Life in the Netherlands, or, Holland is lekker, Part Three.

As un-French as you can get
the other day amy and i were enjoying some bagel sandwiches for lunch at my new favorite cafe in the hague. we were sitting at a four top, because it had been the only free table when we came in. we're halfway through our meal when a group of 5 comes in, and the waitress asks us if we'll move to a recently vacated 2 person table. we didn't mind, of course, but as i carried my lunch across the room, i was struck with the thought of how different holland is from france. in france, mealtime is a sacred event, and a waiter would never commit the cardinal sin of interrupting your meal and asking you to move tables.

Sprinkles for breakfast
i used to think that the only people who would legitimately eat chocolate sprinkles for breakfast every day would be young children slightly lacking in parental discipline. however, along with being every sugar-crazed child's delight, sprinkles are an acceptable and even typical dutch breakfast food. they are called hagel slaag and the dutch eat them on sliced bread every morning. you heard me right, people: sprinkles on bread = normal adult breakfast. in defense of the dutch, though, hagel slaag is chocolately amazingness and if i was allowed to eat it for breakfast every morning without judgement, i might do it too. it is pretty lekker sprinkled on a slice of peanut butter toast.

Life in the Netherlands, or, Holland is lekker, Part Two.

Holland has the coolest pubs
the oude mol

Life in the Netherlands, or, Holland is lekker, Part One.

hello all. i am in the netherlands right now. i'm right in the middle of my 2 week stay- i've been here since tuesday and i'm still here until friday. i'm here, along with 3 of my teammates as well as some other cool church planters from elsewhere in europe, for part two of christian associates' field orientation (you'll recall i did part one in october).

here are just a few musings from the lands of nether:

Monasteries are like college
ca puts us up in a monastery for our 2 weeks of field orientation. that may seem weird, but it's actually not bad- we all get our own room, it's right in the center of town, and there's no curfew. i really really love living in community with my dear fellow church planters for a few weeks. and it feels like we're all living in the dorms at college- right now i'm staying up late, wasting time on the internet and emailing with my teammate who is in a room right down the hall.

Luggage is optional
since we're staying in a monastery, i decided to go with the simple living theme and go without all my luggage for a few days. actually, the choice for me to be without my stuff was not my own, but klm's, when they left my suitcase on the runway in marseille. oh, they quickly realized their mistake, of course, and put it on another flight so it would catch up to me that day, but they accidentally put it on a plane headed in the opposite direction. it all worked out well in the end, though. i got my suitcase delivered for me, right to my door. and i learned that i can go without clothes and everything for 2 whole days.
(interesting side story- my teammate teal's bag was also left behind. when we arrived in the hague, i told him we should probably go to the store to pick up a few essentials, since we may be without luggage for a few days. i bought a toothbrush and deodorant. teal bought a six-pack of beer. i guess men and women really do have different priorities.)

i have many more dutch musings to share with you, but my (tiny monastery) bed is calling my name. i'll post a few more over the next few days. goedenacht.

It's like I'm back in college. Or, a case study in procrastination.

This is how you can tell I'm procrastinating- I'm writing a blog post. I just wrote one like yesterday. Normally I'm lucky if I can get one up every couple weeks.

I don't know what it is about me, but for some reason, when I have a large amount of work to get done and a very near and rapidly approaching deadline, my procrastination instinct kicks in. It's 12:30am and I've already spent hours browsing Facebook (darn you Facebook) and reading blogs belonging to people I don't even know. I've also cleaned the kitchen, brainstormed ways to keep the pigeons off our balcony, created 3 new playlists, drank several cups of tea, tried on my favorite turquoise high heels I haven't worn in over a year, and counted the exact total number of days I've lived in France (818).

The sad thing is, the work that is making me procrastinate is actually fascinating and enjoyable and stimulating. It's really really good stuff, and normally I would be thrilled to spend time doing the kind of things it's asking of me. But the fact that there is a looming deadline inevitably makes me think that counting the number of umbrellas we have in the apartment (there are 8) is more deserving of my time than intellectually and spiritually stimulating work.

