By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place
he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went,
even though he did not know where he was going…
 (Hebrews 11:8)

Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you!
As the Father has sent me, I am sending you…”
 (John 20:21)

Greetings from Amsterdam!  The weather is beautiful, the tourist attractions are packed, Elliot's school year has finally finished (though only since the middle of July!)... Without a doubt, summer has come to the city.  August is the month in which most Europeans go on vacation.  To the beaches, to the mountains, to the forests—our friends and neighbors (even local businesses) leave in droves at this time of the year.  But we know from experience that most of them will be back by the end of the month.
 
Most... But not all.
 
Just like it was in America—particularly working in campus ministry at Bowling Green State University—this time of year is a point of transition for many young people in Amsterdam.  Heading off to a new school, getting started in a new job, or simply taking advantage of a natural "reboot" to the rhythms of life—we've discovered that August and September represent significant changes in the lives of the people to whom we are ministering in central Amsterdam.  Part of this is fun and exciting, as we get to meet new people and experience new opportunities for outreach and discipleship; we even structure our ministry calendar around these seasons, and we look forward to watching God work through the process.  Yet, in our fourth summer season observing the rhythms of life in Holland, we've also come to realize that we cannot escape saying "tot ziens" to good friends and valuable components of our church leadership team at this time of the year.
 
In particular, it seems that our home group (which I would basically consider the core element of our family's ministry in Amsterdam) is bidding farewell to some beloved brothers and sisters this month and preparing to make some significant transitions in the fall.  In some ways, we know these transitions will be difficult.  But we also realize that God is definitely at work, and he's using these transitions to expand the influence of his Kingdom—not just here in Amsterdam, but around the world!
 
Marco, Sander, Kor, and Jetske are energetic believers that have been involved with Zolder50 and our home group for several years.  They are the kind of people for which missionaries fervently pray: talented, capable, passionate, godly, young, Dutch men and women who have come to truly own the vision of Christ and of our church for reaching the world.  They are all in their early-to-mid-20s, and yet we've seen incredible spiritual growth in their lives over the last couple of years—to the point that we can be sincerely confident in their maturity and capability to lead.  Thus, when they started to dream about starting their own home group, we took notice and sought to offer as much help and support as possible.  Slowly a plan developed to involve two other aspiring young Dutch leaders from another home group, and over the summer we've been systematically providing these six leaders with opportunities to practice leadership and refine their vision for launching a new home group.  Finally, with the turn of the summer season, the time seems to be right for this new home group to launch.  The other members of our home group feel that we're ready to let our friends go (in fact, we're excited for the opportunity to involve new people who will get sucked into the vacuum that will be created by their departure), and the six core members of the new group feel excited to set out on their own.  Consequently, this month we will be commissioning Marco, Sander, Kor, Jetske, Mariska, and Gerard to start Zolder50's sixth home group—which also happens to be the first home group in our church's history to be comprised entirely of young Dutch leaders.  The guys' apartment in the heart of Old Amsterdam will serve as the outpost for this new spiritual family, and we're excited to see how God will use these men and women as missionaries within their own culture and their own city.
 
However, the commissioning of new missionaries from our home group does not stop with these six… Meghan is a young Canadian woman who got involved with our home group through the Alpha Course that we sponsored about a year ago.  She had moved to Amsterdam for a pre-determined period of one year (to work for a Christian youth hostel in the city), and she took advantage of our Alpha Course as an opportunity to share Christ with some of the people to whom she was reaching out.  After the Alpha Course finished, she stuck around to bless our home group with her involvement, and we came to love her cheerful countenance and compassionate heart.  But now that her year has finished (it went by so quickly!), she is moving on to a Bible school in western Canada to study counseling with the goal of one day ministering to troubled teenagers.  Thus, even though we can't claim too much credit for her personal spiritual development, our home group recently laid hands on Meghan like the early Christian church in Antioch (Acts 13:1-3) and commissioned her to be a part of Jesus' Great Commission in Canada and wherever God may lead in the coming years.  And again, we were excited to see one of our sisters trusting God for the next stage of her life.
 
Still, the commissioning of new missionaries from our home group does not stop here!  Geert Jan and Anne are a young couple whom we've known for about a year and a half now.  They bubble with charisma and enthusiasm, and they seem to have been naturally gifted as leaders.  For the past couple of years—in addition to serving within our home group and our church—Geert Jan and Anne have also been working part-time for a parachurch organization called Athletes in Action (www.athletesinaction.org) while maintaining “day jobs” in the fields of international law and early childhood development, respectively.  Yet they now feel God’s calling to serve in full-time ministry for the next two years with an organization called Operation Mobilization (www.om.org), working on the crew of an oceangoing ship christened the Doulos—putting in at ports throughout the Third World (they’re planning to join up with the ship in southeast Asia) in order to distribute Bibles and Christian materials, and to share the Gospel with the thousands of visitors who flock to their ship.  It’s a very exciting opportunity for Geert Jan and Anne, and we’re very excited to be a small part of helping to send them out to the ends of the earth!

So as you can see, there’s a lot happening during this season of transition.  We hope that you are as encouraged as we are by the breadth of what God is doing in and through our ministry, and we hope that you will join us in prayer for these young “missionaries” throughout the world.  Thanks for everything!

