity for my housemates, because they do their best so much to try and learn my language. But I giggle as well, because these tiny little flat country did create a language that's so difficult to understand! And then again I feel proud at the endurance of my housemates when they learned a very difficult word like 'tussenvoegsel' or when they used the grammar right in a sentence. Then houseleader life is pretty cool.

But the most proud I am when I practice for the play I'm in. Where I have to learn poetical sentences like 'het lijkt me niet onaangenaam een plaats in uw gedachten te bezitten, zowel bij nacht als bij dag, en ik zou mezelf niet zonder meer de bevoorrechtste mens ter wereld noemen indien u mij, als u ooit in moeilijkheden raakte, waardig zou achten u te helpen' (literally: I love you, I will never let you go) or 'wat u aanstonds zult horen is om zo te zeggen een ritmisch proza, een soort vrije verzen, zoals de hartstocht en de natuur die laten opzwellen in twee jonge mensen die elkaar iets vertrouwelijks mee te delen hebben en die zich spontaan uitspreken' (literally: let me play you a serenade). Now tell me, which language does ever use such beautiful words in such fluent sentences to say something so simple and beautiful?

Ha, my own Nederlands language is the most fascinating language I know!

Looking back 30/40 years and one would find a huge decrease in the amount of government involvement in our lives (a curious path to go down but stick with me), now we have the police and civil departments which seek to ever curtail anti-social behaviour literally litter dropping and loud music, things which 20 years ago would have been handled by people talking, not government agents acting on legislation. Again, if we look, at the care of the elderly not so long ago one would expect their own family to be the primary care provider, however now the government is by far the biggest primary care giver. This, some euthanasia opponents say, will lead to the elderly seeing themselves as a burden to society (financially).

Organised religion in Europe is in a clear decline and with that gaps are showing up where the church once filled. My curiosity comes from what fills these gaps. Are individuals seeking the Church as the middleman/woman in delivering social justice or are they seeking to move away and take charge of their own duty of care for society?

The employees of AkzoNobel surely are, but better yet there wasn't any overt sense of religious demand pressuring them to volunteer. They simply acted on their own moral compass.

Therefore do we (I know I certainly do) sometimes expect church to hold our hand a little too much? Do we expect to give a nice sum of money each week then go home feeling happy…?

I think we are in a dangerous position of limiting our giving by expecting the church to lead the way or supply us with all the answers. We should acknowledge the weaknesses of organised religion and try strengthen the church not completely by strengthening from within but remembering the power of strengthening from outside.

Every Christian is an Ambassador to Christianity and thus we must remember the significance of the individual.

Take the time to really look around you, to appreciate what you have and, most importantly, to enjoy life because if you are always looking to the future you will miss what's right before you.

It is rarely our own decision to leave our jobs, lose our families, homes or money; it's the sad reality that sometimes life is just cruel and unfair. Sometimes our problems have no solutions, or pride, stubbornness and personal agendas get in the way.

Everyday, the Mission House goes out into the shadows of this city and shines a light into the lives of others; a small beacon of hope that even though they are lost in the darkness they still may find their way. We do not often share our faith aloud, but I really hope that our actions speak louder than words.

"I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."

So I decided to join this event and to take some pictures. I found out that the ship parade will be also passing the Nieuwe Herengracht, so the Gracht we live at. Unfortunately the weather was typical Dutch, witch means that it rained like a waterfall. So I took my "oilskins and jumpers" and joined the families on the street.

The first boats with a lot of zwarte pieten* came out Malaga, Madrid and Valencia about twenty minutes before a police boat leading a parade with the steamboat of Sinterklaas. Even it was raining everybody cheered for Sint and his zwarte pieten. After Sinterklaas traveled through a part of the city by boat he got off in the harbor and went on a horse through the Major Streets (Central station, Dam square, Rokin) to Leidesplein.

For me as a German it was a little bit like a Carnival parade. Music playing, people in costumes and a lot of visitor this all is similar to German Carnival.

By the way it takes more than 600 zwarte pieten to bring an old man with beard (Sinterklaas) to and through Amsterdam.

We have a lot of pictures from the sinterklaas intocht on our picasawebalbum.

