Roofdier On The Road

I am a missionary

Yes, I heard God’s call to go and I went

I went not knowing what I said yes to

Was is an exciting decision?

Yes, a 100 %

---

Missions is nothing I could’ve ever expected

I had hopes, I had ideas but reality hit

I wasn’t suddenly perfect at making friends

I didn’t suddenly love everyone around me

I didn’t always want to share the Gospel

on the contrary, I hated going out

---

A city that is always in a rush

a city where you’re always on your way

a city where local and tourist don’t meet

a city where you’d rather not be open

and me, the missionary? I am the same

---

I may have responded to God’s call

I may have gone into the unknown

I may call myself a missionary

but I am far from the ‘perfect Christian’

I am far from being Christ-like

I am not free from all I hoped to be free of

---

Missions is a magnifying glass

suddenly you look in

suddenly you have to confront all you could before push away

suddenly you are exposed

before God, community and the rest of the world

the responsibility you carry

the image you portray

the ambassador you become

you reflect God,

you reflect the church

---

The journey of missions

one of the hardest I have dared to begin

the past comes up

healing has to happen

perseverance is key

you have to keep going, you have to keep trying

---

I want to be a missionary

the one that God sees in me

but reality is

it will take a while

I am not there yet

and thank the Lord, that is okay

Assumptions, there are many of those in the world. Depending on what you’re doing for a job, where you live and who your friends are, people will have an idea about what kind of life you live.

It struck me this week how easy it is for us as people to think that our assumptions are truth, we take them and respond out of a place of thinking we know it all but that is not true at all. As many people will have heard lately, Kanye West brought out a Gospel album. I’ve seen a lot of different responses, most of them from Christians, some were really positive but there was also those who burned him to the ground. Comments about how it might not be really Christian or how he doesn’t have the right to preach these things. And it made me think- It’s so easy to assume that because of his past or how he was known, he couldn’t meet Jesus and turn his life around. There is a man with a lot of influence in this world who is now preaching the Gospel, who is calling people to seek after God because he has experienced the grace God has shown him. Same story with Justin Bieber. I think it’s incredible that people who the world listens to are preaching about Jesus, without shame, and in humility speaking up about the mistakes they’ve made in their life, but the grace of God has met them and set them free. And of course, they’re human, they’ll make mistakes, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have the right to speak up about God’s grace.

On the other end of the spectrum of assumptions is me, a missionary. People assume I’m doing good, that I am always on great terms with God, that I love everyone. This is not true however, it really made me think. I as a missionary fail to do my job. I struggle loving people, especially as I’m biking through the busy streets of Amsterdam. I tend to turn away from God if things don’t go the way I want or expect them to go, and hearing from God seems impossible at times. I know my calling, it’s very clear in Matthew 28:18-20, and I would love to live it out but reality is that I don’t. I feel pressure to be the perfect evangelist who talks to every one who she comes across but the reality is that I struggle even talking to people I don’t know within Ywam.

I want to learn from people like Kanye and Justin, to have the humility to preach, to confess I’m not perfect. They could potentially loose everyone who supports them, all their fans but they don’t let it hold them back and I want to know God in that intimate way that I don’t  care anymore what people would think but be so in awe of God that I just want to speak about what He has done in my life at all times and at all costs.

‘Jesus wept’ John 11:35

God is a vulnerable God, we can see it throughout the whole Bible. From the beginning of time God decides to share His heart with the people who choose to follow Him. We can see this with Adam and Eve right after the fall where He shares His plan to redeem creation, we see it with Abraham, as I mentioned in my last blog, where He tells Abraham about His plan to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. We can see it with Moses, David, all the prophets. But also as we look to Jesus’ life, He shared His heart for the world, He cried, He wasn’t afraid to show emotions. Also if you read the rest of the new testament you can read that God gave glimpses of His plan to the apostles.

