The Boil, The Computer, and The Assessor

Stain-glass window, Amsterdam, originally uploaded by cutjas.

This past week was filled with busyness. I came right out of weekend conference in Stockholm and had my day of misery (see last post). On Tuesday I was in the office all day and most of the night finishing up the artwork for the First serve ministry Fair we had this past Sunday. The First Serve Ministry Fair was a chance for people in our church to sign up for service opportunities within our church and within our community. It was a great success, but took a lot of work. I was in charge of making all the signage, graphics, and organizing all the ministry booths on Sunday morning. Thanks to some long hours and a lot of help from other folks we were able to pull off this event. I was happy with the way it went, which is always a good feeling.

During the week I was so tired. I have learned something about myself over the years. I learned that stress makes me very tired. I have friends and family that get stressed and can’t sleep, they are so restless; I am the opposite, I can’t stay awake, literally. As stress goes up my need for sleep gets out of control and this causes as much of a problem as not getting enough sleep. During this week I was pretty much sleeping and working, that was my routine. I also noticed that my body was taking a considerable amount of energy to heal from this boil I had contracted. All of this culminated with me sleeping for 10 hours Sunday night and then resting/vegging out all day Monday, but it was well needed.

This past Friday I made the short trip to Amsterdam for my formal Team Leader assessment with Laina Graf. This was fun to make the trip, I enjoy riding the train and I had a nice tram ride through the heart of Amsterdam, it was amazing to see the diversity in that city. I had a Three-hour interview with Laina and then was invited to stay for dinner. I did and am glad for that decision. Laina is a professional caterer and the dinner was incredible. I was also able to meet some of their friends and get to know their family better.

After dinner Phil Graf invited me to stay for his monthly poker game, again, I am glad I did. I was able to win 30 euro’s!!! This was fun, the game was myself, Phil Graf, one of phil’s neighbors and his coworker Vivian, then Stuart and Tione (Twan) who Stuart buys vans from. It was a good group of folks and we had a good night of fun. Seeing as this was my third time playing poker I was pretty happy to finish 2nd in that group. Honestly, my only goal was to win enough to be able to by my train ticket back to The Hague.
I ended up staying the night at the Graf’s and then headed back to The Hague the following morning. Once back in The Hague, I went to set up for the Ministry Fair and then went home to a shower and a good nights sleep.

I have noticed something that was new to me this past week. It’s been three weeks now that I have been gone and I am experiencing a little relationship withdrawal. I got a couple messages from friends lamenting that I am not around to hang out. Another one of my friends lost his dog (Norm, a 14 year old greyhound) and I was hard for me not to be around for these friends who I do miss.

I know that I am where God wants me to be and that this is part of the transition process, but it is hard and is something I will have to learn how to deal with. This experience has made email, chat, and online phones very important. The fact that I can communicate with family on a daily basis makes “not being there” a lot easier to deal with, still nothing can replace face-to-face.

With that said, I am getting to know people here better, I found a soccer team to play with. I was invited over to a Dirk’s house to watch Football (soccer) this evening. Last night I went with Kevin and Kathy Johnson out to a pub for jazz night. It was spectacular; the 5 piece Jazz band was really good and played an impressive show. It is funny how I am working on maintaining old relationships and starting new one at the same time, such is life though.

I did the announcements in front of church again this week it has been helpful to get some up front exposure to the church and for myself to get more comfortable on stage. I am currently working on a paper on the “Attributes of service” for a meeting we have this week called the “Thinklings.”

I have been monitoring my finances closely, as well as, keeping an eye on the current economic status of the markets. Who knew that being a missionary would also make me an amateur finance analyst as well? I seem to be doing well with money so far, thanks to folks at home and people here being so generous I have been able to keep my costs down, but I will still need to raise some more money to be able to stay until May 1st. Right now I don’t have a hard number, but I hope to be getting a better idea of that figure in the next couple of weeks.

