Ministry in Amsterdam

        Well I am off to Amsterdam, Holland (in the Netherlands).  We leave Monday morning; February, 28^th.  We will arrive that evening and will be returning back to Wiler, Switzerland Saturday night, March, 5^th.   We will be staying at the YWAM base in Amsterdam.  While we are there we will receive a tour of Amsterdam and of the ministries throughout the city.  We will also be involved in prayer ministry in the red-light district during the week, and we will also have an opportunity to perform some skits and give some testimonies at a youth hostel in the red-light district.  So I am excited about the good work that God will do there, and about all that He has in store to teach us during or ministry time in Amsterdam.  So please be praying that God will protect us during our travels to and from Holland, and also pray for God’s protection over us while we engage in ministry there.  I also want to ask that you please be praying that God would bring me great refreshing during this week of ministry.  Because of various events that have taken place in the past week, I have been under attack and could really use a breath of fresh air, so to speak.  So please pray that, during this next week, God would give me strength.  That He will enable me to be a vessel that is worthy of His Kingdom, and that His strength would truly be made perfect in my weakness.  Thank you so much for all of your prayer and support.  I look forward to being able to write next week and tell you all about the work that God will be doing while we are in Amsterdam.  



A man’s heart plans his way, but the LORD directs his steps...

Hmmm, where to begin…

Well, about two weeks ago God began teaching me something that I was not expecting, but that has been both refreshing and a bit challenging at the same time.  We had a speaker come for a week, who gave lectures on the topic of Christian Stewardship.  During his first lecture he asked us what our definitions of stewardship were.  At that point God brought to my mind the Parable of the Talents.  This was a passage in scripture that God used in my life about three years ago.  At that point in my life God was reminding me that He requires believers to take the “talents” given to them and use them to multiply his kingdom.  It is not sufficient to simply tuck them away and keep them protected until His return.  He requires multiplication and growth.  Even though this parable was not part of the teaching for the week, God continued to bring it to my mind in reference to Stewardship.  Then towards the end of the week God also gave me Proverbs 16:9, as a verse to ponder; “A man’s heart plans his way, But the LORD directs his steps”.   At first I was confused as to why God would bring these two very different passages of Scripture to mind.  What was He trying to teach me through these, I was having trouble understanding how they related to one another?  Finally, on the last day of lecture we were all given about 45 minutes of the lecture time to go off by ourselves and process all that we had learned that week.  I knew God had something He wanted to show me, even though it really had nothing to do with what we had been learning in our lectures, so I was eager to get away and just seek Him and discover what was on His heart. 

As I prayed I asked God to reveal to me how the two passages of scripture, which He had given me, related and what it was He wanted to teach me through them.  He began to reveal to me that I had built up some assumptions over the past few years.  Yes God has given me a clear passion to work on behalf of child victims of sex trafficking and He has given me a call to missions.  But I had begun to fill in the blanks of what that ministry will look like; I had made some assumptions.  A couple years ago I was struggling with the idea that the specific gifts, which God has given me, did not seem to fit with the passion for a very specific ministry that God has also given me.  I only knew of a few specific forms of ministry in which people can work on behalf of victims of sex trafficking, so I assumed that I would be working within one of these realms of ministry.  This was simply because I was unaware of different forms of ministry in this area.  I had assumed there were no other options.  God showed me that in doing this I had actually boxed myself in, without even realizing it.  He showed me that because of this, if His directing and plan for my life was to come in a different form then what I was expecting, then I may miss out on what He really has for me.  I may make myself blind to His true directing simply because I allowed assumptions to limit my understanding of what God has for me.  So God told me to write down the assumptions I had developed, in a list.  And then He opened my eyes to what those assumptions were, and I was amazed.  I developed these assumptions without even realizing it.  This is what Proverbs 16:9 was talking about.  I had made plans in my heart, without even realizing it, but God wants to direct my steps.  This is also what I want.  God showed me that, yes, the major call God has placed on my life remains the same.  But the form, in which this call will become reality, is in His hands.  I still do not know what it will look like.  But he will direct me when the time is right.  This understanding was so freeing.  I wrote down my assumptions and gave them to God.  So I still do not know what doors God will open for me after this DTS, but God knows.  And now I am no longer limiting myself because of assumptions.  But now I see more clearly, and I am open to whatever God has for me; even if the ministry opportunity doesn’t look like what I was expecting.  I am so excited to see what God has in store, because I don’t have it figured out.  But however God directs I will follow, and I am eager to see how He will direct.