Now you might wonder, ‘Why is she writing about God’s vulnerability? We already know that God is a vulnerable God.’ I decided to write about this because this year God has been speaking a lot to me about vulnerability, I needed and still need to learn what true vulnerability is, how to practice it and why it is so important.One of the reasons I want to learn how to practice vulnerability is because I, just as many other Christians, have learned to say that I want to be more like Jesus and I don’t want it to be something I just say, I want to mean it and take action. One way God is showing me to do that is to be vulnerable because He already gave the perfect example of vulnerability.

Another reason for me to learn about vulnerability and to learn how to practice it, is because growing up being vulnerable was really hard. I always felt like I had to be strong, like being emotional was a bad thing that made you weak. I believed I wouldn’t be liked if people saw the real me so it was easier to make up stories than to actually share my heart. I trapped myself in my own mind. As a result of that the line between reality and my made up world began to blur. When Jesus started to show me that I needed to learn vulnerability I also was confronted with what reality looked like for myself. I had to learn vulnerability towards myself and I had no idea what that looked like, I had to learn to see things the way they were. Being vunerable has been a journey but it has been so beautiful opening up to people and seeing the effects of openess on relationships with people.

Vulnerability is so hard sometimes, sometimes it’s easier to hide, to just not share, to not pour out your heart because vulnerability also means that people can hurt you. But God has really been showing me that vulnerability is so beneficial. Vulnerability deepens relationships, it takes away the power of shame and guilt and it just gives so much freedom. Of course it doesn’t mean you just share everything that is going on with everyone you know, there is wisdom in that. But it does mean that you share your proces with someone, that you don’t isolate yourself.

I know my writing is scattered, partly because it took me a couple of days to write this blog but I hope my thoughts and processes about vulnerability have come across. Vulnerability is beautiful, messy, hard and life giving and I am so glad God is teaching me about this in this season.

This morning in church the pastor said something that hit me. He was talking about this greek philosopher that said: panta rhei, which means everything flows, or everything changes. He spoke about how everything is constantly changing, from the skin on your body to the big world around you. How you are constantly changing as a person, learning and growing.

Hearing those words something just didn’t feel right. If everything is constantly changing, if people are constantly changing, then why do some people feel like they’re stuck in life, like there is no progress, no change?

To be honest, I’ve had periods, and I still have, where I feel stuck, like not matter how hard I try to change my ways, to grow, to be better, it will never change. Falling back in the same patterns, in the same sins over and over again just not being able to get out, to live a life devoted to God, to doing His will. And yes, the world is constantly changing and people are constantly showing progress and it often makes me feel left behind because everyone is building a life and me? I’m still struggling with some of the same struggles I was struggling with a couple years ago.

Writing this I know I am not the only one that feels stuck or left behind, falling back to the same old patterns of life. In fact, I know there are more people than I know that are struggling with this, but why? Why do we feel like everyone else got their lives planned out, making progress constantly while you are the only person who is failing? It’s because we live in a society that doesn’t allow faillure, emotions, honesty, causing us to feel like we constantly have to put up an act, to wear masks, to pretend like everything is going great while we feel stuck and lost.

If we go back to the Bible we see that it’s okay to fail, to show emotions. If I look to the Bible I see that faillure makes progress because we learn from our mistakes, even if it takes us ten faillures to get it right, every time we learn a little.

So I want to change, I want this society to see that it is okay to fail, to have emotions and to be honest. This blog is the start of my way to complete honesty and I hope you will join me. If someone asks you if you’re okay, be honest. If someone asks you for your opinion, be honest! Don’t live to please others, live to please God.

Hi everyone!

A new blog post with a new purpose. I started this blog to keep my family and friends up to date about my adventures at ywam (youth with a mission). I’m done with my two schools at ywam but I still wanted to use this blog so I decided to keep writing blogs about things that God shows me and that I feel like sharing.

I hope you all will enjoy my posts about what is going on in my journey with God.

Something that has been a theme in my life, and probably in the lives of more people, is insecurity. Insecurity can be caused  by many things and in my life some of these things were bullying, social media, pressure from family and friends. Yes, I’ve been a lot more insecure than I am now but of course I still have those insecurities. If I look back on my life I praise God for helping my get more and more confident over the years and after that whole process I can proudly say I am happy to be who I am today.

