Adventures in street witnessing in the centrum

Last night was phenomenal!

7 people gave their hearts to Jesus, and I so happened to not be involved in any of it.

Pastor Mark, and a young man with him, as well as Jonathan, Mark S and Dan Slavin (the only American team member to show up) and then this woman whose name I cannot pronounce properly–let alone spell–joined us later. So 7 people, five of them being Dutch, was a good turnout for the first time of doing this. I was disapointed to run into so many Dutch Christians while I was on the street, because I know I had invited most of them them to join us. Oh well, their loss–evangelism is fun. Or at least I love it, and did it for over 2 plus years in Pensacola and Charlotte, but that didn’t prepare me for the coldness and un-openess I encountered repeatedly last night. Now I understand why our ministry has been so much more fruitful and effective among the international community at CHN–because unsaved Dutch people are way less open to the Gospel.

I need to be careful that I’m not mistaking the European directness with outright rejection. But my night was mostly a character building one–and I’m not normally chewed to pieces repeatedly by people. But, one thing that would have offended me was really laughable; I was talking to these two young black guys from Senegal–in English and French since Dutch collectively was all a foreign language to us, and they were really open–the first guy was enthusiastic about the Dutch tract I gave him and was going to read it later. But this man comes up to us all and interupts us and asks something that was incoherent to all of us in any language. I should have recognized this as the distraction from the pit of hell that it was because we got nowhere with this older man when we tried speaking to him. He tells us he’s from Scotland visiting family in Leeuwarden, but I still didn’t understand him and it was because of his intoxication not his accent. He asked me what a Canadian was doing in Holland, and when I told him I was a missionary, he cussed my head off and was saying something about respecting others and that I could just go back where I came from. It was amusing to me because I hadn’t even gotten into the Gospel yet!

So, I tried an ice breaker with him since he clearly wasn’t going to leave us alone. I asked him if he’d like to see a picture of my pride and joy–a trick because it’s a Gospel tract with a picture of bottles entitled “Pride” and “Joy” on one side, and then the clear Gospel written on the back. That backfired, because he said no and then showed us a picture of his kids. So when he was done I asked him if he’d like to see a picture of my pride and joy. He said “no, I took one good look at you, you ugly **** and I can imagine what your kids would look like!” Man. That was the first time I failed to show the card in my wallet. It’s too bad because then he would have discovered I don’t have kids. Then he uttered another racial slur about the guys we were witnessing to before he so ‘politely’ joined our conversation, and something about what sexual orientation he thought me and Mark were made it clear we should just leave and find someone else to talk to. David–the black guy I was talking to shouted “I’ll read this!” as he held the tract in his hand waving goodbye. I hope he didn’t let that Scottish drunk guy talk him out of anything. Pray for them each, that God would arrest their attention later to our conversation, and in the case of the Scottish guy–that our gentleness would actually have made an impression on him.

Then I ran into the other people we were on the streets with, and joined Pastor Mark in talking to these two young men who had to be between the ages of 12 and 14. Ok, maybe more like I observed. He spoke to them both in Dutch, and I understood the jist of it. And to my utter surprise–and excitement–he takes them both by the hand and leads them in a prayer to receive Jesus (it seemed I suddenly understood everything he prayed in Dutch, but that’s besides the point!) Then he gave them each a Gospel of John and asked them if they knew how to find The Vox (the Youth For Christ in Leeuwarden) to which they told us they don’t live in Leeuwarden. Then their mother and sister came over to see what was going on. I thought ‘uh oh’ but it turns out the mother was a devout Christian, and said she goes to some church or another and was really excited Mark prayed for her kids. So then Mark asks the girl if she’d like to give her heart to Jesus also, and without any hesitation says yes, and he prays with her too. I was blown away at how easy that was after the blow after blow I’d been having with older young adults. But I tell you, the look on this mother’s face was amazing. She was clearly overjoyed and I’m confident these seeds will bear fruit. If the established religiousness of most churchs doesn’t choke it out of them.

So please keep these three young people in prayer, as well as the other ones the other guys led to Jesus. Imagine, if more of us would go we’d increase our efforts exponentially…

Anyway, we met up at The Vox to pray and discuss how to go about some follow up and the next time we will do this–every Thursday for certain, and maybe if others want to but can’t go on Thursdays, we’ll develop another team to go out on Friday or Saturday nights as well.

Then Nynke–not the Dutch teacher Ninka– was not at the sidewalk cafe she invited me and Dan to meet her and her friends at, and through miscommunication on our text messages didn’t actually show up because she thought my message was actually from Robin Zeck and told her she was on her way to meet her where ever.
After a half hour wait, Dan and I left, only to find out he didn’t have his key to get into his house, so I had to help him improvise a way to take the back door off its hinges, and pray that no neighbors didn’t hear us and call the cops.

Fun newsletter stories we’ll all remember years from now…