A day in the life.

I've had a thought of doing this for a couple weeks now so here goes!

6:45
I wake up. I'm late. Daylight saving messed me up as I groggily set my alarm last night. I still have time though and dress quickly in the dark.

7:00
I go downstairs and meet with A & K. We're all doing the morning cafe shift together & we bike the ten minutes to the hostel.

7:15
We get to the cafe, unlock the doors, & get ready for breakfast. We find some downtime before our devotional time & I get a bowl of Cruesli with a banana for breakfast.

7:45
We have our devotion time, we are going through James and today we read:

 James 1:18 He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.

8:00
We open the cafe and start serving our breakfast of french toast. As soon as the doors open we are greeted by a group of french students staying at the hostel, so we had a speedy start to our morning. It's always tricky knowing how to pronounce the names that people write down on the sign-up sheet but that's all part of the fun. I find the french names especially hard, but I'm getting better!

10:00
Breakfast is well under way, Max came in, he lost all his luggage and passport at a locker in centraal station. He played the Guitar and had several cups of coffee.

10:15
We run out of batter for the french toast and use eggs for the remainder of the guests.

10:30
Now we stop serving breakfast, I clean the hotplate and join A & K for coffee and a break with the rest of the team.

11:15
Back to cleaning, also getting lunch ready for the staff and cleaners.

1:00
lunch, I get a couple toasties with ham and gouda cheese.

1:15
The end of my shift, I have afternoon Ministry Training Program (MTP) and so I head home.

1:30
I take a look at my back tyre of my bike. It's had a slow leak the past few days so I check it out and find a hole in my tube, it takes longer than I thought to patch.

2:15
Just finished fixing my bike, I have to hurry to MTP. Today we are taking a more detailed look at reception (a shift I hope to be given soon). It is interesting and I feel like I have learned a lot.

4:45
MTP is finished, when I come upstairs one of the daughters of our houseparents is watching Tangled. I decide to join her and finish the movie.

5:30
Done with the movie. I spend the rest of my evening hanging out with the community and blogging.

8:10
I think I will go on a walk and go to bed sometime after that.

9:13
So that's my day! Thanks for reading and I hope you've enjoyed it!

-Stephen

Shelter update.

Dear friends and family,

Thank you for your prayer and support, I have felt the power of your prayers and appreciate the communication. Things here at the shelter are going well. As a community the staff members & I are growing closer every day.

A family friend was able to stop by one day, he had his layover in Amsterdam and so we were able to spend a few hours together. A week or so later his son was able to come and we spent the whole weekend together. Among other things we went to the flea market and had sushi.

Work at the hostel is going well too, I'm mainly working shifts in the Cafe. This gives me some really cool opportunities to talk to guests and staff members.

This past week was prayer week, so we set aside a room in the house to be our prayer room. We also had different classes on prayer and connecting with God. It was a really good time and I learned a lot.

So life continues, It's racing by so fast. It's hard to think that I've been here for a whole month already! I feel like I am really growing and that this is really the place that God wants me to be right now.

Please pray:

Pray that I would be able to process, internalize, and put into action all the things I'm learning.
Pray that I would be open to the things that God is teaching me about himself.
Pray that everyone would work together in the community and that we would be able to work past cultural differences.
Pray that I will have a greater dependence on God.

Out to eat with a family friend from home.

Getting ice cream at the park!

Visits from Friends.

Week one: settling down

My first week is almost over so here's a quick update of how it's been.

Arriving: It was a bit of a stressful trip; I missed a flight and had to wait at the London Gatwick airport for 8 hours! That extended my entire travel time to 30 hours and my non-sleeping time to 36 hours (pretty sure that's a personal record for me).

When I got to Amsterdam it was not very hard to find the community house. A good portion of the community were waiting to welcome me and they gave me a whirlwind tour of my new home.

The next day I was scheduled to work so I got to bed and was able to sleep for 12 hours! Also a personal record I think.

So far I have been working exclusively in the cafe and it has been going swimmingly. There are always opportunities to talk to guests and get to know the people who I'm working with.

Last night I had my first bike accident! It wasn't bad at all, I just slammed into a stationary bike. I am quickly learning the ways of the Amsterdam bike culture.

I hope to update the ol' blog around once a week, so I'll see you then.

Over and out!
Stephen.

Getting started

It's almost too much to take in.

I've been home from Europe for less than four weeks and now I am approved to go back and start working there in two months! it's an amazing story of how God has been lining everything up and knocking out even the biggest of obstacles.

The three most obvious challenges to getting to Amsterdam were:

1. Getting my visa to work in the Netherlands
2. Paying for the flight to Amsterdam
3. Having my application approved

1. Visa

As a US citizen it costs 760 Euros ($1,020) to get a work visa for a year. Thanks to my Mum-who is Canadian- I have dual-citizenship and as a Canadian the visa only ends up costing 53 Euros ($70)!

2. Flight

Okay, huge shout out to my boss Nate. Best boss I've had the privilege to work for. We were in the office one day and out of the blue he tells me:

"Oh hey, I have enough air miles to get you to Amsterdam and I'm not going to be flying anytime soon."

I tried to convince him to let me work for the flight instead of getting paid, but he wouldn't hear of it.

So now I have a ticket and that takes care of the getting there part.

3. Application

On Tuesday I received notice that my application was processed and that I was accepted to work at Youth Hostel Ministries starting on the 1st of October.

So there you go; that's almost everything that has happened so far. I'll do my best to keep you all updated as my departure date nears.