It's a Bike...It's a Windmill...no, it's Noahs Ark!!!

When one considers what they might see in the Netherlands a bike is certainly expected!  Okay, let's be real hundreds of bikes is more like it !

Bikes in Amsterdam...and this is only a few!

A Windmill is yet another item on the list of things you will see.  Beautiful, big, powerful, in the city, in the country in the ocean in the...you get the idea.

Some very dear friends, Clermont and Johanna, took our family to Kinderdijk to see windmills that have been there since the mid-1700's!  We even got to go inside of one and it was quite an amazing experience!

...and then of course there is the ark...until recently it would not be on the list of things to expect while in Holland but now you can add it for something you have to see to believe along with the countless bikes and windmills!  It wasn't just any ark but one built to the exact size that Noah would have built!  How cool is that!?  It was big...big, big!

Many people have asked what the boys and I "do" during the week while Alex is teaching...well I do a lot of what  I do while at home!  For example: Homeschooling!  It CAN happen anywhere and math can be learned with pretzels and army men ;0)

We have also watched our baby grow...during our time here Micah has gotten 2 teeth, rolled over, mastered holding his head up and outgrown almost every outfit I brought (he weighs 20 pounds!). 

We have also learned our way around Badhoevedorp with our many trips walking to the grocery store, meeting friends at the park and getting to know some of the other Professors families at Tyndale!

One of the canal roads we walk...forget worrying about being hit by a car it's the bikes you have to watch out for!

So, it's true we have seen some amazing things both expected and unexpected!  We are thankful and excited to have been able to be a small part of the Dutch culture while we are here this summer!  It is hard to believe that in just a week we will be heading back to the States to continue support raising so we can be a part of what God is doing here "full-time"! 

Student Highlights: Fai and Manuel

Meet Fai and Manuel! They are two of our Dutch students who are currently serving God in the Netherlands and are both hoping to become missionaries after their studies at Tyndale. Manuel works as a youth pastor at a large church near Amsterdam and loves to engage in street evangelism and Fai works as an actor/singer/performer and witnesses for Christ among the many seekers he comes in contact with through his work. Although the Netherlands is a very spiritually needy country it is not devoid of Gospel witness! Please pray for the growth of God's kingdom in Amsterdam.

Student Highlight: David

Meet David from Ghana. He has a passion to return to Ghana after his studies at Tyndale to teach and train others for ministry and outreach. David notes that technically over half of the population of Ghana would identify themselves as Christians, but that many of these people are nominal Christians in name only and desperately need to encounter and be transformed by Jesus. I think that Ghana could become a great missionary sending nation in the future; please pray for David as he prepares for future ministry and service in his home country.

Student Highlight: Evan

Meet Evan from Serbia and hear his story; God rescued him from heroine addiction and has called him to missions. He cares deeply for God’s truth and keenly understands the spiritual/psychological issues involved with drug addiction and the power of God to bring salvation and transformation.

Student Highlight: Tadesse

Meet Tadesse from Ethiopia! He has been thrown into prison 2 different times for preaching the Gospel, has planted four churches in Ethiopia, and has a passion for training and equipping Christians in Ethiopia to effectively reach out and share the Gospel with Muslims. Persecution of Christians by Muslims is quite intense in Ethiopia so please pray for Tadesse along with his wife and daughter in Ethiopia. As a Christian living in America I have never experienced persecution or known what it is really like to suffer for Jesus' name. I am the teacher in the sense that I have studied and am teaching a technical subject (New Testament Greek) but I am also a student.

Student Highlight: Timothy

It has been a busy yet wonderful three weeks since we arrived in the Netherlands to teach at Tyndale Theological Seminary for the summer. Tyndale trains and equips pastors, evangelists, church leaders, and teachers from around the world. The best part of the ministry here is interaction with the students: they are passionate followers of Christ from diverse countries and cultures. It is so easy in America to lose sight of the global nature of Christianity and to think that God's kingdom is focused on America (hint: America is not God's Kingdom; God's kingdom is so much larger and grander, greatly surpassing any human geo-socio-political boundaries).

I want to give you a glimpse of the quality and passion of Tyndale students along with the ministry we are involved in here so I am beginning a series of blog-posts that will highlight various students through informal interviews. Please watch, listen, and pray for the ministry here and throughout God's world.

Timothy has a passion to evangelize the least-reached areas of Cameroon; please pray for his wife and children who had to remain in Cameroon during the course of his studies.

Celebration and a SIX hour time jump!

Well, finally here it is...the tale of our trip!  The beginning to the beginning of our great adventure!  It all started with chocolate chip pancakes and the singing of Happy Birthday to our sweet Benjamin who turned "5" on the day our plane flew out!  

Chris and Sarah saw to it that we arrived at the airport in time and before we knew it we were seated on the airplane and taking off!  I need a moment to brag on the boys.  They were amazing travelers!  Oh, if you could have seen the grim faces of everyone who saw us coming...it made me laugh.  No really, I laughed all the way to the back of the plane where our seats were!  Thankfully God is all about details and as He planned it the lovely lady sitting next to me had two grown sons and was excited to hold Micah to give my arms a break.  Elijah, Benjamin and Paul all agreed that riding on an airplane must be like riding a big roller coaster because it "tickles the tummy".

Our first flight ended in Iceland with a 16 hour layover so we decided to stay in a hotel type place (it used to be a US Airforce base) and get some rest.

We brought just a few things with us!

Micah and me with a beautiful Iceland sunset at midnight...I don't know when it got dark but I know it was not until after 2am according to the time there!

Iceland was a very wild and "untouched by man" type place...as we flew over it Benjamin asked if we were going to be camping because for as far as you could see there was nothing but flat fields of lava rock with grass and purple flowers sticking up every now and then.

Flying from Iceland to the Netherlands was peaceful.  Watching the landscape change between the two countries was amazing!  God's creation is so diverse and beautiful!  When we arrived and went through customs at the airport I was overwhelmed by the variety of languages I heard around me!  My sweet little Southern USA raised boys kept asking "is he speaking Spanish?"

We were greeted by one of the staff and a student from Tyndale and they helped us settle in at the home where we are house sitting for a wonderful family from a Church nearby.  We are so thankful for them opening their home to us!  We finally convinced the boys and ourselves to go to bed by 2am (8pm in the US) and slept until Noon (6am in the US)!  Needless to say the time change has been a bit of a challenge but almost 2 weeks later and I think we have adjusted!

We are house sitting this lovely place for a month and then to a one bedroom apartment we go!

 Our first day we got to experience the life of not having a car, not speaking the language and having no idea where the grocery store was!  God is good and provided what we needed for the day...legs, Dutch dictionaries and maps!  We also had the thrill of meeting the summer students who, as Alex posted earlier, are from 15 different countries!  Tomorrow will be the start of Alex's second week teaching and he loves it!  God is so good to PREPARE us for what He wants us to do, PROVIDE for what we need to get there and give His PEACE as we go through the changes!

Alex, Elijah and Benjamin with some of the students from Tyndale!