10 things i love about living in Amsterdam.

1. I can sit in my windowsill, uncomfortably but I can still do it.

2. The library a short walk away sells 1euro desserts after 8pm. What’s classier than budget cake?

3. The warehouse sized flea markets.

4. I can’t understand a word people say in the streets which makes for long, uninterrupted thinking space.

5. If I need to get from my room to anywhere important, i.e. the dinner table, I get to take 4 flights of stairs! Down and up again. It should help me keep healthy except that every time I get to the bottom I devour a nutella sandwich and a liter of coffee.

6. The lectures I have for my counseling school are so good, I’m learning a lot that I didn’t realize about humans and what they need.

7. One of my best friends is doing the same school with me. Her sarcastic German rage and regular hugs are a big comfort to me.

8. It’s getting colder and despite the protests of locals I am continuing to pray for snow, sooner rather than later.

9. I flipping love stroopwaffles.

10. God is patiently pulling down defensive walls that I have built up inside myself.

FCM | Starting at the beginning

This week was the first of my foundations of counselling school in Amsterdam.

The main focus of the week was getting to know each other. Getting to know our stories, where we’ve come from. Starting form the start and leaving the end open for what’s to come.

Everybody has their own story. No one lives without pain. We all bury hurt, experience rejection, question the worth and purpose of life, carry burdens from the generations before us.

I saw just how much in our sharing. So much devastation, so much ruin, so much abuse.

People struggling through decades of addiction.

And despite hearing 23 stories of overwhelming brokenness there was one theme that overcame and continues to overcome all of them.

And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.1 Peter 5:10

I have no doubt in this school that the grace and restoration of God will change us in incredible ways, healing us and enabling us to invite other people with stories like us into true freedom.