But sometimes those insecurities come trying to sneak back into my life, I know for sure it is the enemy trying to convince me I will never be good enough to be used in the kingdom of God, but what do you do in those moments of fear and weakness, where you’re about to give up? Lately I’ve been lacking in taking time for God and as an affect I started listening to the lies of the enemy more than to the truths of God and it brought me to a place of fear, worry and insecurity. Feeling like I can only mess up, that I am nothing and that I will never be able to achieve anything in life. It brought back all the fears of my past, the fear of not having a future, the fear of not deserving anything good and the fear of never being able to be good enough.

As I was crying out to God, telling Him how sorry I was for not being a better person, a better christian and a better daughter, He told me he doesn’t care about what I do, or what I achieve, He cares about my heart, the heart that wants the world to know who He is and how much He loves His children, the heart that wants to make people feel welcome and accepted, the heart that strives to be more like Jesus every day, despite the failure of the day before.

And then He reminded me of something I learned in Ywam, this thing calles the 4 R’s, 1. Repent, 2. Receive, 3. Rebuke and 4. Replace. During Ywam God showed me a lot of lies I was believing and sins I was doing through these 4 R’s. It helped me not only see the truth and know I am forgiven by God, but it helped me to forgive myeself and it gave so much freedom. So when God reminded me of this, I prayed through these points and there was instant peace, no more worry no more chaos in my head, just peace.

Often we get stuck in a place of believing lies, feeling like there is no way to change our lives and our routines. But in those moments God says:’hey, let me tell you the truth, these are all the lies you are believing and together we will change the way you see your life. I created you for a reason and you are able to do amazing things for My kingdom. I believe in you.’

 

Dutch:

Hoi allemaal!
Sorry dat het alweer een maand geleden is sinds mijn laatste blog update. Het was een drukke tijd met veel huiswerk en heb helaas geen tijd gehad om te schrijven.

Sinds mijn laatste blog is er veel gebeurd, ik heb er 4.5 week opzitten en dus ook 4 en een halve week lessen gehad, ik heb les gehad over: kingdom impact, peace under pressure, Bible centered leadership, worldview and church history en apologetics.
De week over kingdom impact was een hele interessante week, het ging erover hoe we effectief kunnen vertellen over het evangelie, dat wij autoriteit hebben over de vijand, hoe we ons verleden kunnen gebruiken om op een fundament van God te staan en hoe de bijbel tegen zending aankijkt, de les werd gegeven door een vrouw die zelf een zendeling is in noord India en bijna het land uitgezet is.
De week daarna hadden we het over wat valkuilen kunnen zijn in ministry, helaas was ik deel van de week ziek en ik was het ook niet altijd met hem eens maar ik heb zeker veel geleerd over hoe we kunnen zorgen dat we niet de zending uitgaan door dat we op een verkeerde manier met situaties om zijn gegaan.
De week erna zouden we eigenlijk les hebben over opologetics maar omdat de spreker een begravenis had kregen we les van Elissa, we zouden die les eigenlijk twee weken later hebben maar die werden geruild. De week ging over hoe we leiderschap kunnen baseren op de Bijbel en we kregen ook les over de Bijbel zelf en hoe we een bijbelstudie kunnen doen, het was heel gaaf dat we deze les die week hadden want de eerste dag tijdens mijn stille tijd had ik God gevraagd of Hij mij meer van Hemzelf wou laten zien en dat ik hem beter wilde leren kennen en er is geen betere manier om het te leren kennen dan door de Bijbel dus voor mij was het een enorm leerzame en gave week.
Hierna hadden we les over worldview en kerk geschiedenis, zeker een van mijn favoriete weken, een enorm goede spreken met enorm veel kennis van de Bijbel. Ik heb nieuwe dingen geleerd over de bijbel en hoe dingen er in die tijd aan toe gingen en hoe je dat naar onze tijd kan vertalen. Ook vertelde hij over hoe iedereen een ander perspectief heeft op de bijbel en geloof en hoe dat helemaal niet verkeerd is en we moeten er niet zoveel kritiek op hebben als we nu hebben.
Deze week hebben we het gehad over apologetics, dit is hoe je je geloof kan verdedigen en het was een hele leerzame week, een ding dat de spreken zei was over dat wij de bijbel met de bijbel willen bewijzen maar mensen die niet geloven dat de bijbel waar is hebben daar niks aan dus het is eigenlijk een heel slap argument. Ook begon ik te beseffen dat het heel moeilijk is om te bewijzen dat God waar is zonder onze christelijke termen te gebruiken en dat is zeker iets om nog flink over na te denken.

