Reflections on Amsterdam

I want to write a story about my trip to Holland sometime soon, a story for a magazine that young people will read and learn from my experience. I want to share that missions and servanthood are harder to bring home than they are to cultivate overseas, but that God grows these things in our hearts until a passion for the lost is ignited and He begins to make us His hands and feet.

Here is a tentative beginning. I don't know how it will actually go, but Amsterdam has been on my heart lately and I wanted to share a little now.

The smell lingered in my nose for hours after I washed it off my skin, the suggestion of marijuana, dust, and cheap beer picked up along the cobblestone streets of Amsterdam’s red light district. I had only been in the city for one day, but what I had seen made me hate Amsterdam. I struggled for days with how to respond to the challenges of such a dark and sinful neighborhood.

The next evening, after mulling over the flagrant sin and desperation of the district while spending time with the Dutch youth of the my friends’ church, I sat at the open second-story door of their home outside the city, watching a storm roll in. I could feel the rain and thunder coming. I waited in anticipation, hoping the storm would be a catharsis for dealing with Amsterdam and the red light district. I still didn’t know how to feel about it, how to think, how to pray.

To my surprise, it had been hard to feel anything while I was there except disgust at the tourists, often middle-aged couples pushing baby carriages past theaters, windows and sex shops. I couldn’t fathom how they could enjoy the display of an inhumane trade that I, as a young woman, could hardly comprehend.

The rain started suddenly, pattering on the flat Dutch roofs that stretched down to the shlote (little canal) where the ducklings hid. I sat with my Bible and notebook open on my lap; I would start to process Amsterdam soon, but I paused to enjoy Nieuw Vennep. I love the Dutch countryside. I would be happy to stay forever if I could move my friends and family there. The way I felt about the countryside made it harder to comprehend the city less than an hour away, where girls sold themselves to cheap buyers and YWAMers prayed constantly for them all to be set free. I prayed for a softened heart, that God would teach me to allow myself to be brokenhearted for others, to offer up their sin and my judgement to Him and take His love in return.

Just then the other couple who lived in the house drove up from a weeklong holiday to England. I shouted, “Welcome home!” then laughed at myself. Me, watching the storm from their rooftop, welcoming them to their own home when I had been in the country a week. But that’s the way God works, growing love and passion in the middle of much need.