So in the end, I had a list of assumptions that God was asking me to give to Him, and I had a list of the Talents that He has given me to invest in His kingdom.  I know the call He has placed on my life, the gifts He has given me to invest, and I know that I desire to be directed by Him and not by my own plans.  So God has asked me to rest in Him, to be open for whatever it is He has in store for me next.  Because I may very well be surprise by what He has planned; a plan that goes beyond what I ever would have imagined.  And this is very good.  I am so glad that He spoke truth over me and opened my eyes.  Now I am so excited to see what doors He opens, both in the near and distant future.  God is good!

Going Forth into Ireland

        The outreach teams for the field portion of my DTS have finally been announced.  I am going to Ireland!  God is so awesome.  Before we were told what our three outreach locations would be, I never would have imagined staying in Europe for outreach.  But when it was announced what the focus of the ministry in Ireland would be, I immediately felt a tug on my heart; God was leading me to Ireland.  The focus for ministry in Ireland will be on corrupt governmental structure, economic problems, work with churches, children, youth, intersession, and human trafficking victims.  We were given a week to pray about it and then present our final decision to our staff.  As I prayed I just felt more and more at peace about choosing Ireland as my outreach destination.  Ministry there will focus on work with children and youth, intersession, and human trafficking victims.  All of these things were areas that God had given me a passion for, and all of the issues played a role in God leading me to this particular DTS.  So as I prayed I was just so at peace about the decision, and I really felt that God was indeed leading me to Ireland.  Then today the final decision, about who would be going to each country, was finally announced.  The Ireland team consists of ten students from our DTS, including myself, and two staff.  We will be leaving for Ireland in April and will return to Switzerland the first week of July.  So right now it is my prayer that God would even now be preparing our hearts, as a team, for the work that God is preparing in advance for us.  Also that He would unify us as a team, and that God would be preparing hearts in Ireland to receive the work that God will be doing through us.     
        Also some interesting news, my local outreach group had our first opportunity to do outreach in Biel, Switzerland this past week.  Personally, my role in this outreach opportunity will be teaching English to three teenagers.  All three of them are Swiss but are each originally from Shreelanka.  There are two girls and a boy; ages 16, 14, and 13.  They each speak Tamil, German, French, and they are also learning English.  But they are going to be meeting with me, and one other person from our YWAM outreach group, every other Wednesday .  We will have the opportunity to spend time with them, invest in their lives, and build relationships with them.  Because I am the only one in our outreach group that speaks English alone, I am the one who will work with these three students every time we meet.  There will also be one other person from our group with me each time, but not necessarily the same person every week.  We will play games with them, spend time with them, teach them about our language and our culture, and we will even be able to cook food for them from our home countries.  I am really excited about this outreach opportunity.  I am building relationships with three teenagers, I have something to offer them that that they need, and I will also have the incredible opportunity of being Jesus to them.  All three of them are precious and so eager to learn.  So please keep them in your prayers and also pray that God would lead our conversation in a way that will bring glory to Him. 
      