I do have some prayer requests:
1) I am starting to move forward on organizing the 25-35 year olds in our church for social event, service projects and small group communities. Pray that God rises up leaders who have a desire to work with this age group. Pray that service projects arise and that we start to feel a sense of community around this age.
2) Pray for confidence. I have a lot to say, but have a big case of stage fright. I need/want to over come this, it will take time and effort, but I know eventually I will be able to speak that message I have.
3) Relationships – as some of my good relationships change and as I build new ones that I will be wise and diligent in my relationships.
4) Be praying for the IJM initiative that is beginning here in The Hague. There is a lot of passion around this topic of Justice and the anti-slavery movement, pray that we would turn that passion into action wisely.

I thank you all again for you emails, prayers, comments and questions. Its nice to have the interaction with everyone.

Take care,
Jason Cutshall

P.S. I did finish reading a book called “Murder in Amsterdam” this was a book given to my by my friend Steph (shout out!!). It was a really good book detailing out the contemporary cultural/political situation here in The Netherlands regarding the influx of new immigrants. The book was a good account of some murders’ of radical figures in the Dutch cultural/Political scene. I think that this was able to unearth some of the angst that is under the surface here in the Netherlands. I do recommend it for anyone who is interested in the challenges of multiculturalism/melting pots. This book raises a lot of good questions and takes a very objective reporter type approach, although I am not well versed in the Dutch pop Politics.

Heja Raz and Linds

Raz and Linds, originally uploaded by cutjas.

Heja (hello, in Swedish),

I had a jammed packed week. During the week Carolina (the youth pastor at Crossroads) and myself finished a rather nice flyer that we had been working on for a week or so. It was detailing out all the happenings at Crossroads over the next month and let me tell you there are happenings a plenty. The bulk of my week was spent working on the flyer. This had to be finished by Thursday, because I was off to Sweden on Friday.

I flew to Stockholm Friday morning for a conference put on by the Swedish organization EFK (http://www.efk.se/). The conference was focusing on the state of the church in Sweden. The conference was very informative and helpful in understanding the religious situation in Sweden. We saw several presentations by leaders of EFK about the history of, the present situation and future hope of the Church in Sweden, from a Swedish perspective.

EFK stands for Evangelical Free Churches. EFK seeks to unify the mission efforts in Sweden by unifing churchplanters and mission organization together to be more strategic. The state of the church in Sweden is very dire right now. One statistic that sums up the situation is this; in Stockholm (Sweden’s largest city at roughly 2 million people) there is 1 church for every 14,000 persons. That number is expected to grow in the coming years. What that means is that even if people were asking questions there really is no church presence there at all to join in the conversation.

There is a great challenge in Sweden, but there is also great things happening. We heard testimony of new people coming to faith in the existing churches. God is moving in Sweden. Even though Sweden is in one of its darkest hours, as far as, the church is concerned. I did go away inspired to see what God will do in Sweden.

If you wish to pray for Sweden the biggest needs are leaders and encouragement. After years and years of discouragement, the Swedish church leadership is very discouraged and needs help. This conference was the church reaching out to the world saying we need help here, as a church we are dying. It is a very humbling thing to have to ask for help for something, traditionally, you have done very well and that is where Sweden is. Traditionally they have been at the forefront of missions all around the world and now they themselves have become a mission field and are asking for help.

After the conference I was able to spend sometime with my good friend Rasmus and his lovely (and pregnant) wife Lindsay. It was very good to see familiar and friendly faces, Rasmus and I picked up where we left off, by having hamburgers and watching soccer. It was a good time to rest and reconnect with old friends, halfway around the globe. We spent Sunday walking around Stockholm and eating sushi. The trip was too quick, but we still cherished the time. If you think of it Rasmus and Lindsay are expecting a daughter in the next week or so, please keep them in your prayers.

The other major issue that was going on for myself was severe discomfort in my lower back. Since, last Friday I had been experiencing severe pain in my lower back. There was swelling and shooting pains. This baffled me the whole weekend, but the pain kept growing worse and worse. Until this afternoon, I had laid down for a nap and when I woke up I realized that this swollen thing had begun to discharge out of my back. At this point Andrew rushed me to the doctor and they diagnosed it as a boil, yes a boil! (http://www.webmd.com/skin-problems-and-treatments/tc/boils-topic-overview)

At this point a little needs to be said about the Dutch medical system here. It is notorious for being quite brutal and that was the case. They don’t like to treat people unless its absolutely necessary and they don’t like to give anesthetic or antibiotics.

