Starting to see clearly

Glasses, originally uploaded by cutjas.

Hello all,

Well the holidays are now becoming a memory, and all my transition has pretty much finished. After the dust settled, when I look back here are the new things, I have a new computer, a new place to live, I preached my first sermon, borrowed another bike, and am starting to officially learn Dutch. Yes, it was quite a whirlwind month and a half.

Over the past week I was able to have some good time to relax and catch up on sleep, that will not be the case this week..This coming Saturday I am leading a seminary on Strengths Finder. This is an exiting thing for me and hopefully it will benefit the people involved.

Also, today in about 20 min I have my first Dutch lesson, this should be interesting to see how I do. I am excited to start learning this language that I have been surrounded by for the past 5 months, but for many reasons have not been able to engage fully. Well, its time to jump in the pool.

I did start coaching the little kids basketball team again a couple weeks ago. This was a hard practice, in that the kids had forgot everything they learned in the previous months. We had to have a couple talks with two kids so that they understood if they don't pay attention then they won't be able to run the plays, and won't be able to play in the games. This sounded harsh, but really I believe we are starting to teach these kids about more that sport and that excites me to see if they step up to the challenge.

In regards to my future I am getting very excited about how my role in Christian Associates is developing. I don't have any for sure, but I have had good conversations with several people about who I am and what I can do to help. Thankfully, they agreed and we are proceeding forward. That means that I have a good chance to come back over to Europe in the coming year, which is something I would very much like to do.

This past week, my father turned 60, yes 60. That was hard to not be there to celebrate on his birthday, but he had a big party and I am sure a great time. I really appreciate my father, a lot. He has been a great role model for me and honestly I would not be where I am today without him. Thanks dad.

The title of this post is "Starting to see clearly" and that is what's happening. I believe that I am getting a clearer picture of where my life is going in the near future, there are still a lot of things that need to fall into place for my future in Europe to continue, but I am hopeful.

As I continue to grow and be challenged I look forward to the coming months and regardless of where I end up. I know that this time will help to shape the rest of my life.

Thanks,
Jason

Prayer Requets:

1) Praise my dad made it to 60, haha, no, praise for my father and the man he is and the relationship we have.

2) Continued clarity as I move forward in Europe, where to go, what to do...etc.

3) Pray for my travels, that they would be relaxing and helpful to those I am working with.

The long lost Missionary

Nieuw Jairs Duik, originally uploaded by cutjas.

Hello everyone,

I am very very sorry that I have not updated my blog in a month and a half. Mainly because so much has been happening, good stuff, hard stuff, and strange stuff, I want to bring you all in on. Ok, here were go first things first, the picture.

I was in The Hague on New years day and they have a tradition here, where on New Years day thousands of people gather to jump in the North Sea. Well being a Minnesotan I could let this opportunity pass me by. I with 6,000 of my closest Dutch friends jumped in the North Sea at 1200pm on New Year’s Day and it was cold!!! And I would do it again in a heartbeat.

Ok now a quick run down of where I have been and highlights of what has happened over the past months. First, I was in Budapest, Hungary with my friend Viktor, we had a great time seeing his home town and meeting his family, thanks Vik. Then I was in The Hague for about 36 hours, scrabbled to get all the finishing touches done for my absence. Then I headed to Minnesota for 9 days that was great.

When I landed in Minneapolis it was 22 f at about 1230pm, by that evening it was -10 and a blizzard had hit the city, I couldn’t have asked for better weather. Seriously, that is one of the reasons I wanted to go home, for a white Christmas and Minnesota delivered. I had a great time in Minneapolis, seeing friends and spending time with my family.

On December 29th I headed back to the Netherlands for new years, at this point my friend Jon Krull came over to visit, we spent New Year’s Eve in Amsterdam, which was wild!! The Dutch have a different way of celebrating new years, they do fireworks…and when I say that I mean everyone does fireworks, all the time for about 12 hours fireworks everywhere, it literally is like a war zone, its crazy. I had never experienced anything like that ever. We had a great time in Amsterdam celebrating New Year’s with a missionary family and their friends in Amsterdam.