* Note from the webmaster: zwarte pieten are the helpers of Sinterklaas. Literally translated it says black petes. This is a part of Dutch culture where you may set some questionmarks. Anyhow, the story of Sinterklaas tells us that Sinterklaas comes in our country every year to give presents and candy to children (if they were nice and didn't do bad things!!). Of course he can not do this on his own, so he gets help from some people. These people are the zwarte pieten and they come to your house through the chimney. If you put your shoe underneath the chimney it will be filled with presents, candy or chocolate by zwarte piet. Now the question of how these people become black is answered. They have to go through the chimney, who will not get black by doing this?

One big part of the seminar was the mini projects. We were divided in four groups and every group had a different issue. I was together with four Hungarian people in "The animal group". Our task was to get to know more about the life of animals. In the Netherlands there is a special party in the parliament who fights for the rights of animals. Because of that they are against zoos. My group and I went to the zoo of Arnhem (The biggest zoo in the Netherlands) and looked what's so bad in zoos that they should become forbidden. The zoo is really amazing and the animals can have a good life there. The cages are very big and different animals live together like in nature. In the zoo there is also a rainforest, a desert, a huge aquarium and a safari park. All in all we didn't find something bad in the zoo. Of course it's always better for animals to live in nature but the zoo workers do everything they can to improve the lives of their animals. For everybody who lives in the Netherlands or who goes on holiday here: This zoo is worth seeing!!!

The only pity is that we were not about for Tobias's amazing Birthday party. Happy Birthday Tobias!!!

 We had a special dance hall in our living room, the table there was used as hiding place for Erin and me to watch the dance feet of people and comment on them. The dining room was changed into a cozy smoking room, and some people also used other accommodations like the water channel in front of the house, to celebrate the end of the party.

All in all  we had a wonderful time and a lot of wonderful guests, who made the party a unforgettable event for us all. Thank you!!!

After seven weeks living in the Mission House we thought that it might be time to start building a team. As if we were not a team already! This weekend this magical event took place in the beautiful and biggest village of Europe, Den Haag, where the Dutch parliament is seated. Yes, the Mission House went on Teambuildingweekend.

This means a lot of fun activities, silly moments and relaxing time. The things we did are of course very secret, so I can tell you that my best moment in the weekend was when we went into town to buy presents for each other. Tobias really knew my favors and bought me a very colourful woolen hat. How did he know that I have such a colourful personality? And how did Elsa know that Alena would be so happy with a birthday calendar? And how did Theresa know that Elsa would be excited about wearing a Star Wars boxershort? And what to think of the gashorn that Buck got from Erin? Or Iain's present to Theresa, a mug that she can write on, for not forgetting that there is a world out there...

And after tonight's housemeeting I can add this: I knew exactly what everybody was going to say at the question 'how are you?' This means a lot. It's the meaning of house. We know from each other where we stand, who we are, what we want and what we don't want. Comparing today with the first day seven weeks ago there is a big difference. And for me personally I enjoy seeing this progress and take part in it.

I have lived in the Mission House for five weeks and have had time to see different kind of addictions which are more or less serious. I give you some examples : stroopwafels (strangely I feel concerned), coffee, cigarettes, mobile phone, internet ...  What does it mean to be addicted ? It's easy, if you can't do without things which aren't essential you are addicted. I realise in my life many things which are so superficial take a big part in my life. I think internet is my biggest addiction; it's the best way to lose your time. During all the time I spend on the internet I can do so many others things which are more constructive like to pray, read, be of service, to visit someone ...  you will learn more about yourself than in front of a screen. I am the first person who has to learn to use my time intelligently and to fix my priorities.

I encourage you to think of a thing you do or eat regularly and think about fasting from it, you never know, maybe after fasting from it you will be able to do without it or at least it won't hold such a priority in your life... Life is short so ne passe pas a côté de l'essentiel !!

"I AMSTERDAM" (I am Amsterdam) is the Amsterdam catch-phrase but then who is that person? Is it the prostitute or the homeless person? Neither are breaking the law in Amsterdam but I have felt neither are fully accepted but instead tolerated. However while at the Church service right in the heart of the red light district I felt a great deal of acceptance, as if this were a place in which people could come into the open arms of God, where their identity wasn't "homeless", "prostitute", "criminal" or "Amsterdammer" but simply "I AME" (I am me) and because of that God loves me.

p.s. steward 2 lives...