I knew things were going bad when the doctor said this, “ok, now we are going to spray a cooling agent, pause, ok, now I am going to make the incision.” At this point I almost stopped him, incision!!! Before I could I was experiencing some serious pain and could barley breathe let alone yell at the doctor. The Doctor cut into the boil and then began scrapping out the infected area. This created a sense of…well…pain.

As I laid their on the table clutching the wall with all my strength and shaking uncontrollably from the pain. The doctor said, “It’s a medieval disease, which requires a medieval treatment.” As you can imagine this comment did not raise my confidence in the doctor’s abilities. The doctor was kind enough at one point to pause, so that I could catch my breath, but then he went at it again and I laid their in the fetal position squirming and doing everything I could to not scream in agony.

In all fairness, the treatment was far cheaper than I am used too, but honestly I think I would have paid triple for it not to be so painful. I am feeling better, but I have to…well someone here has too, dress my wound each day. I can now say I have been through the hell that is the Dutch medical system and well it was an experience…a very very painful experience.

I was able to have a good laugh about it on the way home…after I stopped shaking that is. I wonder what the next week will bring, maybe an infestation of locusts or frogs will over run the city. One can only hope.

From one extreme to the other

Statue to the Unionization of Prostitutes in Netherlands, originally uploaded by cutjas.

As I woke this morning life began to feel more routine. It has been only a week and a half, but I seem to have arrived at a routine, which for me is a good thing. This past week I was able to sort out my main responsibilities and help out around the office as best I could. I am still getting settled, there is, however, no question that and if you asked me how to say “Schewingen” or tell you where this town is? I would have no idea. None-the-less, life is beginning to take shape here in Den Haag.

My main responsibility will be to help with the small groups ministry at Crossroads Church. I will be focusing on 25-35 year olds, helping them to get plugged into small groups, service projects, and helping to organize social events. I personally am very excited about this task and look forward to working in this area. Kevin, the lead pastor, has told me that this makes up about 40% of the church’s attendees and this group is motivated to get out and start serving the community.

I have lots of ideas of where to go with this ministry and what to do, but before anything can happen, I have to start meeting people. That is the focus of the next month for myself. I want to start meeting with people who are in and interested in that demographic. I do believe this is a perfect fit for my talents and passion.

Outside of work, I am going to be volunteering with the International Justice Mission Project (IJM) here in Den Haag. Crossroads and another church are working with IJM to help set up a Den Haag office. This is in its very early stages and is exciting to be apart of. IJM seeks to liberate slaves around the world through sustainable rescue and prosecution of criminals, specifically as a movement supported by churches. IJM seeks to be the justice arm of the church in the fight against slavery. If this interests you at all you can check out there website here: www.ijm.org or I have a link on the left hand side of my blog.

Personally, I was able to go be a tourist for a little bit on Saturday in Amsterdam, it was a lot of fun, but also a reminder of the tensions that exist within this culture. Not that every culture doesn’t have tensions or challenges, but I am here, so this is what I see. We took a short tour of Amsterdam, only about 3 hours or so. We saw a couple museums, got a brief history of Christendom from our own Andrew Perriman PhD (just so you know, he would prefer that I leave off the last three letters of his name, but I put them in for effect), and were exposed to all sorts of public extreme’s that characterize Amsterdam as a city.

The part of the tour that struck me the most was when we came to the oldest church in Amsterdam. Here you had a scene where the church was literally surrounded by prostitutes in windows. Outside the church was a statue commemorating the Unionization of Prostitution in Netherlands (pictured above). There was so many thoughts and emotions that this scene brought up for myself. I don’t know quiet how to express them here and now. What I saw was the physical church, enormous, powerful in architecture, daunting in size; it had a sense of untouchable ness by any human. This may have been the goal of the architect, if so this person did a fantastic job with creating a building that captured God’s overwhelming ness.

