An Announcement: Saying Goodbye to Amsterdam

So here I am finally, the last blog in the series, and not too soon, for next week I will be hitting the road again.

I arrived into Amsterdam, Saturday morning at 8am. It was a cold and gloomy summers day that September 8. Getting off the train, I made a rush with all my things to the most familiar building to me in all of Europe... De Poorte. To shorten the story, my reservations were not noted in the calendar, and the lady there knew she made a mistake. Nevertheless, I was able to get a room in the building, and I stayed till that Thursday afternoon. The next two nights I stayed with this kat that I met while hanging out in the Shelter City a month before. He had several friends in from Portland, and so our room was full. A curious side note is that he has a Christian house mate from Egypt. He is presently dating some girl that I just met last night who grew up in West Asheville. She has been spending lots of time in Israel after her conversion while working in the Shelter this past spring. *"That is wild! That is some wacky wild shtuff!" (thank you Johnny).* After the second night I was in my man from Portland's place, I began cleaning in the Shelter and staying there. So that is where I am now, and intend to stay until Wednesday morning, September 26.

My main focus this time in Amsterdam has been to collect some things I had stashed, fill some personal errands like switching out gear for winter, continue the network that I have been establishing, writing this series of blogs, and seeing old friends.

So the switching out of gear is a forever process. My hammock is ripped, and there are wholes in my tarp (rain fly). I have hopes of sewing a new patchwork rainfly out of trashed umbrellas. So I have plans on taking the rainfly I have and creating a hammock out of it.

The network has been slowed. I havn't made it to church since I started working at the Shelter. (So I missed last week.) I was able to see one guy who I had hopes that he would really be into working with me or at least supporting me. There is that possibility, but he is also really busy with his wonderful family and work. I could see the house group that he leads as being a good possible fellowship to plug into one night a week though. I met several YWAMmers who I got to talk to, some I got to catch up with and share my heart. I did have one good meeting with some possible leads, but nothing worth mentioning at this time.

As for the blogs, well, there presence is apparrent.

Finally, the seeing of old friends:
I have had some wonderful times catching up with some people. I have met some old friends that were quite hospitable, supportive, and just excited to catch up. To mention one couple, Charles and Rosalie's hospitality and love have been supurb. There are still some I have yet to see, and at this point I wonder if I will on this trip. Then there are some other old friends with whom I just have had a difficult time. I have no good reason nor intention to dishonor them in anyway. I see that I have had a part to play in this dissapointment. I think the next time I make a trip like this, especially after so many years, I need to be less assuming and more intentional about scheduling good times and appropriate means of reacquaintance. I write this as a confessional to also confess that I am hurt. I haven't gone to bed crying and what not, but there is indeed a grave dissapointment in my heart that my experience now did not meet up to the years of pining and anticipation of seeing these brothers and sisters whom I believe I must have grown even more fond of as time went on. Again I think I see the part I played in this personal disaster, but I also see that there is some painful closure comming. My heart is saying goodbye to Amsterdam. Not necessarily the city, persay, though perhapse partially. More than the city, but the City and community that is was for me from 1999 to 2001, and then what it has been as a burning memory in my heart ever since. I think this is a good thing, even if it is not a favorable thing in my opinion.

Interesting enough, I have made lots of new friends in Amsterdam. This helps me even more close the door of the past and look on to what new things the Lord has to show me. These new friends, aside from those people who have been loyal and hospitable upon my return, have been the oasis of love to my soul. They have been some great folks who have really reset my view of the city.

Perhapse I already mentioned, that when I first returned to Amsterdam I noticed how empty the city was of the sort of street culture I remember from 6 years prior. This became even more clear to me when I went to Berlin, and saw more street culture than I had ever seen before. Perhapse I should confess now that it was still less than I should like to see. So in my travels from Berlin on, I began telling people what I am telling you now. Amsterdam has changed, and now I am not so sure that it is the place for me to be. The scene is different now, and so I have found myself opened up to saying to God, "Alright, now what?" It is really quite an exciting thing. I am looking, listening, and praying. I am 31. My life up till now has been: school, YWAM, recovery, and debt. But I am debt free. I have no commitments holding me too the states or anywhere else. So I can look around the world... And I mean the world even- the Americas, Africa, and Asia included. Where do I belong? Where shall the leather sandals take me? I am free to wander, free to live, and free to die.

