It is a Good Friday.

Hello everyone,

What a week! My family went back to Minnesota ( I do miss them a lot), I helped lead a discussion on Revelations (…”yeah, I don’t know” was my best answer), and we had out Good Friday Service. It was a full week and an emotional one as well.

My family being here was great! We had a wonderful time touring around the Netherlands, with a trip to Cologne and Bruges sprinkled in. We saw so many things and had a few adventures along the way. The best part is we didn’t kill each other, haha. Just kidding. It was good to see them all, my parents enjoyed there time here and so did my sister.

Although the trip didn’t get off to the best start. Ok here is the story. Their flight was supposed to arrive at 6:30am, yes AM. That means I have about an hour for them to get through immigration, get their bags, etc. Or so I thought. Well, the earliest train from my station in The Hague leaves at 6:45am. At this point I want to emphasis the AM part of all of this. So the first train leaves at 6:45 and arrives at the airport (Schiphol) around 7:15-7:20am. I arrive on time, look at the arrivals monitor and don’t see a flight from Minneapolis! There are other flights that have arrived at 6:15, 6:20, 6:25, you get my point. I don’t panic, yet. I walk over to an info desk and they say the flight from Minneapolis landed at 6:00am. Crap! I go to the appropriate gate exit, hoping to see my family waiting, but know. They aren’t there. Crap!

If you have ever flown through Schiphol you know how huge this place is. Rather than run around the airport looking for a needle in a hay stack, I figure I will wait by the gate exit, maybe they haven’t come back yet, and even if they had gone out, surely they would come back to the gate knowing I would go there. (If you realize, just then I shifted blame on to them, it was subtle, but there none-the-less). Well, I wait there for about an hour. Then I start walking. I am wearing a bright orange coat, Go Netherlands, and I don’t get 10 steps into the main hall when I hear, “HEY.” I turn to see arms flailing, it was my family.

Rather than greet each other, with the internationally recognized, “hello, hallo, hi, hej or whatever.” We all say at the same time, “where were you!” HaHa, I love my family. Luckily for me at this point they were too tired to be really mad, but next time I will have to be on time.

It was good to see them and I know it was special for my parents to not only see me, but to see Kevin and Kathy Johnson, as well. My parents have supported them the whole four years they were here and I know it was impactful for them to see all the work that has been done and to meet the people who have been impacted by the Johnson’s.

After my family left I started brushing up on my understanding of Revelations. I was leading a discussion on Revelations for a small group. It was a lot of fun and, no, we didn’t get a chance to map out the end of the world, but I am sure that the Anti-Christ will be a hybrid of Obama, the Pope, and Britney spears, you know its coming. We did however, have a good discussion and a lot of laughs. It was a lot of fun and hopefully, impactful as well.

Then came Good Friday, Crossroads did a Good Friday service at Crossroads where we had music and four perspectives of going to the cross. The four perspectives were The Centurion, Mary the mother of Jesus, the Disciples, and Jesus. I was asked to give the perspective of Jesus.

I thought the service was great, the whole thing, I loved the different perspectives about coming to the cross, the music, communion, time of prayer; it was all in all a great service.

I spoke about Jesus coming to the cross and how we can approach the cross like Jesus. Not to repeat my message, I spoke about how Jesus came to the cross with fear and trembling in the Garden and how we can come with fear and trembling to the cross. Also, Jesus came with the promise of joy and we come to the cross with a promise of joy.

I have to be honest this was a hard message to give, as you can imagine. When Scott first asked me, I said yes, but as my energy reserves got depleted that yes, was fading. I was tired from my family’s visit, the small group teaching, the travel, thinking about moving home, thinking about my job, etc. To compound the problem, I was having trouble figuring out what to say, I re-wrote my talk 3 times between Wednesday and Friday.

True to for though, before I went up on stage, I asked “God, make something out of this, because I am spent, I can’t do it.” Well, I think God did. I gave my talk, walked back to the back of the hall and sat down, I watched as people worshipped, prayed and some wept. Not because of me, no, no, no, but because of God. I just sat there. I remember when I sat down, I was completely empty, and I put my face and my hands and just had nothing left. Part of this was, I was tired and needed some sleep and relaxation, but part of it was also, I needed God.

I was thinking about everything that needs to happen in the next 5 months and I just can’t do it all. That is what I said to God, “I can’t do all this.” That is true I can’t do all that needs to be done. I can do my best, work my hardest, but still there are so many things out of my control. In one way that is life in general. That night I didn’t get some huge revelation, I didn’t see angels singing, and tongues of fire descend on anyone, but my eye’s were covered…All that happened was I asked God to do something, because I what I had wasn’t good enough, and God did. Now what I cling to is that God will do something again and again and again. I am starting to believe that this is also what I life is generally suppose to be like, us relying on God to do something.

Well what a week! Happy Easter. “Christ has risen, he has risen indeed.”


Jason