Save us, God our Savior; gather us and deliver us
from the nations, that we may give thanks to your
holy name, and glory in your praise.
(1 Chronicles 16:35)

Greetings from Amsterdam! It’s getting into the summer travel season here, even though Dutch schools don’t let out until the second half of July, and the streets of the city are full of tourists. It’s amazing to see how this international city becomes even more international during peak travel seasons. All kinds of languages can be heard on the city sidewalks and in cafes, and it makes me excited to remember one of the primary reasons why we originally came to this strategic global crossroads—to spread seeds of the Gospel to the four winds. It’s an ongoing process that we’ve been able to experience for the last eight-and-a-half years now, and by God’s grace it continues month-in-month-out, winter and summer, throughout the neighborhoods of Amsterdam and around the world.

This month, our church is particularly excited to be following the story of one particular individual whose international adventure is unfolding as we speak.

For the purposes of this letter, we’ll call this friend “Adnan.” He grew up in Albania during the last days of Communism; and after the dictator’s iron grip was finally loosened in the early 1990s, his family was caught up in one of the many ferocious “blood-feuds” that flared up in that period of Albanian history. After several years of involvement in organized crime, both in Albania and in Spain, Adnan fled to northern Europe in search of a new beginning. By God’s grace, he eventually found himself in a Christian youth hostel in Amsterdam’s city center, and there he heard the Gospel for the first time—both through the ministry of the hostel and through our church, which had just been established in Amsterdam around that time. His mother having been Jewish and his father having been Muslim, Adnan argued vehemently with the Christians who were reaching out to him at that time. But after a week or two of debate, Adnan experienced a personal encounter with Jesus through a series of dreams; and he made the dramatic decision to follow Jesus. In September of 2003, he was one of the first seven people who participated in our church’s first baptism celebration, and since then he’s been a treasured member of our church community. There’s a whole book waiting to be written from what I just condensed into just one paragraph, here! I’m convinced that it would be an absolutely riveting, incredible, best-selling kind of story… But for now, we’ll just have to leave it at that.

Anyway, for the last eight years, Adnan has been living in a strange “legal limbo” with the Dutch immigration authorities. People from our church have tried to work with him on multiple occasions, attempting to navigate the system and figure out a way for our friend to live securely and legally within the Netherlands—but we’ve never been able to get things satisfactorily worked out. However, about six months ago, we figured out a new way of going about things that would benefit Adnan in more ways than just his immigration paperwork. With considerable help from people in our church, Adnan ended up applying to, and being accepted by a seminary in one of Amsterdam’s suburbs called Tyndale Theological Seminary (see www.tyndale-europe.edu, for more information). Finally, just last month, Adnan received an official student visa from the Dutch government!

The story doesn’t end with the student visa, though! In order for everything to work out, Adnan was first required to travel back to Albania and process his paperwork. In order for that to happen, Adnan would first have to come up with the funds for traveling and processing his paperwork, and then he would have to navigate his way through the border crossings, which are always tricky for people like him who have been living in legal limbo. I can’t adequately explain all of the complexities of his situation, but you’ll have to take my word for it that just getting Adnan to Albania and back is quite the ordeal! In the end, people from our church gave generously to fund Adnan’s travel costs. A friend helped to drive Adnan to Germany, where he could more easily fly into Albania (via Slovenia), limiting the complexities of border crossings as much as possible. And we all prayed like crazy for Adnan to make it back to Albania without any problems. When the day of travel finally transpired, a couple of weeks ago, you can imagine our joy and relief when we received the following message from our friend, sent from Albania:

Hi Everyone!!! I want to thank you for all the prayers and support that you all have giving me! I'm blessed by you all, the most beautiful people of God's family! It was the easiest flight I have ever had in my life!!! And The Lord Jesus did that because of you all loving me! But! Because you all loved God first! I love you all, with all my heart and soul!

God is writing a magnificent story through this young man’s life. Not only is Adnan establishing himself legally within the Netherlands; he’s also starting to prepare himself for a career in ministry—strategically positioning himself to reach out to Muslims and atheists and criminals in a way that few others could ever do. Things are still very much “in process,” though, and it would be great if you could continue praying with us for the successful conclusion of this chapter in Adnan’s story. As of the 22nd of June, he is expected back in the Netherlands for the beginning of the seminary’s summer term. But for that to happen, all his paperwork needs to be processed, which can be challenging in a country such as Albania. He needs to be physically protected from old family enemies; fortunately, a truce has been called in the blood feud with which his family had been involved, though Adnan has not been back in Albania since that time. And he needs to cross more borders and travel back to the Netherlands, which should be less stressful this time around but still… We need to keep praying for this brother in Christ!

Would you please pray with us for this situation? Please also pray for more opportunities to see these “seeds of the Gospel” spread from Amsterdam to other parts of the world and take root. We’re so grateful for your involvement in this ministry—and we hope you realize that you are a critical part of making stories like this possible! Thanks for everything. We’ll be in touch…

Eric