Looking Up

The sky keeps you sane when you're in the city. Greta, Dave turned our chins up to the sky last night and looked at the stars- I hadn't seen them in a really long time. "It's so cool that you can see the stars out here!" I said. "Can't you see them in the city too?" said Dave. "Maybe, but you just don't look up very much- you're always trying to avoid other bikes or see where your turn is."
Greta and I said goodbye to Dave and biked on the path through the park, We could see the stars in the dark part of the sky but the city lights shining on the clouds gave light enough for us to see. "Did Dave seem a little out of it to you?" I asked Greta. She nods. Dave left the Shelter a few weeks ago with new lyrics to all his songs and a burning feeling in his stomach when he prayed. He asked Francien if he could be baptized and my heart swelled to almost bursting! God is working so much in his life, but it's hard for him to keep going when he's all by himself, or rather, living on a hippy farm behind Westerpark. We spent the evening there waiting for him.
It was "music night" which means that people from the community are invited to come. For us it meant having tea served out of the old-bus cafe and then sitting in a warm yurt and listening to 3 Dutch guys play Van Morrison and Neil Young covers- keyboard and guitar accompanied by a saxophone. Greta, Chris and I had come and were welcomed warmly, if with curiousity. A lady named Peggy explained that we could come and volunteer there once a week or so, and that they rent the place out for parties. It looks like a hippy commune, but built with money (kind of like Whole Foods). The whole area is fenced off with real metal fencing like you would see outside of a contruction site and the whole area is covered with mulch. Apart from the yurt and the converted bus/cafe, there are small makeshift seating areas and a stage made with scaffolding materials and roofed by sails from a real sailboat. Behind some trees, the newest structure- the treehouse- is still under construction.
A few weeks ago Dave was living outside of these fences, in a tarp tent shelter in the trees. The day he left our Shelter I walked him there with his stuff- 2 backpacks worth. He had lived here with some people he met, then had come and worked with us for a month and now was going back. There were 5 other people chilling under the orange tarp when he and I walked up. "Hello? Is anyone there?" asked Dave. "Dave?? Dave! Hey! Proper Dave is back! Woah, where the hell have you been??" Dave and I ducked down and crawled in. His friends Walt, Benji, Greg, Dima and her friend were all there, huddled up under blankets on the old cushions which served as the floor. The tarp was only high enough that you could sit. An old asian umbrella held up the middle and a plastic orchid wrapped around as decoration. Everything looked orange with the light coming through the top and it reminded me of something out of Garden State. Dave introduced me quickly and they all continued with questions and updates of other people who had been in and out of the tent crew. I just sat and smiled, hoping that I didn't look as out of place as I felt. I loved this- I loved that I could come and be in Dave's place and with Dave's friends after he had been so long in my place- our place. The rules change then- I have to trust him and let his comfort there become mine, instead of it being my place. We sat and talked for a little while longer and then I walked out with Dave to bike him part way to work at the call center. "It'll be different here," he said, "When I've been at the Shelter, I didn't even want to smoke or anything because no one else was. But I know I will. I'll come back tonight and they'll be drinking and whatever- yeah, it's just different." "Yeah," I nod, "it totally makes sense that it's easier to not want to do that stuff when you're around people who don't." I didn't know what else to say. I knew there was no way for Dave to just stay at the Shelter for longer- that wasn't the issue. And actually doing drugs and drinking weren't the issues either. He needed to want something else. And I think he was beginning to at that point, but what do you do?
We saw Dave off and on in the next month, sometimes high, sometimes not, sometimes playing his guitar, sometimes wandering. He stopped in one night and Greta and I sat with him and had tea- we talked about Scott and Brian and how we hadn't heard from them and reminisced about all the funny things that happened while they all had cleaned together. Scott was coming back around in a week and we made plans for Dave to come back around then. He took a shower and then strapped his guitar on his back and biked back off to his tarp-covered home.
When Scott came back around, that was the turning point. I saw Scott's black-square glasses come around the door and yelled "Hooray!" We were all so excited to have our friend back! Scott is an amazingly smart guy who stayed with us on his first time out of the country and ended up cleaning for a month. He had traveled France and spent his last European days with us. Dave came and we all sat in the garden and listened to them play guitar and life was bliss.
We went to see the Psalters play at the City (check it out! psalters.com- Danny, I wished you could have been there!) and Dave was amazed. They are a group of self-induced refugees who travel around playing amazing crazy music and standing in solidarity with displaced people.
This Kiwi guy Greg was around that night and when Greg and Kevin asked me if I wanted to go out to Dam Square and pray for people, I was all in. We sat under the monument with a cardboard sign, "Would you like to pray with us?" and just waited. We were there for about a half hour when Scott and Dave showed up, walking back to the Jordan from the City. I got up and talked with them and goofed around until they decided to go. "I'm gonna stay and pray I think," I said. "Yeah, no one's coming to pray," said Scott. "Do you guys want to pray with us?" I asked. "Sure," they both said and I called Greg and Kevin over. Scott and Dave both prayed that night- such beautiful honest prayers to God saying thanks for the good things they've got. Dave didn't even believe in God when he came to the Shelter and now his beautiful fresh prayer came out as something so natural. We said amen and all walked back together, admiring the lights of the Western Tower reflecting in the canal.
The next night some of us staff were coming together to have communion and pray. I invited Dave and Scott to join us since they were sitting in the cafe also. Greta shared a passage from the Bible about Jesus and how He is what satisfies. A lot of other things were shared which I forget, but I do remember the LONG awkward silence that we sat through. It took every muscle in me to not fill in that silence with a call for prayer or some nice psalm or something, but the Spirit whispered that I should keep my mouth shut. Finally Scott broke the silence and he began to pour out his whole story- that he had come to Amsterdam believing in God, but how he had been learning about Jesus, how he was scared but ready, how he hoped that someone would come to him and hold his hand to lead him through the door of this crazy thing called being a Christian. I thought my heart was going to explode for joy! God was speaking to Scott during his travels, answering his questions and revealing Himself. Dave added his stories as well, how he had come to Amsterdam and how everything he planned had changed- that he had tried more and harder drugs than he ever had before, but that he had also come to believe that God was real and how he has begun to tell his friends that he is a Christian. Fear. Fear and trembling at this beauty that can't be completely explained or understood. Greg and Kevin and Greta and I encouraged and filled in Jesus, Jesus, Jesus where there were lacks. It was silent again and Kevin read Jesus' words about himself- This is my body, broken for you. This is my blood, poured out for you. We passed around the bread and the juice. "Is this ok since I'm not baptized?" asked Scott. My mind was swirling, but I knew that YES, this is ok. This is IT. This is who Jesus' body is for. We prayed then and a day later Scott flew back to Austin, we all went about our shifts and Dave moved to the hippy farm. What a Spirit-breathed beauty!
Please pray for my friends! Pray that God will disciple them and bring others around like Philip was brought to the Ethiopian to do the same. Pray that God will give us (and me) wisdom to know how to come around Dave and protect these seedlings that are growing in his heart.

Oh the joy of getting to throw out seed and taste this fruit!
He makes it worth it.