The Long Game

So farewell—to the little good you bear me.

Farewell? a long farewell to all my greatness!

This is the state of man: to-day he puts forth
The tender leaves of hopes, to-morrow blossoms,
And bears his blushing honors thick upon him;
The third day comes a frost, a killing frost,
And when he thinks, good easy man, full surely
His greatness is a-ripening, nips his root,
And then he falls as I do.

- Henry VIII, Act III, Scene 2

Nothing about games...good grief Shakespeare, you're letting me down...

Me at the WWII Memorial in Amsterdam

So...my trip in a nutshell...doubt it's possible, but here it goes.

So on June 20th I flew from RDU airport to ONT airport in California to join up with the rest of the Global Surge 2 (GS2) team. The rest of the team came on June 21st to the California Baptist University (CBU) all of them were from that area and I was the only one who had to fly in, therefore I had to come a day early. We then spent 3 days training for our trip. With lectures and simulations and games, they taught us about different cultures and how to react when we're in them.

We actually chased the sunrise for a while on our 10 hour flight

So on June 25th, we flew out of LAX airport on a 10 hour flight to London Heathrow where we were supposed to have an hour and a half layover which turned into about a 3 hour layover because our connecting flight was delayed. So when we finally were on our connecting flight we flew for about 2 hours from London Heathrow to Dusseldorf, Germany. Then when we got there we checked into our Hostel and just sort of chilled for a few days.

The building across from the tram station in Dusseldorf

While in Dusseldorf, we went through more training, the field workers gave lectures that were almost like the ones we had at CBU except that they were from the field workers point of view. We also had a night that 4 Christians formed a panel, 2 from Holland and 2 from Germany we were able to ask them questions about being a Christian in a post-Christian society. They told us how hard it was but rewarding for those who they ministered to.

Windmill in Amsterdam

On June 28th, we took 3 trains from Dusseldorf to Amsterdam. One of them we had reserved seats and therefore kinda had our own space for the first leg. But for the other legs, the trains was so crowded that we had to stand for both trips. I've never ridden on a train before (lots of firsts on this trip, first time west of the Mississippi, first time out of the country, first time flying by myself and first time on a train) Then after we got there and checked into our hostel we pretty much had a free day. Then, for the rest of the week we had zones that we walked around and kinda scoped out what kind of people were there and to try to build relationships with them. We did that at different times during the day and we also had some training while we weren't walking our zones. After a week of that, we had a day that we changed Hostels to one across town.

The Muslim woman we had tea with

During that first week in Amsterdam while we were walking around, we saw a woman standing in her window so we went up and talked to her. When we asked her if she spoke English, she said said "nee" which is Dutch for no. We tried to make simple conversation using little Dutch phrases and hand motions. Then she invited us for coffee on the terrace. Through that coffee, we learned that she had 3 sons, 2 granddaughters, one of her son's lived with her, he was a taxi driver, and they were Turkish. I also got to tell this story along with some encouraging words to a Dutch church and it was translated from my English to Dutch. That in and of itself was a surreal experience and I was more nervous talking to them than I would be talking to any other group of people.

This blog is long enough, the rest is to be continued.