Tonight was awesome

Hello fellow peeps.

I wanted to write this entry, or at least begin to before I go to bed in order to capture in journal form what happened tonight when a few of us went witnessing in centrum.

Last night, only Mark Sevensma and Jonathan Sonsiama and I went witnessing in centrum. Nobody we talked to wanted to hear it. That is about all.

So tonight, we had our key Dutch leaders over, to discuss some things about the future direction of FIRE Holland, since, as I did not already mention on blog–but some of you know anyway–the team is going through a transition in the next 6 months, and the whole team is leaving to return to America, and in Darcy’s case, go to another country possibly, and the only people returning are Stephen and Francine Heiks, and David Lyons will return from the States in January but has a heart to start afresh in Rotterdam where I am praying about joining him when I return from Canada.

So this meeting had to do with passing some torches on to Dutch people we’ve raised up who will take over the Bible study and cell group and the outreach to the C.H.N campus and so forth, so that these things don’t die just because the remaining team was away for a few months to itinerate.

But that meeting is not what I want to focus on in this entry, b/c I don’t want it to be too long if I want you to read the whole thing.

A few of us present, including Ruben Van Vliet, Ardi and Pastor Mark spontaneously decided to go witnessing after the meeting was over. This time was more fruitful than last night. I went around with Ardy so I could talk to any girls if we saw any, and Ruben the young whipper snapper that he is went with Mark. Ardi and I didn’t really have fruitful conversations with anybody, but people were way more open than usual for Dutch people. But otherwise, we would just offer prayer or give the Dutch tract we had and they’d courteously take it, but otherwise, I didn’t have nearly as much going on until we caught back up with Mark who really really has a non-aggressiveness to him that is a real gift, and lo and behold–was talking to some young people, and invited Ardi and I to pray with this 16 year-old girl who was ready to give her life to Jesus!

Pray for a young woman named Linda. Here is why: she was more than open to giving her life to Jesus, but her friends there were trying to persuade her not to, but I see a strong will in her that didn’t care, and prayed right then and there with us right in front of her antagonizing friends. Her boyfriend was trying to pry the Gospel of John out of her hands that we gave her, but she kept pushing him away and telling him that he needs to give his life to Jesus also.

While we were praying for her, it was evident that the power of God was coming on her. She didn’t know what this was since she had absolutely no church background whatsoever. When we were done, Mark asked her in English if she felt anything. She said she felt some kind of “good warmness” inside her when we prayed. We asked her if she liked it and she perked up and said “yes!” So we tried persuading her friend Leanna who Mark had originally been witnessing to before he got Linda interested. Linda kept telling her “give your heart to Jesus–you’ll feel so much better.” It was cool. Ruben invited her to some kind of youth church he’s heavily involved in bringing afloat with other ministries in Leeuwarden. This is good since our cell group and Bible studies are mostly attended by young adults and I can’t imagine she’d be comfortable around people that much older than her. Pray that the seed planted in her won’t get snatched away, because the devil knows a seed is so much easier to steal than a whole tree is. Linda is her name.

We were so pumped about how easy it was for us (with Mark who has the gift of arresting these street kids’ attention) to talk to a group at once instead of just individuals, so we moved over to another group within a few hundred yards from where we prayed with Linda. Man, they were resistant at first, and this time almost none of them spoke English. So I just prayed in the Spirit while Mark, and sometimes Ardy spoke to them. The main girl Mark was speaking with didn’t want to give her life to Jesus because she just got a boyfriend that night and didn’t want to break up with the guy. I obviously see the Holy Spirit convicting her Himself since we never told her to break up with the guy, but we did tell her when she said this that she’d be empty even if she dated the guy.

She was unwilling to make a commitment. She was not like Linda was moments earlier—this girl, Angelique was persuaded whenever her boyfriend would pull her away from us. It became apparent to me that she was the only one who could speak english, so when the boyfriend was distracted, and Mark was now speaking to some guy who just biked up to us–I quickly grabbed Angelique gently by the shoulder and asked her age. I was surprised when she gave me her undivided attention so I told her that when I was her age (she was sixteen) that I had just given my life to Jesus a few months before I turned sixteen and was rejecting Him for similar reasons as she was now, that in a few months I got saved and regretted waiting so long and so forth. In thirty seconds I made my appeal to her, and she told me she agreed and knew the right thing to do. It seemed when she was not being distracted by these people was when one of us was able to pierce through. But she still didn’t want to make a commitment.

Anyway, then what happened next was cool. I didn’t know what was being spoken about, but I saw Mark pointing at this new young man’s leg, asking if we could pray. He had some kind of leg injury and a moment later they prayed for him, and then kept talking to him. They were obviously arguing (in Dutch) so I jumped in and started naming in English the verified healings I could think of off of the top of my head either my mother’s or people I laid hands on and saw dramatically healed of things, such as diabetes. This guy’s attention was captured. I asked him how his leg was, and he started moving it and saying it was clearly fine. Then I told him that God wanted to do more with him than just heal him physically. He agreed to pray with Mark, and we gave him a Gospel of John and one of our phone numbers. Pray that this conversion was genuine and that we will be able to see him again and that no seeds planted in his heart will be snatched away.

Anyway, pray also for Angelique, because while we were talking to this other guy we prayed for, I saw her jostling around with her boyfriend, and I saw her throw the Gospel of John we gave her into the canal. I strongly believe in my spirit it was more for a show in front of them than it was because of rejecting the Lord, but still, for that brief moment I talked to her before that, I know we were penetrating her heart with truth.

Pray as you think of these people I’ve mentioned to you tonight–all teenagers–that the Lord would put the right people in their path, and even better that they would be able to come to the Vox or that we could follow up on them and make sure they’re discipled.

A seed is so much easier to steal when it is still in seed form and has just been planted, than as opposed to when its roots are sunk deep and formed into a full tree.