To die is to gain, finally, the eternal reward, the victory that Jesus handed to me free of charge. I look forward to meeting my father, and so I would hope that this would be my last breath. Alas, I am still breathing, so I am still living, and to live is Christ. It is to participate with Christ in his sufferings. It is a life of being thrown into the fire to be purged from deeper impurity. It is a life of considering it all joy when men revile me, and mock me, and bring all sorts of evil against me, and when I am persecuted for the sake of Christ. It is a life of wading through the disgusting evil of this world and going forth in it too and fro as the light of the world and the salt of the earth. It is going forth in the midst of this fallen chaos yet not being polluted by it. So, as the scripture says, I am God's workmanship created for good works in Christ. I am no longer my own. I was bought with Christ's broken body, spilt blood, and demolished reputation. MY LIFE IS FORFEIT. I am thus dead to the world and alive only in Christ. Therefore, I must go forward not as one who is a slave to sin, nor as one free to do his own bidding in autonomy for in truth I am 100% dependant on the supply of breath. There is only one who is autonomous. Thus and therefore, I can only go on as one in captivity, who is utterly and totally in debt to the one who saved him from death, even Christ.

So then, as a slave, sevant, friend, child, and bride of Christ I submit my will totally to his, and specifically what is that? Specifically, I don't know. Nevertheless the sun rises and sets requiring me to eat and sleep for which I must work to provide for on my own, or throw myself completely at the Lord and his mercy, practically tempting God to respond to my faith, with the action of seeking first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and allowing the clothes I wear, the food I eat, and the bed I sleep in to be provided for me. I find myself typically chosing the first, to coil up my faith and seek the Lords security through the hands of men. Nevertheless, I also find myself getting closer and closer to the edge, and some days like those when I was hitchhiking, I decided to throw myself completely over just to see the Lord catch me. He did. No question, he did. So I am learning, learning to live by faith. Perhapse the most difficult thing is to know how to operate in living not by bread, but by every word proceeding from the Lord's mouth; being anxious for nothing but through prayer and supplication making my requests known to God; worrying not for tomorrow, but letting todays troubles take on my full focus, and finally knowing that there is only one trouble of the day and that trouble being that the kingdom of heaven suffers a violence and the violent take it by force. Therefore there is only one vocation that I have for the day; it is just for that day and it is renewed everyday. A man who does not work should not eat. I must do the works of him that sent Christ while it is still day. The night cometh when no man can work, but as long as He is in the world, He is the light of the world. So my vocation is this: to seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, then all that which is mentioned there in Matthew 6 will be added unto me.

Still, I am a coward, and feel dim. For how practically am I to seek first the kingdom of God? Whenever I ask this question, the same answer always comes and I shut it down straight away, again, and again. The answer I get is that I should go out in the streets, and literally proclaim the good news from the street corners and the rooftops, and to confront people, even every one who is not actively doing the same as I am doing, by speaking of God's Holiness and pleading with them that they would repent and turn from their wicked ways, accepting Christ's sacrifice for them, and then get busy doing even as I would be doing by Seeking First the Kingdom of Heaven in this carnal way. Either I am dissobediant in not submitting to this answer, or there is something, as I just said, so carnal about it that the Lord in his everloving spirit rescues me by conscience. The problem is that there I am left without a practical answer... without the carnal answer that I want. But the spirit is not born of the flesh. Flesh is born of flesh, and the spirit is born of spirit. Perhapse to seek first the Kingdom of God in such a carnal way is to make an attempt at birthing a spiritual convert out of fleshly legs. (Sorry, I know that sounds a little krass, but perhapse so is the action.)

So then, what must I do? Ahh! This question keeps nagging again, and again. Then remember so much supposedly wise counsel saying, "It is not about what you do." Nevertheless, I have a mind who demands that it know how to govern the legs and hands which are also in my posession. So out of this crisis comes a more exactly stated version of this question. "What is my headding?" Ah-ha! Now this is a new idea. As I breath and seek first the Kingdom, what is my headding?

