Some of my friends

This is Ati! She (and all the other girls on this post) work at the Jordan with me. Ati is great- she is 18 and wants to go to midwife school after her time here. She has a laugh that reminds me of you, Joy Lewis! (Biola friends will appreciate that).
Sarianne! She is Dutch too and so wonderful! She is a painter and also awesome at drama, and getting excited for other people.
Hannah is from the States and we have a lot of fun together- "With our powers combined, we are Hananana!"

My roomie Francien! She's on vacation for a few days. She is my sounding board here and I really appreciate her perspective (which is usually very eagerly given!). I like to call her "the Flash."

The deeds of darkness

I pulled my bike through the back door of the hostel into the garden to park it. There was someone sitting under the overhang in "smoker's corner" but the light wasn't turned on and it was completely dark out. It was Lida. "Hey," I said. "Hey," she said in her mellow African voice. Lida has two voices- mellow or really worked up. As I approached her, all I could think of was "the deeds of darkness" and how they want to stay in the dark. "Do you want me to turn the light on for you?" I asked. "No," she said. I sat down across from her. Lida is an African lady who lives in Germany and is trying to move to Amsterdam. She is very smart- speaks English and German very well. She is probably about 40 and has so much pain. She hates the German people, and if you will listen to her, she will tell you how much she hates them and how badly they have treated her. She has come to Amsterdam for a new start and raves about how wonderful this city is, how different. She has stayed with us for two weeks and all of us have talked with her at different times- shared the gospel in many ways.
She quietly rolls her cigarette up in the dark. "I'm just tired, you know? I'm tired of it." she says. I just nod. This is a familiar conversation. She flicks her lighter and as I see her face in the glow, it just grieves me. When you talk to Lida, she sees so quickly the fault in other people and cannot see her own fault. I talked with her a few nights ago about grace and how, even when Christians, or just people in general fail us, if we realize that we mess up too, we need that grace. She says that she is an open book, honest, trying to live well and surrounded by people who do not live that way. I tell her that everyone has secrets in their hearts that even they don't understand.
She has a new outlook since she came here. You can see that the things that have been told to her have taken some root. She realizes blind spots in her own perspective that she wouldn't have admitted before. There's so much to give up though, if she was to follow Christ. She seems to want to settle for doing well enough on her own.
A thin, sour smell comes from her dark corner. There is pot mixed into her cigarette. With it I feel my nose curl up like it's been stung- my heart also. I think about all the conversations and patient times the staff has spent with Lida and I wonder at this moment, how much she has understood. Has she been stoned for 2 weeks and I didn't even know? Anger bubbles up in me. All of a sudden the sour story wrapped up under this puff of smoke doesn't hold as much weight for me. I feel a boldness, but really it is an anger. I feel like I am talking to an adult who is not an adult.
Pot is not allowed in the garden. I don't know what to do. I decide to ask Lida if she wants to take a walk with me. I can be with her outside. She says no, she is so tired, shopping all day, getting ready to go back to Hanover. I say I'm going to go take a walk anyway. And in my heart I was really running away. It is so hard to have compassion for people who choose their own prison (though I do the same). It is so much easier to walk into the next room and ignore the pain and the medications people choose. Pray for my heart here in this area.
As I worked in the kitchen that evening, smoke drifted through the garden window. It was so hot in the kitchen, but I just wanted to shut the window. I just wanted to pretend it wasn't there. I just wanted to run.
"Anna," I hear the Lord whisper, "Leave the window open."

