rae of hope: Update #9 (Amsterdam, Netherlands)

It is getting a bit difficult to remember all of the details of my trip. And I'm sure I'll leave out some things, but you'll at least get a feel for what the Netherlands was like for us!

Amsterdam was beautiful. I fell in love with its gorgeous buildings and canals and bikes almost immediately, despite the fact that we had to trudge through the rain lugging our suitcases to our new home at the Amsterdam YWAM base when we arrived. We were welcomed warmly, and were quickly assimilated into the YWAM base's schedule. We helped prepare meals, cleaned up afterwards, and helped with other assorted housekeeping chores. We attended some of the classes with the DTS school that was running while we were there, and attended some of their prayer and worship sessions as well.

Our ministry times were pretty varied. We spent a couple afternoons doing random acts of kindness, offering free prayer for people, going on prayer walks, and playing soccer with neighborhood kids after school. I think our most memorable ministry time, however, was when we helped a woman clean her house. Everyone said that they felt like they were on an episode of "Hoarders," but agreed that our help was very much worth it.

This older woman suffered from many medical ailments, and mostly had a lot of difficulty with her vision, being nearly blind. Doctors could perform surgery to improve her vision, however, her state of living was far from cleanly or sanitary. Any explanation of mine about the filth and grime and bugs and stench of this place will not do it justice. Do your best to imagine the worst, and this was that. She needed a clean home to come back to after surgery or she would risk infection. The doctors refused to operate until her home was clean. She also had no heat, because the repair men refused to enter the home to work on it. So our job was to spruce it up so she could get her heat back and have a surgery that would greatly alter her functionality in life.

We disposed of countless things due to mold and dirt and various other things. Bugs crawled out from under the couch as we vacuumed it, and we scrubbed layer after layer of dirt, urine, and other mysterious grime. Perhaps the worst project was the bathroom. It was caked in poop, pee, and any combination of other nastiness wall to wall and of course on the floor and fixtures. Christina and Heath were the brave ones to tackle it. It took them three hours to scrub that baby down, but they did a great job (photos below). I had a hard time with the stench and bugs, but jokes and teamwork helped to make the job more enjoyable. We spent one day cleaning and organizing and minimizing. It only scratched the surface, but other church groups would be coming to help out, as coordinated by the organization we had paired with. The woman was so amazed at the work we did and the transformation of her house that she actually cried when thanking us. God definitely used us!

During our free time we sampled a lot of great Dutch food. I am personally obsessed with stroopwafels, and McDonald's even had stroopwafel McFlurries. I think it's the only time I've craved McDonald's! We also did quite a bit of shopping. Those Dutchies have some style. Our team left looking pretty snazzy. I also got to spend some time with one of my friends from college who now lives in the Netherlands, which was pretty sweet. Also, our leader, Merel, and Jacquelien from our team are both Dutchies, so they were experts at navigating us around, and we also got to meet some of their friends and family. That was pretty special. We had a pretty awesome time touring Amsterdam!