Naast de lessen doen we natuurlijk ook nog leuke dingen, we zijn afgelopen week een paar dagen naar onze basis in de bergen geweest wat super mooi en leuk was omdat er ook sneeuw was. We hebben een keer tot midden in de nacht koekjes gebakken wat vermoeiend maar ook heel leuk was. Twee meiden uit mijn school zijn verloofd en dus hebben een een bridal shower voor ze gehouden was gezellig was. Ook zijn we naar de pumpkin patch geweest om pompoenen te plukken, helaas was het erg koud die dag maar het was zeker heel gezellig.

Komende week hebben we les over fundraising, ik heb er zin in om te leren hoe je dat effectief kan doen op een creatieve manier, ook komen komende twee weken ongeveer 10 van mijn DTS vrienden langs dus het word een feest om hen na 9 maanden weer te zien.
Verder heb ik hier nog een maand voordat ik weer terug naar Nederland kom, ik heb zin om te zien wat God gaat doen als ik thuis kom maar ik heb er ook wel moeite mee dat ik afscheid moet nemen van goede vrienden die ik niet vaak meer zal zien hierna.

Gebedspunten:
– Concentratie voor de laatste paar weken
– Een goede reis voor de vrienden die langskomen
– Rust bij de DTS studenten die de around the world dts doen en dus in anderhalve week vertrekken
– Dat we met zn allen kunnen genieten van de laatste maand die we hier hebben samen.

Heel erg bedankt voor het bidden,

Renske

---

---

English:

Hi everyone!
Sorry it’s been so long since I’ve updated my blog, especially in english. I’ve had a lot of homework and didn’t really have time to really update my blog.

It’s been about a month since my last blog and of course a lot happened, we had 4 and a half weeks of classes in which I have learned a lot, we had classes on kingdom impact, peace under pressure, Bible centered leadership, worldview and church history and apologetics.
The week of kingdom impact we talked about how to effectively share the gospel, in other countries or where you’re at, we talked about empowering missionaries in their own country.
The week after we talked about pitfalls in ministry, I was sick part of the week so I didn’t get the whole week but it was still so good to learn about how to deal with certain situations.
The next week we talked about Biblical leadership, we looked for leaders in the Bible but we also learned to study the Bible and why it is so important. I loved this week and since that week I am falling more and more in love with the word of God.
The week after we talked about worlview and church history, I learned a lot about the time the bible was written and how to interpret into our time, we learned how and why people have different views on the Bible and that it’s not a bad thing as we often think it is, this week my mind was blown so many times and I started seeing a lot of things in a new light.
This week we have been learning about apologetics, how to defend our believe, it was a week where I learned that we have a lot of areas to improve on as christians, how we often explain the Bible using the Bible but for people who don’t believe the Bible is truth it won’t make any more sense. This week definitely gave me a lot to think about.

Beside classes did other things ofcoure, we spend a couple days up at eagle rock, our campus in the mountains, it was so good to be in nature and it was even more beautiful when it started snowing. One day we were baking cookies for the dts’ mid-term outreach til midnight, it was exhausting but so much fun. We went to the pumpkin patch to pick pumpkins, it was cold but it was definitely a good day. We also threw two girls in my school a bridal shower because they’re both engaged and we had so much fun that day making toiletpaper weddingdresses.

This coming week we’ll have classes on fundraising, I’m excited to learn new ways to fundraise. Also a bunch of my DTS friends are coming to visit these two weeks and I am so glad I get to see them after 9 months!!
In a month I’ll be coming back to the Netherlands, I am really excited what God has for my when I’m going home but I’m also sad to have to say goodbye to friends that I will not see a lot after this school.