Eric

The body is a unit, though it is made up
of many parts; and though all its parts are many,
they form one body.  So it is with Christ.
(1 Corinthians 12:12)

Greetings from Amsterdam!  We’re just back from our month in the land of big cars and long highways, the land of free refills and conscientious customer service, the land of long-and-much-beloved people and places… Let’s just say that our recent visit to the United States was wonderful.  We really enjoyed the opportunity to reconnect with family and friends in America—so much so, in fact, that by the end of our trip we weren’t so excited to get back to “regular life” in Amsterdam.  But by God’s grace, our return to the Netherlands has been surprisingly smooth and satisfying, so far.  In fact, we actually find ourselves glad to be “back home” in Amsterdam, after our trip “back home” to Ohio.

One of the things that struck me during our time in America was the beauty and power of the body of Christ.  It’s simply amazing how believers from across the globe work together to serve as God’s hands and feet in the world today.  Although we went back to America in hopes of sharing stories of God’s work in Amsterdam and offering our thanks and appreciation to everyone who so faithfully supports our ministry—we actually found people on our ministry team thanking us for allowing them to be involved in God’s workings in Amsterdam.  Marci and I were unspeakably encouraged by the countless men and women (a number of whom we had never met before) who approached us during our time in America to tell us that they had been praying for us through critical periods of life in the Netherlands.  And wherever we went in America, we felt like honored guests.  We had enthusiastic people welcoming us into their homes; we were treated to wonderful conversation over wonderful meals; we were provided with a comfortable-yet-fuel-efficient car that could carry us from place to place… And thanks to God’s goodness and the generosity of the Church in America, we were able to meet all of our financial support goals for the trip!  Indeed, it is an incredible blessing to be a part of the body of Christ…

Since returning to the Netherlands we’ve been quickly re-assimilating into our local body of believers, Zolder50.  There’s been a lot to catch up on, but overall things seem to be going very well with the ministry in Amsterdam.  Obviously, given the fact that our last month was largely spent on American soil, we don’t have much in the way of personal observations or specific news from the Netherlands to report.  Nevertheless, I would like to ask for you to pray together with us this month for the following:

• Ongoing Negotiations regarding the Zolder50 Ministry Facilities:  Just prior to our travel to the States, our church definitively learned that we will be leaving our current ministry facilities ('The Zolder') this fall.  Naturally, this will present some challenges (leaving a place that is such a part of our history and our identity; going through the hassle of starting over again in a new place), but we also trust that it will present some opportunities (to move toward greater financial self-sufficiency; to impact new areas of Amsterdam for Christ; to reaffirm the centrality of Jesus within our church, above and beyond any specific facility or event).  So please pray with us for ongoing negotiations with the owners of our current facilities, that they may cooperate with reasonable terms for our departure (in particular, we’re working on departure dates and financial settlements for contract termination).  Also, we would appreciate your prayers for wisdom and direction in finding new facilities to meet our needs as a church.  And please pray for minimal disruption to ministry activities during the transition period.  Your prayer support for this is critical…
• “Spies in the Land” Follow-up:  In April, one of the Zolder50 home groups joined up with a short-term missions team from Michigan to visit Rotterdam (the second-largest city in the Netherlands) in order to explore the spiritual climate of the city and evaluate possibilities for eventually sending a team from Amsterdam to help start a new church there.  The result was an overwhelming plea for our involvement in Rotterdam.  Consequently, three of the people from the Michigan team are returning in July to dialogue further with our church and with other Rotterdam Christians to strategize and consider possibilities for starting a new church there within the next couple of years.  Thus, this strategic initiative really needs our prayer support in the coming weeks!  Through this year’s “Spies in the Land” project, we’ve also discovered strong possibilities for eventual follow-up in Nijmegen, Groningen, and Maastricht (other cities that have been visited by Zolder50 home groups).  Also in July, the fifth and final home group from Zolder50 will be “spying out” the fifth and final city of our project: Utrecht.  Therefore, your prayers for all of these possibilities would be greatly appreciated.  In particular we’re praying along the lines of Matthew 9:37-38:  “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.  Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”
• Zolder50 Leadership Development.  We believe as a church that we can play a critical role in mobilizing “workers” to go out into the “harvest fields” of Amsterdam and beyond, through deliberately training godly young men and women to lead the church in Europe.  To this end, we’ve been developing a special equipping course that will hopefully begin in the fall, by focusing on our church’s current home group leaders and ministry leaders.  This summer, Lee Dubois (one of our staff members) will be leading a pilot group to test the program and materials.  So please pray especially for Lee and the pilot group, that they could have wisdom to help establish the most effective strategy for developing leaders in our setting.  We trust that this could be a pivotal project.

In everything, thank you so much for praying for us and actively participating in the world-wide Body of Christ.  Each part of the Body is vital to the healthy functioning of our ministry in Amsterdam; and we simply couldn’t be here without you.  You mean more to us than we could ever possibly say!  We'll be in touch...

Eric

P.S. – On the internet, visit share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8YZN2TVo0YXc to see some of our favorite pictures from the last month or so (we’ve narrowed it down from a one-month collection of about 700 pictures to our top 30)…