Such an Endless Longing for Friendship

This is the inscription on the gay monument here in Amsterdam.
It's so heartbreakingly true.
Damen was here for 3 days. On the first, he came into the cafe. "Does anyone know a restaurant that serves authentic Dutch food?" he said in a distinctly French accent. Hmm. That's actually really difficult to find in Amsterdam! He came back later to the cafe and ordered dutch pea soup from a can, and the typical Dutch snack- thin waffles with syrup in between- even though he said he didn't like waffles.
In the evening at the cafe, he was sitting alone, drawing in a small sketchbook. I asked him if I could see his drawings and he said yes, with a sheepish smile. "They're a little strange," he said. In his drawings, I could see some of Damen's heart. They were all amateur drawings in colored pen- many of them people, most of the people men. They were mostly suggestive- short shorts, colored pictures with a key that had words for each like masturbation, beauty, fashion. He watched my face as I looked at them. I tried to thumb through quietly, agreeing with him in a smile, that yes, it is different- in my heart, sorrowed to see this man's longings for love simply in his artwork.
He had come here to visit the office of a famous gay magazine here in the city. "They show real people," he said in praise of it, "not princesses." That is his dream- to draw and do work with this magazine. We talked for a while- about art and the city. I gave him the address of a really beautiful art cafe which excited him. We talked about dreams and thinking outside of the box. I told him about my dream to go and show people love in Tibet. He told me about his desire to really experience the city- the underground- and how he had met this great guy who had taken him back after an evening out to his flat. He raved about the man and about the flat, and after I got up from the table as the movie in the cafe began, he was sending messages back and forth on his phone, reading the green glow with a smile.
My heart aches for Damen. There is such fear and fearlessness in his eyes. He is so set, and yet, so hungry and vulnerable. On the day after we talked, I was overwhelmed with compassion for him. Such an endless longing for friendship... I prayed that I would see him again before he left.
And I did! He walked in as I was passing through the hallway to the kitchen. "Hey Damen! How was your day?" He made a polite smile but didn't hide well. "It was OK," he said, but I knew it hadn't been. I asked him if he would be in the cafe for dinner, but he had already eaten. He did come in though, he brought a book for me to borrow that he had mentioned when we talked. I was excited he remembered me with that. We planned that I could leave it at the desk for him afterwards. "Are you going out tonight?" I asked. "Oh, yeah," he said, "I will go out to a bar and maybe I will meet someone." I could see that his friend wouldn't be meeting him there. Perhaps his visit to the magazine had not gone well either. He was hurting, longing again.
Later that night I read through Damen's book and wrote him a note to stick in it. "Never will I leave you nor forsake you." These are words the Lord has spoken to me here in this place; words for my loneliness. I wished Damen the best and shared those words with him, wondering on paper to him if maybe they would mean something to him as well- that God wanted to be there for him. He came back into the cafe just as I was finishing it. "I wrote you a note," I said, and he smiled and said, "Maybe I'll read it tomorrow"- he had had a few cocktails he confessed with another sheepish grin. We laughed and said goodnight.
Jesus, oh, Jesus, give love to these who are unloved- lost in the shuffle of this city, or other cities- tossed around by promises unfulfilled, eating but still hungry, adding layers but still cold. Give them real warmth, real love, real identity. Take away the longing, and remake it- Such an endless friendship with the ONE who fills.

Living in a City (this one)

Jazz is the soul of a city.
We went to hear live jazz last night at 11:30. As we walked out the door of the Shelter City, Eileen turned one way and Marga the other. “Why not this way?” asked Marga. “No, I don’t want to go that way- it’s dirty,” said Eileen, and she meant the strip of the red light district that is right around the corner from the hostel. We snaked our way through the streets a different way. I walked with Ronald, a visiting friend, who told me about Tunisia as we past coffeeshops and wide-eyed tourists.
We sat in the bar for an hour or two- talking about travels and drinking coffee and tea. It would have been better with the red-faced owner if we had gotten beers, but we’ve promised not to. Only an espresso to go with my music tonight, dank u vel. The singer is Dutch perhaps, but her song is Sinatra. We decide that to be a real jazz singer you must stop washing your hair- I’m well on my way! The music is wonderful, well, not wonderful musically, but just because it’s being played at all. I sometimes feel like this is a dream- living and working in this different place, but the jazz music made me feel as though I am really here in this city.
Marga and I left early, about 1 am, and went straight through the district to walk back. It is so full of movement. In LA, on Sunset Boulevard when the prostitutes work, they are the ones that move constantly- 6 or 7 women who hover over their corners, never stopping to be talked to. Here, it’s the men that move. They walk fast and constantly through the streets, surrounded by the glow of neon lights from all the rooms. It is a show, a show that you can touch. It’s really dark there. As we walked quickly through the crowds, I caught a glimpse of a swan swimming peacefully in the middle of the canal. It doesn’t fit- this innocence in the middle of so much dirt.