This past week I came down with a stomach virus that kept me in bed all day on Friday but God was gracious and gave me enough strength to travel with my DTS into the mountains for the weekend. So we went up to Kantersteg on Friday evening, went sledding on the mountain all day Saturday, walked around the ski village on Sunday and drove back to the YWAM base that day. It was such a refreshing time. It was so good to just get away and have nothing scheduled but mandatory fun with the group. It became an amazing opportunity to further develop friendships with the other people in my DTS, and sense that weekend I have really noticed a sweet spirit of unity that has really begun to grow among our group. Now, as I see just how fast time is passing us by, I realize that in just over a month and a half we will be parting ways as we enter the mission field. So it is so important that I make the most of the time we have now, and really get to know my fellow students in a deeper way.

        In about three weeks we will all be heading off to Amsterdam for five days, where we will be working with a YWAM base and embarking on a practicum that will teach us more about ministering to victims of human trafficking.  So again I am struck by just how much time has already gone by.  I have been here almost a month already and that is so hard to believe.  God is so good, He is teaching me so much, and I am so excited for all that He has yet in store for me to learn.  I am so excited about the opportunities I am being given to minister; in being involved in intersession and blessing in Wiler and the surrounding area, in teaching English to teenagers, in having the opportunity to go to Amsterdam, and finally in spending time ministering and showing the love of Jesus Christ to the people of Ireland.  God is so faithful. 

Youth Outreach



      In our daily lectures we have been learning about the Character of God, about His heart for justice, and about both the role of the church and the individual believer in response to God’s call for justice.  We have also finally been given our assignments for our weekly local outreach opportunities.  As I mentioned earlier, we do prayer walks in the largest cities nearby and we have also been divided into four different groups that are involved in various ministry opportunities in the area.  I, along with three others in my DTS, will be working with a youth program in Biel.  Every other Wednesday we will drive into Biel and work for a few hours with Swiss kids and teenagers whose parents work during the day, so the kids have nowhere to go after school.  Mostly the youth speak German and French but they have been learning English in school so we will be able to teach them some English and will also be able to teach them about our own cultures.  Out of the four of us who are involved in this ministry from my DTS there is myself, my roommate who is from Qatar, a guy from South Korea and Canada, and a girl from Germany.  So together we have a lot that we can teach these kids; about the love of God, about our cultures, and about our languages.  So I am really looking forward to being able to build relationships with these kids.

       Over all I am doing so well here in Wiler.  God has been so faithful to grant me a smooth transition into life here in this small village.  I have fallen in love with the cross cultural environment.  I love building relationships with the twenty-two other students in my DTS.  I love learning all about the different cultures, hearing the different languages, learning about the Swiss culture and language, learning about the local area in which I am stationed right now, but mostly I love the way that God has been revealing Himself to me in such a special way during this time.  I have found that no matter where I am, no matter how far away from home, my heart is at home in God.  I am with God’s people, so I am with family.  God has shown me that He has so much to teach me and I know that I am exactly where God has called me to be for the time being.  So thank you again so much for all of your prayer and support that has enabled me to follow God’s call.  He is doing a good work, thank you so much for being a part of it.

       I will continue to keep you updated, I am learning so much and tonight I just didn’t have the time to write down all that I have been learning.  Yet still I decided to at least tell you about my outreach opportunity with Swiss youth and to let you know that all is well. 

Switzerland at Last!

(Ari, Heidi, Me)

Well, here I am in Switzerland and I hardly know where to begin…

After 22 hours of travel, from Norfolk to Atlanta, then to Frankfurt and then from train to Lyss, I finally arrived in Wiler, Switzerland.  Right away I met my roommates Ari (from Quatar) and Heidi (from Seattle) and we hit it off right away.  There are 23 students in my DTS and we represent 12 different countries.  Aside from my DTS there are two other YWAM schools here on base as well.  So there are about 50 students living on the base in all and we represent 19 different countries.  I have already learned so much just in the past 10 days that I could go on for hours about all of the incredible experiences I’ve already had.  But I will just touch on the events that stand out above the rest. 