As you turn around you see windows, well doors, doors with windows in them. Dozens of them lined up right next to each other as storefronts; the street was curved so it filled your entire scope of vision. In the windows were prostitutes. In contrast to the church these prostitutes were extremely accessible. Regardless of any moral, ethical, or cultural judgment, what you have here is on one side a representation of a God who is seemingly untouchable and overwhelming, faced to face with prostitutes inviting and enticing.

This is our mission field. This is what we are called to serve and I am very challenged by this. I don’t believe this is a challenge for Amsterdam or even the Netherlands alone. Every city in the west has prostitutes, whether sexual or other, and more than not, every city has a representation of God somewhere in its town. For myself this was the rawest depiction of the gulf that the church has between itself and the world, which it is called to love and serve.

I have had little time to reflect on that event, but I will and I will keep in mind the gulf of reality that exists in our world between the church and people. I am excited to start my work here, to grow new friendships, charge deeper in my relationship with God and to serve the world around me.

I have had a week that has taken me from getting adjusted physically to getting unadjusted spiritually. As always I welcome your prayers, questions, and comments. Thank you all, again, for your support in all its forms and yes mom I have been eating my vegetables…vegetables made of chocolate that is!!! Haha.

The first few days...

20080929_IMG_0035, originally uploaded by cutjas.

The first few days here have been filled with kindness and generosity. It started with Kevin Johnson (the pastor I am working with) picking me up at the airport at 6am. It was nice to see a friendly face right away. The fact that he woke up and drove 45 min to come get me that early in the morning was very kind. When I got to the Johnson’s Kathy, Kevin’s wife, made us some fantastic omelets, which I enjoyed thoroughly. I have known the Johnson’s for about 7 years and this was a great way to start off my time in Den Haag (The Hague).

The second act was that of the Crossroads staff, they prepared a lunch in my honor, which some began to enjoy before I even arrived, because they could hardly hold back there excitement of my arrival…or they were just incredibly hungry. This was a time for me to meet all of the staff at both Crossroad church and the CAI European office. We had a great time getting to know each other and laughed a lot, which is always good. From there I sat in on a Crossroads meeting and was able to get a sense of what the church is hoping to do in the coming months. This was helpful to get myself in the mindset of their mission.

At this point I had been up for about 48 hours, with maybe a 2-hour nap in there and I was tired. We headed off to the Perriman’s house, which is where I will be staying for the duration of my internship. I was welcomed with joy, merriment and a bit of excitement, as they as here. Translation, they welcomed me with open arms. I got a quick look at my room and around the house, and then it was off to a dinner at Kevin’s.

Once at Kevin’s I got caught up on the Twins scores and was delighted/pumped to hear that they dominated the White Sox in all three games, yes, dominated. We then had dinner and I headed off to the Perriman’s. When I arrived Andrew and Belinda Perrriman were just sitting down to dinner, so I joined them and we took some time to get to know each other a little better, as I have met them before. I first met Andrew at a CAI conference, called Connect, over a year ago. We have been in a little contact since then. Andrew has visited Minnesota to visit with Greg Boyd, my senior pastor and then I saw Andrew and Belinda this past summer at the same conference. Where they offered me a place to live during my internship.

We had a good drink and some good laughs, then they went to bed and I went out and sat in the garden, outside my room. I sat there overwhelmed with tiredness, but also with the way I had been received here. The kindness and generosity of everyone was fantastic. Everything that everyone here has done has made my transition that much easier. I thanked God for where he had led me and prayed that my time here would be blessed and that I would be able to bless these people who have opened their lives to me in simple amazing ways.

It has been a few days since my first day, and I have been to a couple services, a grand party, which lasted until 330am and a trip to the beach. I am beginning to get my bearings here and my jet lag seems to be fading. I know this year will have its challenges, but right now I am in the honeymoon stage and it is very nice.