Rather than tell you why I have been so tedius, I will let the tedium's fruit produce on it's own. I continue now into the practical to say that I have mentioned that I was moving on from Amsterdam, but kept you in suspence until this moment to make this announcement. I hope it is as big as an announcement as I have been setting up for. We will see what the Lord wills as I make my plans, and he determines my steps. Almost as soon as I felt the chilled air on my first day in Amsterdam, the thought occured to me that squatting or not, I need to find a way to get settled into Europe and make myself comfortable at least for this next winter. I roamed around Germany with this idea in my head: praying, fasting, and wondering how it would be accomplished. The idea came to me while in Berlin that I would go to Romania and find some random farmer who would let me care for his sheep in exchange for eating his food and sleeping in his barn. This is still the backup plan and I hope someday to make it the primary goal of setting up a refuge for myself in Romania where I can go to be a blessing, learn Romanian, hike the Carpathian Mountains in my liesure, study story telling & local lore, and perhapse even make friends with the gypsies. I was discussing these things with Al who told me of a community down in Portugal called the Mount of Oaks. As he told me about it, he paused and looked very serious. His eyes closed slowly and then opened again. He then said that he really had a strong sense from the Lord that I was to go there. I took that idea and chewed on it for a while. I asked Al to go ahead an write Barbara an introduction to a letter that I would write her in a few days inorder to explore the idea further. So the idea grew on me, and by the time I made it to Amsterdam, my mind was all but made up that I should be going there. After some e-mail formalities, I finally received a most generous letter back from Barbara saying essentially, "Come, come; stay long, and there are some possibilities that we can work on getting you a visa extension." So my plan is this: ON SEPTEMBER 26TH, I WILL LEAVE THE SHELTER FOR THE MOUNTAIN OF OAKS PORTUGAL.


I don't know a lot about this place, but you can check out the Blog that is www.shantipilgrim.blogspot. As I understand it, Barbara was a rainbow girl who lived in Portugal, but she traveled around a lot. Then she met the Lord, and went to YWAM for a few years. There was a church that offered her the use of some random chunck of land that they had until she started having too much counter culture ministry for their taste. So they asked for the land back. Barbara and the community took immediate action raising money and then bought the place. So now the Mount of Oaks belongs to the Mount of Oaks. She told me that she lives in a mud hut that she built for herself. Everyone else camps in tents. I will be setting up a hammock to sleep in under a tarp. So it looks like I will be living outside in the woods for the winter. As you can imagine, I am really excited about this. I hear there is a lot of work there to do, so I guess I will be staying pretty busy as well. You can check it out in her blog, but about a month back there was a 24-7 prayer week where a tent was put up and people came in for a week to the Mount of Oaks to camp and pray. From the prayer there was also a lot of service projects set up in the local village, as well as a roadside clean up where they just went along the road picking up trash. This November I hear that olive pickers will be needed. I don't know where these olives are, but apparently Barbara needs a lot of help harvesting olives.

At the risk of being presumptious, I will wrap this up by saying that I hope this will end up being home base in Europe. I intend to spend the winter here to rest up and get refreshed for spring and summer. Then, with visa extension in hand (hopefully I can just continually reapply, and reapply.), I intend to hitchike all over Europe, and finally get into the street culture I have been wanting to be apart of. I will go looking for squat actions and other actions, would like to travel through the rest of the mediterranean countries, and back to Berlin and Amsterdam. In these places I look forward to establishing more contact with people in the city, and do some short term commitments, such as work some for YWAM and the Shelter, and Styger, and staff discipleship training schools, and trips to Romania, and teach English, and tell stories to children in the park, and .......SEEK FIRST THE KINDDOM OF GOD AND HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS TODAY, FOR THIS DAY HAS ENOUGH WORRIES OF ITS OWN.

In closing, let me thank all of the readers who have taken the time to join me from Amsterdam to Berlin, to the gathering, to Karlsruhe, and finally back to Amsterdam. I know these have been some long blogs, but many of you are my friends whom I feel I have so much to tell. I am going to give us a break now. I may punch out one more quick blog next week before I leave, or once I get to Paris, and I am sure I will have something to say once in Portugal. But I am sure that computer and internet use will be difficult to come by once I get to Portugal. So this may be the most you hear from me for a while. I love you, my friends in Asheville, my family, the rest of the states, and those of you I met in Germany.

Peace and God bless,
-Leathersandal