I absolutely love living in this cross cultural environment, I love the people, the languages, the accents, the different approaches to life, and the relationships that are forming.  I prayed before I left that God would grant me an easy transition into life here in Wiler, and He has been more than faithful to answer that prayer.  I am thrilled to be here and it feels like the most natural thing in life.  God is awesome.  I look back and see that everything in my life up to this point has prepared me for the experiences I am having here in Wiler. 

Now, I’d like to share with you a few experiences I’ve had since arriving here. 

·        We have anywhere between 2-4 hours of class a day.  Then we also have small group times and other events that we are involved in throughout the week. 

·        Everyone has a chore that they are responsible for while living in the community.  This chore is called an “Amptli”, it means a small responsibility that we do in service to others.  For my amptli I join with three other girls on base and we are responsible for all of the laundry; that’s laundry for over 50 people. 

·        We also have meal times together as a whole base but mostly we are interacting with the members of our own DTS.  We also will soon have the opportunity to volunteer at a local refugee compound and minister to refugees from Asia, Africa, and the Middle East on a weekly basis.  Or we may also be working with families in the community. 

·        Also once a week our DTS divides in half and one group goes into the closest big city, Biel, and the other group goes into the capital, Bern, to pray.  And every other week we switch cities.  This past week I was with the group that went into Biel.  At one point early on in our prayer walk, I prayed that God would lead me in how to pray for this city that I knew nothing about.  Then I sensed God leading me to pray against a spirit of heaviness, a spirit of fear, and a spirit or bondage.  So I did.  Around that time a member of our staff brought the group to a halt and explained that we were now standing in perhaps the most notorious red light district in Switzerland.  I was so in awe of God in that moment.  He had made me aware of spiritual warfare and taught me how to pray even when I was unaware of where I was standing and of the specific areas of wickedness that surrounded me.  In the next half hour we just walked around a large town home with red lights shining in the windows and prayed for the women trafficked inside.  It was a powerful time of prayer and there was a sweet moving of the spirit.

·        The next day we were told the mission field locations that we would be able to choose between for the last half of our DTS.  The three countries are Bulgaria, Ethiopia, and Ireland.  We are not supposed to talk about them among each other, we are simply to pray and ask God to tell each of us individually where he is leading us.  So later this week I will be able to tell you where God is sending me for the field portion of the DTS.  So that’s exciting.

·         Then on Sunday I was able to attend an international Vineyard church in Bern, where I was able to listen to the translation through a head set. 

So in summary, life is so good right now.  I feel like a sponge.  There is so much that I can learn here, not only from the lectures, but from my fellow students.  Every day is new and different.  One day I may learn all about the culture of Malawi, then the next I may learn from a fellow student all about Cambodia, Qatar, India, or South Korea.  Not only has God made the transition smooth but I am finding that I love living in this cross cultural environment even more than I ever would have imagined.  God is also providing opportunity to minister to fellow students on a daily basis.  He is teaching me what it means to love those around me well, in the way that they each need to be loved.  Only God knows their hearts and He has been so faithful to teach me how to love and I still have much to learn.  One other major lesson that God has been teaching me is that of intercession.  I feel that God has begun to show me that He has so much for me to learn in this area.  So it is my prayer that in the next 6 months God would teach me more about what it means to enter into his presence and intercede in accordance with His will.  I have a desire to see God move in power and I believe He has so much to teach me about prayer.  I believe that I need to be in a constant state of expectancy.  I need to be ever aware of His presence and expecting to hear God’s voice.  He has already begun to teach me a little bit about how to let Him guide me in prayer so that I may know I am praying in accordance to His will and I know that He has so much more that He wants to teach me about prayer.  So I am excited about all that He has in store.    

Coming Soon

I arrived in Wiler, Switzerland 9 days ago and I have already learned and experienced SO much!  I'm sorry I have been so long in giving you an update but I promise that it is coming very soon.  I will try to put up an update later today.  Thank you for your patience and for all of your prayers, God is doing a very good work.