I will be praying for all of you back in Minnesota and around the world, as I hope you will continue to pray for me. Right now the biggest requests I have are surrounding how I will fit in to the ministry here. We are going to be meeting this coming week around this very topic. I have a few ideas, but we will see what happens.

Take care and God bless,
Jason

p.s. if you are on facebook look me up
p.p.s. please email if you would like: jascut@mac.com

Connect 08

Hello,

It has been a while since I updated and there has been a lot happening.  First off my total amount of support raised to date is around $8,000.00 US, which means I have enough to move over to The Hague.  Reaching that number has been a huge relief for myself.  I can now focus more on the ongoing support for the full 9 months.

Second, I just returned from Sopron, Hungary and the "Connect" Conference.  Connect is a week long conference for CAI, designed to help their missionaries connect with each other and receive from God.  The Key note speaker for the week was, my pastor Greg Boyd.  This was a special chance for me to see the message that God has given Greg touch others outside of our church community.  (If you are interested in hearing some of the talks from the week, you can download them from the itunes website, they are under "Connect" Podcast, Connect 08).

For myself the conference was a mixture of business and spiritual renewal.  I was able to nail down housing in The Hague.  Thanks to the incredible generosity of Belinda and Andrew Perriman I will have a place to stay, at least until January.  There is a chance that the Perriman's may be moving in January, but I will have ample time to find other housing.  I was also able to get a better idea of how I am going to be serving in CAI.  I have several options at this point and it will be a process of myself and the CAI staff deciding what would be best for my development over the next 9 months.

Spiritually, I received great teaching from Greg Boyd, Deb Hirsch, Linus Morris (founder of CAI) and several other CAI staff members.  Through the teaching, the worship, the prayer, and the community time I was able to regain my big picture vision of where God is leading me.  I am reminded over and over again how easy it is to get wrapped up in life that I lose sight of where I am headed.  God helped me to pick my head up and see what God is doing in Europe and where God is leading with in that work.  I have come back refreshed and renewed with energy and vision for the next year.

Prayer requests:  I still need more financial support.  I have reached an important goal of my initial sending off, but I need a sustaining amount for the whole 9 month term.  I was also struck by God to be in prayer about the next year.  This next year is going to stretch and test all of my being.  I am anticipating a very difficult year and I know God has a lot God wants to do in and through me, I want to be prepared for that.  Pray that I will be focused and mindful of God's presence everyday.  Pray that I will be able to reflect the Love of Jesus to all I come in contact with, for this is truly my heart.

Finally, I want to thank all of you who have and are supporting me, in all its forms.  I have truly been humbled by the prayer, money and encouragement I have received over the last 6 months it is almost overwhelming.  I can't put into words what it means to me.  I pray for you all that God will bless you in all that you do.

I want to say that this is not me going and doing ministry, but I see you all as partnering with me in the work God has.  I hope that as I move in the coming months that my connection with you will grow stronger and that God will be working in all of us.

Contacting me:

7130 Gerard Dr

Eden Prairie, MN 55346

Email: jascut@mac.com

skype: cutjas

phone 612-232-7145

please do not hesitate to contact me at all i would love to hear from you.

Thank you and Blessings,

Jason Cutshall

My support Letter

Dear Family, Friends, and Respected Acquaintances,

There’s a lot of wisdom in the well-worn cliché, “never say never” but, as we all know, wisdom like this is rarely wasted on the young.  It certainly wasn’t imparted to me as I made “my list” upon entering seminary.   Rather than a list of all the things I hoped God would let me do in ministry it was mostly a list to let him know what I’d never do.  I was never going to work in a church, be a missionary, work weekends and absolutely never “raise support.”  So, it’s as much a shock to me as it is to you that I want to share my decision to: join a church, on the mission field, for nine months and I desperately need your support.  (Never say never...)

Faith is a journey and my journey hasn’t always lead me places I expected or even anticipated.  I believed I’d be opening doors, but didn’t realize God would start with the doors in me.  I knew God was going to take me different places, but I didn’t realize the destination might actually just be the journey itself. I thought I was already free but am now discovering a new freedom in knowing what the creator created me for.  This journey is a gift to be given away and my quest has been to find how.  I’ve decided “how” is in serving the church.  However as I’ve prayed these last two years I’ve come to realize I would need a “where” as well.  My where is Crossroads Church in The Haag.