(For those of you who are worried about me getting my work done, or not doing work that reflects my best efforts, don't you worry your pretty little heads. I learned in college that I truly do my best work under pressure, and I have never ever not met a deadline, even with my best procrastination efforts. Plus, I've done a lot of the work already, I'm almost done.)

Ok, I'm gonna go do yoga stretches in the living room.

Then back to work.

Easter = awesome. Or, how to celebrate Easter just like the early church did.

Ok, I know I'm a few weeks late in recapping Easter on my blog (does that really surprise anyone?), but I love Easter, and the blogger in me couldn't resist at least a few lines to express how much I love Easter at [iccp]. We always come up with very creative ways to celebrate Easter. Like an outdoor sunrise service at the Barrage de Bimont. I guess it didn't occur to me that sunrise service means you have to be awake early enough to see the sun rise. And this year we decided to actually experience the rising of the sun by having our service outdoors. 6am when it is -0.5 degrees celsius is what I call a shock to the system. He is risen indeed.

Seriously though, it was beautiful. Almost 100 people came, and we sang lots of songs, and drank hot coffee from thermoses, and Darrin talked about Jesus giving his life for us and to us, and we huddled around a fire in a trash can. For real. It felt like raw church. And there is nothing quite like watching the sun come up over Mount Sainte Victoire.

We did lots of other cool things to celebrate Easter this year. Check out this video for a small taste of what it's like to celebrate Easter with the [iccp] family. I love this family.

Cool videos make up for tardiness, right?


(Thanks to Jeff Fountain for the video)

The rumors are true, he lives here. Or, I know you're all jealous of my life.

The other day I was walking down the street, and I walked right by this face:



And no, I was not walking past a movie poster. It was the real life, flesh-and-blood him, walking down a street I walk down all the time. Just walking, all by himself. Just strolling around my little town, as if he were a normal person who is allowed to just walk down the street like a normal person.

Now, you may be under the impression that it is normal for celebrities to wander the streets of Aix on foot (if you remember my Rachael Ray story from this summer). Let me set the record straight- it's not. Normally, the most exciting thing to happen to me while walking down the cobblestone streets of Aix involves either a street performer (the guy with the guitar who will make up a song about me as I walk past, or the guy who wheels his full-sized piano to the middle of the sidewalk, or the statue man that I have never once seen be still), or narrowly avoiding a large pile of dog poo. Oh, one time there was a giant 20-foot praying mantis that was wheeled down the Cours Mirabeau for no apparent reason. And let me tell you, that praying mantis attracted a lot more attention than him walking down the street.

Everyone says I should have said something to him; struck up a casual yet engaging conversation. I, on the other hand, chose the suave approach of freezing in my tracks and staring at him mutely with my mouth hanging slightly open in shock.

3 weeks later and I still have the camp high. Or, this is why I do what I do.

3 weeks ago Adam, Tasha, and I took a group of jr. highers to a camp in Grenoble for [iccp]'s first ever youth winter camp. It's taken me this long to blog about it, because I fear that my words cannot capture how amazing this camp was. Sure, I have plenty of stories I could tell you. I could tell you all about this amazing group of thoughtful, intelligent, fun jr. highers that I feel so privileged to share life with. I could tell you how God revealed Himself to many of the kids, most of whom are not Christians, while at camp. I could tell you about staying up late with the girls every night because they were so eager to hear more about God. I could tell you how two of the girls began relationships with Jesus. I could tell you about L* sharing with me, with tears in her eyes, how she was beginning to understand how much God loves her and what an incredible gift He has given her. I could tell you about learning to ski (something I had never done in my life! but by the end of the week I loved it, and was going down red slopes, go me). I could tell you about all the laughter, jokes, fun, tears, relationships formed, questions asked, realizations, new understandings, community created. Maybe I'll let a few pictures speak for themselves.

(check out all the pictures from camp here)









screaming vikings = pure awesomeness