Errol

At the Shelter hostels we have cleaners who come an work for us. These are usually people from the street or who have just come to Amsterdam and need help. They stay for 1-2 months and then have to go.
Today is Errol's last day (it makes me want to cry to even write it). Errol is British, probably 37 or so, shorter than me and skinny. He grew up between South Africa and England, and came to Amsterdam from Japan, were his ex-wife is from.
He has two sons- there names are tatooed in Japanese on his forearm. Errol's whole life he has been a part of the goth underground scene- drinking, bands and guitars, Czech motorbikes, pain and sorrow. He showed us pictures of his sons and the rest of his life before, and he looks so different. "It's your eyes, Errol, that are different," says Francien.
And it is his eyes. Errol is so kind- tenderness is the best way I can think of to describe him. He is so eager to talk and have conversations about anything. He is also eager to learn and discover- I asked him about a Japanese character in a tract we have behind the counter, and he spent the rest of the evening trying to find it in his Japanese dictionary.
Errol was baptized a week or two before I came. He became a Christian at the Shelter, and in a small chapel in the Red Light District was dunked in public for his new faith. He was so nervous I think to be in front of people that day, but how beautiful!
Errol smoked 3 cigarettes the other day. "Well, six," he said, "if you count it, because I split them in half." This is a record low for Errol when in the past he chain-smoked about 30 in a day. Coffee is the in-between fix for Errol. He comes up to the counter during his breaks or before work for cup after cup, always with an embarrassed smile, and surprised that I remember what he wants.
Today Errol smoked a few more bits of cigarette than yesterday. He doesn't know where he's going tomorrow. He'll probably be on the street. And it breaks my heart. During Bible discussion we talked about the provision of God for the Israelites in the desert- Nehemiah talks about how their shoes didn't wear out, how they always had food. "Manna," suggests Errol, and we all nod. I pray that God will let Errol find manna, daily bread no matter what the next days bring for him.

Please pray for Errol!

The Zee

The sea here is woollen
It is grey and grey and grey
Grey sky
Grey sea
Grey Dog
Gris
Gris with a 'G' that sounds like a cough
The same 'G' that makes my companion Van Gogh seem like a stranger
Gris
A grey dog with black feet
Zwaart

The shells here are made with wool
They pull it from the sky and sand
To form the lines of their bodies
They are orange
Blue, Yellow, Striped
They end with grey wool
Pushed into the sand and at my feet
Dripping in the Dutch rain that rolls off my hood
like Dutch colors roll off my tongue

Day three at the Willemsstraat (staff house). I have probably spent more time hanging out here than being out in the streets, which is fine with me! There are so many great people to hang out with- it reminds me of college. Lots of thee (tea) and Nutella toast!
I worked last night for the first time (training of course) and it was great! It reminded me so much of working at Peaberry and the great opportunities you have to serve people and interact with them. I am excited about it! I will have a lot of time to not work though, so I pray that God will lead me with what to do with my free time. It feels very different than any missions trip I’ve been on, which is so nice- this feels more like real life.
Overwhelming is the word I would use to describe life these three days. To know a miniscule amount of all that I need to know is, wow, hard for me. I need to have patience with myself.

well, that's about all that my brain will produce right now- more later

Here's my writing address for my wonderful snail-mail friends:

Willemsstraat #33
1015 HW Amsterdam
The Netherlands