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| The End of Inflated Obstacle Course |
The Open House 2016
A lot has happened over the last week, mainly Open House and the run up to that. Open House is a day that is taken very seriously by this base as a day to promote the ministries that are run here. Open House takes place every year on Ascension Day, which is a public holiday in the Netherlands. We expected a lot of outsiders to come through, we spent the two days running up to Open House cleaning every corner of every building on the property, or so it seemed. We started the week, with a normal office day, though Bas did come in. Normally Bas isn't in the office on Mondays, but he came in to help with the preparation of the youth tent, as we'd planned to talk through what we were going to do.
We were in charge of the youth tent, which was aimed at teenagers (so from the age of thirteen and up). The base had hired an inflated obstacle course and a bouncy castle. The bouncy castle was promptly set up on the children's field, which was on the other side of the grounds. One of the other staff (from another department) had organised an entire program for the kids, aged twelve and under. During the Open House itself, one of my main roles was keeping an eye on the comings and goings of the teenagers and making sure that no little person under the age of 13 came onto the field as the youth field had been set up for 13 and older. We didn't want the teens to feel that the space that had been set up for them was being invaded by the really young kids. We also didn't want to risk any of the kids getting hurt on the inflated obstacle course.
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| The Guys Testing the X-Box |
We also had a tent set up, on the youth field, with some music playing, as well as an x-box and some sofas. We wanted to give the teens the space to feel that they had a place to hang out with their friends and have fun (this is one of the reasons why I was keeping an eye out for children under thirteen. I did have to tell a few children that they were too young, and that being five didn't make them old enough to be there. It wasn't nice but it had to be done). The x-box was a huge success and was on whenever there wasn't a meeting in the big tent. There was two gatherings during the Open House, once in the morning and once in the afternoon. During both these sessions we turned off the x-box and fans that kept the obstacle course inflated, so that the teens had a chance to go to the meetings too.
There was a worship band and a talk from the base leaders. There was also a dance group, called 24 (after the amount of hours they meet each month). I was standing at the back of the meeting tent so couldn't see the dances they were doing. During the afternoon meeting, after the worship, a Christian rapper from the north of the Netherlands, Queen P, shared her testimony and then rapped a few songs. She'd been asked to come and share by one of the organisers of the Open House.
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| The Deflated Obstacle Course |
During the course of the day there was a number of seminars that were run, promoting the different schools and courses run on the base. There was a historical tour of the buildings. There was plenty of food, cakes and muffins, through out the day. Rolls were provided at lunch time and the base had dinner together after the guests had left for home.
In total we had around 900 people come and visit through out the day! Some were family and friends of the base staff and students. Others had heard about the Open House through their church, or some just saw the flyers in the shop windows. Some of the guests have come back to Youth With A Mission YWAM Heidebeek's yearly Open House for years and years, others were here for the first time. And we also had a number of people who had done their Discipleship Training School DTSs here over the years and return to see people who they know and see how things how are going on the base.
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| Spring Flowers Are Everywhere!! |
Because Thursday was a public holiday in the Netherlands, the base was closed on Friday, as compensation for us. I think it was a good reward as everyone worked so hard in the preparation and run up to the Open House that took place last week (if you're interested in coming to the next Open House at YWAM Heidebeek, do check out the YWAM Heidebeek website. If you want to save the date, Open House 2017 is on May 25, 2017).
GO Teams
I'm glad to say that we have all the leaders for the GOTeams that are going out this summer! This year it was quite a challenge getting leaders for the teams as most of the people we asked to consider leading a team were willing to lead a team in the summer of 2017, but they weren't able to lead a team this summer. In a couple of weeks time, I'll write a post about the teams that are leaving for the field. I'll also write about how things are going with the outreaches, as we get closer to the summer.
We've got about two and a half months to go before the GOFest starts and we're starting to get excited about the whole thing. The GOFest takes place at the beginning of the GOTeams outreach. The participants arrive on Friday evening, and will have four days to get to know one another, as well as having lectures on different topics. It will be during this time that the Faith Experience will pray about where God wants them to go.
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| The Sun Coming Up, Taken From My Bedroom Window |
In Other News
I'm doing well. I've been enjoying the warm weather we've had over the last week or so (summer seems to have hit in full force, along with the higher temperatures). I'm still struggling finding topics to write about that interest me. I mean, I've just written a post about the Open House and what we did, but I know that a lot of people on the base have written about the Open House, so I'm only bringing another perspective to the many already out there. It was my first Open House that I was able to attend. Over the previous years, since my DTS, I've always been overseas. I really enjoyed being a part of Open House 2016.
I've also been praying about what God wants me to do in the future. My work with YWAM Heidebeek ends in the first week of September and thus there's already a few ideas on the table, as it were. So I'd like to ask you to pray that I'll do what God wants me to do next, rather than on what I'd like to do. I won't post anything here until I know for sure what I'll be doing (this won't be until the end of June or even later). I don't want to say that I'm going to do something and then have it fall through. If you're interested in knowing, do keep an eye on this space for more news about that.
I'm also planning to write some blogs on a couple of topics that are I've been thinking about quite a bit over the last few weeks (I just haven't written them yet, because I've kinda had a case of writer's block...).