Then I went back to The Hague and did the New Year’s dunk in the North Sea. After that we had a pretty quiet day relaxing with the Perriman’s. The next few days were filled with get together and sight seeing all around Holland, it was a lot of fun, from Amsterdam to Den Bosch, we saw a lot and had a great time. All the while I was preparing my first Sunday Morning sermon.

Jonathan flew out on January 10th, I was sad to see him go, but we had a great time while he was here. That next day I gave my first Sunday morning sermon. I was so nervous. It ended up going really well. I have received a lot of positive feedback and encouraging words. If you are interested the sermon is online at (www.crossroadschurch.nl). Once I finished preaching I went had one last lunch with the Perriman’s before they moved to London. After lunch it was off to the office, where I had been staying for the week.

At the office, I packed up my stuff and then moved into my new house in Liedschendam, with the Malon’s. I spent the next couple of hours unpacking then we went over to a friend’s house to watch the Eagle’s Giants Football game.

The next day was equally busy, for me unpacking, gathering possessions that were, literally, all over The Hague. That night we had our first Small group meeting of the new year, which went really well, we had a good discussion and all had missed seeing each other.

Ok, well I think that is all. I am pretty well settled in by now and speak again tomorrow at a youth Prayer night, which I am very excited about. I will be updating my blog regularly again, so this sort of laps won’t happen again. Oh yeah one more memorable thing happened on my tram ride to the North Sea for the New Year’s dunk, I was thrown up on. I will save you the explosive details, but it was not pretty.

Upcoming things, I will be doing some more travel coming up, headed to Manchester, England to visit two Christian Associates (CA) friends. Also, later in February I will be heading to Sweden to work with the CA church in Gothenburg, visit relatives and help a couple of friends move. I am looking forward to the next couple of months, as they should be very exciting.

Please feel free to email me I would love to hear from all of you. Hope you are doing well and I have been praying for you as well.

Take care,
Jason

Prayer Requests:
1) Discernment – there is a lot happening right now in all areas of life and I really need to be thinking and seeing clearly.
2) Speaking – my sermon went really we, better than I had thought it would, and now it looks as though I will be doing more speaking. Pray that God would protect me from everything, including myself…haha.
3) My new home, The Malon’s be praying for the Malon’s that I can be a blessing to them and that God would be blessing them for their generousity.
4) Health – I am doing good health wise, but I have a lot of travel and big decisions coming up and I need to have good personal boundaries and take rest when I need too, I need to maintain my health.
5) Family – being home was good, and I am thankful for all of my family. But I do miss them; pray that we would maintain a good connection while I am over here. It will be hard to miss events, birthdays, graduations, hockey games, etc., but I know and they know that I am where God wants me.

Busy/Coming back to reality

Busy, originally uploaded by cutjas.

Hello everyone,

Sorry I have not updated in a while, but the holiday season has been busy. Like the picture I feel as though I have been in a whirlwind. It has been a very good christmas and new year, but man I am tired.

A few things coming up for me, I will be preaching at Crossroads Church this Sunday, the following saturday I will be doing a Strengths Finder seminar and speaking at a Youth Prayer rally in The Hague. Lots going on. I am also moving in a couple of days.

Since the Holiday's have been lots of fun and little work, that will be flipped here, and I will have lots of work and little fun...well, probably not that bad. I do have a lot to do, but I am having lots of fun doing it.

I hope everyone had a nice holiday season...at least those in the western hemisphere, my friends in the east, have fun when your new year comes.

Thanks again for all your prayers,
Jason

Request:

prayer for my speaking, I am nervous, but am anticipating doing both events.
Prayer for the move, it should be a good move, but seeing the perriman's leave will be hard.
Prayer for my time here, there is so much work to do, I need to be wise in what I focus on.