Prayerpoints:
– concentration for this last month of school
– save travels for my friends that are coming to visit
– Rest for the around the world outreach team that is leaving in a week and a half
– That we can enjoy our last month together

Thank you so much for supporting me in prayer,

Renske

 

Hoi allemaal!

Het is een tijdje geleden dat ik heb geschreven. Onderhand beginnen we alweer bijna aan week 5, een derde van mijn tijd hier zit er al weer op.

 

 

Sinds mijn vorige blog heb ik vooral veel les gehad, vorige week was en onderwerp: biblical counseling and ministry, en afgelopen week ging het over financien. Allebei heel interessant en ik heb zeker veel geleerd. Ook kwam de vorige DTS terug van outreach deze week en het was zo gaaf om hun verhalen te horen van wat God had gedaan in de twee maanden dat ze in de Filipijnen en in Indonesie waren.

Verder heb ik naast de lessen niet veel bijzonders gedaan, veel aan huiswerk gewerkt.

De afgelopen weken heb ik helaas best wel veel last gehad van heimwee, aangezien ik nog niet echt het gevoel heb dat ik diepe vriendschappen heb gemaakt hier is het lasting om open te zijn, maar hierdoor heen ben ik aan het leren om genoegen te nemen met God, dat ik lasting maar gelukkig hoef ik niet gelijk perfect te zijn.

Gebedspunten:
– Dat ik betere vrienschappen kan hebben en hierdoor me minder alleen zal voelen
– voor financien van mensen die het nog nodig hebben voor outreach
– concentratie voor huiswerk.

Bedankt voor het lezen en bidden,

Renske

Hoi allemaal!

De tweede week zit er al weer op, het was een leuke en intense week.

Zondag ochtend gingen we als school naar een soort voedselbank voor daklozen, ze hebben er een winkel met kleren en eten en ze krijgen spullen voor het aantal familieleden. Wij hebben de boel georganiseerd was echt heel leuk was. Voor lunch gingen we naar de kerk van onze schoolleider. S’ middags stond er niet veel op het programma, vooral de boeken lezen en naar de tweede hands winkel.

Maandag begon de eerste echte lesweek, in de ochtend worship en om 11 uur begon de eerste les, deze week kregen we les van onze schooleider over identiteit en ‘strengths’. We hebben verschillende persoonlijkheids en ‘strengths’ testen gedaan en het was heel interessant om te zien hoe erg het van toepassing was op iedereen. Woensdag begonnen we met onze voorbede groepen waar elke student uit mijn school een groepje leid en je voor 1 land bid over de drie maanden dat we hier zijn. Mijn groep gaat bidden voor Vietnam en ik ben benieuwd wat God hier door gaat doen.

De rest van de week was vooral schoolwerk en mensen beter leren kennen, veel gevolleybald en donderdag avond ben ik met wat mensen naar een young adult avond geweest van een van de kerken hier en dat was echt heel tof. Vrijdag hadden we smallgroups en s’avonds was de eerste Kingdom night van de school, op vrijdag avond gaan we Denver in om te evangeliseren en mensen in de stad te dienen, en het was weer zo gaaf! In het groepje waar ik in zat hebben we twee mensen mogen bemoedigen die God al kenden en gewoon even een knipoog van God nodig hadden, en ik ben zo blij dat God ons wou gebruiken om zijn knipoog te zijn voor deze mensen.

Zaterdag was een leuke dag, we gingen met een groep van onze school naar een Rocky Mountain national park in estes park, CO. Het was super mooi en we hebben elanden gezien! Zondag moesten we helaas afscheid nemen van een meisje in mn school die het gevoel had dat ze thuis moest zijn dit moment.

Punten van Dankbaarheid:
– Het is een stuk gezelliger en ik heb al goeie vriendschappen opgebouwd
– ik heb al heel veel geleerd

Gebedspunten:
– niet iedereen heeft het geld al bij elkaar dus voor voorziening in financien
– dat ik veel mag leren.

Bedankt voor het lezen en bidden,

Renske