"By this we know love, that He laid down His life for us"

     I will be leaving for Switzerland in 9 days; hard to believe.  I knew that there would be a lot of details to take care of before my departure but it seems the more I check off of my list of things to do, the more the tasks on the list seem to multiply.  Just as I take care of one major detail, rather than being settled, the more complicated it seems to become.  So in all it has been a huge learning experience.   I have never traveled out of the country before and so tasks such as purchasing train tickets online can become quite confusing.  Yet even as I stumble through these tasks I am trying to absorb every piece of advice I can gather; gleaning as much information as possible.  I know that I have so much to learn and the lessons are just beginning.  As my departure date quickly approaches I am struck with the enormity of the call God has placed before me.  I have come to an even greater understanding of what it will mean to have God’s power be made perfect through my weakness.  In and of myself I am completely unequipped for such a task as the one God has given me.  Yet that is just it, I am weak but God’s power is perfect in my weakness.  This is just one example of a paradox found in the Christian life.  As I fumble through all that must be done in the next 11 days, I am reminded that I am not alone.  I am so excited about all that God has in store for me yet there is still so much that I am unsure of.  But this is faith; the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things unseen.  I know that God has called me; I am thrilled that He has finally opened the door and beckoned to me saying, “This is the way now walk in it”.  God is continually leading me into a state of awe.  I am overwhelmed by the magnitude of what He has asked of me and yet so at peace in the understanding that He is in control.  He is so faithful.

            During the first few months of support raising I was so exuberant about the good work that God was doing and overwhelmed by His faithfulness as support came flooding in.  Then in the past month and a half though I was still excited I was also becoming overwhelmed with making preparations to leave.  My prayer became a request for God to remove any and all stress over travel details and that instead He would fill me with joy and complete peace.  As I began to sense that God was indeed answering that prayer, I began to petition Him yet again.  This time along with my prayer for peace I prayed that God would give me a renewal of vision or a restating of the call He has placed on my life; a refreshed understanding of His will for my life.  I don’t know why this was such a great desire of mine, I guess it went along with desiring to have a sense of peace in my departure.  I wanted something, a word, to hang on to and to have as a reminder when things got tough.  So during the Christmas Eve service at Restoration church, during communion I was praying towards this end yet again.  As I prayed I sensed the presence of the Holy Spirit in a sweet way.  I asked that he would answer my prayer and give me a word but at that point I had to go stand in line for communion.  When I got back to my seat I was disappointed because I felt that I had missed my opportunity to hear God; as if God’s timing or desires could actually be interrupted by me.  Then as I bowed my head yet again in prayer, He spoke.  He simply said, “love people for me Bethany”.  That was it; He called me by name and spoke that simple word.  Yet even as the sweetness of His words poured over me I realized the depth and seriousness of it.  In order to walk in obedience to this word, this call, I am required to lay down my life, to give of myself.  Still there are not words to describe how sweet it is when the King of Kings and Lord of Lords whispers your name and simply asks you to love.  I was comforted beyond measure.  In those five words God was reassuring me.  No matter how big a task he places before me, no matter where in the world He takes me, no matter how many complications may arise or how many details threaten to overwhelm me, God is God.  He loves me so dearly, He knows me by name, and at the heart of His call on my life is His call simply to love; to give of myself in the same way that He gave of himself for me.  God has called me to love people; He has called me to a specific time and a specific place to love people for Jesus. 



            In 9 days I will be heading off to Wiler Switzerland.  I have no idea what God has in store for me there but I do know that while I am there I am to love people, whatever people God brings my way.  God has called me in this way to lay down my life.  And I am going to Wiler to learn more about what it means to love well, I will be learning how to best love the people God has placed on my heart; victims of human trafficking.  I may not know how to love these people well on my own accord but by God’s grace, I pray that He will be able to love them well through me.  I know that the journey God is taking me on will not be easy but I do know that His power will be made perfect in my weakness.  And in my obedience to His word I trust that I will bring Him glory and joy and in turn His glory and joy will bring me joy.  Thus my prayers have been answered.