Crossroads church is a 10 years old thriving community of 300 believers in the Netherlands. This church has a heart for reaching out to their community through service to the community and the witness of their daily lives.  While at Crossroads I will be in assisting in several ministries that already exist, such as, Alpha, service evangelism and different dialogue based outreaches.  In addition to serving at Crossroads, I’ll be working in the European Office of Christian Associates International (CAI).  CAI is a church planting organization striving to plant Christ centered communities throughout Europe. Currently they have 28 church plants in different cities.  With CAI I will be assisting with organizational assessment of thriving churches to help understand their success and scalability to other church plants.  In addition I hope to aide in the strategic development of future church plants and supporting ministries.  After many years of anticipation and wondering, I can say with confidence, that I feel like this the next step of the journey for me.

Someone asked me this week what was the hardest part of this process.  I told him it was the support raising but not for the obvious reasons.  Its true, financial topics are never easy and I don’t think most people enjoy asking for money but that’s not really what’s difficult for me.  For me raising this support is hard because its where “the rubber meets the road.”  It’s where faith meets provision.  I can have this passion, belief, calling.... whatever you want to call it, but it means nothing if not backed and affirmed by the provision of God through my community.  My prayer is that as I try to muster the courage to stand vulnerably in front of you, saying here’s what I feel called to do, you courageously ask yourself, what do I feel called to give.  I can go nowhere without you.

Bluntly put, I need to raise $32,000, and that’s hoping the dollar stays strong.  The only way I’ll achieve this goal is not only through your prayerful and financial support, but your relational support as well.  Please pray for me and for Crossroads.   Please write a check as generously as you dare.   Also, would you please share my information with people you know? I really do pray that not only will you be blessed for supporting me, but you’ll truly feel apart of a work going on 4,000 miles away.  So, you have three options, you can pick any or all of them:

1) If you’d like to give me a one-time gift you can send it to:

    Christian Associates Int’l

    18950 Base Camp Road

    Monument, C0 80132-8009

    Reference my ID #50395 in the memo field of your check.

2) If you’d like to make an electronic donation you can click on the link in the top left corner of this page or go to:  www.christianassociates.org

3) If you’d like to talk about this adventure and what I hope to do in the coming year you can drop me a note at my blog, which is where you are now, and we’ll set up a time to get together.

Whatever you decide, please know that I value and appreciate what each of you have meant in my life and ministry and pray that we can continue to walk this road together.

Peace be with you,

JASON 

http://jasoninthehague.blogspot.com/

One Down

I have offically finished my last term paper for my seminary degree!!! It feels very good and is quite exciting. With that I have one major project down. The next step is fully starting to raise support. I have a support letter that I will be sending out in the next couple of days and then will continue contacting churches to seek support.

I had my 30th birthday this past monday and that was a lot of fun. Thank you to all who wished me happy birthday and to those who made it out to the party, it was a night to remember. I couple weeks ago I had the pleasure of driving around two members of the CAI theological team and sitting in on a meeting they had with Greg Boyd. This was an amazing experience to just sit and listen to the discussion that these great minds had. For most of the conversaiton I was just trying to keep up and it showed me that I have a lot more reading and thinking to do. This was a very encouraging experience because I was able to get a feel for where I could be of help with the academic side of CAI and it looks as though I will be able to make a contribution.

I have been challenged and excited about all that has unfolded the past month. Being approved by CAI, and getting a better idea of where I can fit into this organization has been a comfort to myself. With that it gives me a better idea of how to be preparing myself for what is to come. A lot is happening on the personal side of my life and that is good...lots of friends having babies and getting married, always cheerful events.

Prayer requests are:
1) That I would continue to be connected with people for support.
2) That God would continue to shape me and challenge me in these last months.
3) That I would be free from illness over the next couple of months.

I thank you all for your support in all its forms and continue to pray for all of you.

Blessings,
Jason