hello folks! i just wanted to offer up a few exciting update pertaining to h2o and Amsterdam!
in the h2o's ministry arena, this past friday & saturday was the annual women's weekend retreat! we got to hear jen arnold speak on the topic of missional living! she taught about how our head, heart, and hands impact the missionaries we all are: in a local context. how in our head we must know that our identity comes from Christ; that we are nothing without Him and that we can do nothing of our own will. next, we align our heart with His; how God's heart is for His Church (capital "C": community of believers) and we grow through the church (local place of worship). finally, we talked about practicals on reaching the community with our hands; intentionally submersing ourselves into the culture. we are to be in the world, and not of it. the ladies enjoyed some amazing fellowship in the form of a dance party, breakout groups, and encouragement notes! the weekend overall was a much needed refresher.
all this talk about being a missionary made me super pumped to be in the Kent community. Kent is a pretty sweet place! it's small town mixed with college life feel is a great place to enjoy a great time with friends but also is an excellent missions field! my heart was definitely convicted about the amount of time i spend doing outreach, especially since i have this amazing opportunity with a community as large as 28,000! i also was able to think a lot about being an international missionary, specifically with thoughts about Amsterdam.
i've been talking the past couple weeks about getting ready to spend my spring break in this wonderful dutch city: Amsterdam, the Netherlands!!! our team of ten will be departing from akron, ohio march 23! i want to offer these next few words to give you guys as much as i know about the trip details so far! i am so blessed by your partnership with me in prayers and support! once we arrive in Amsterdam, we are immediately going to start the celebrating! our sister church that is in the Netherlands is called Amsterdam50 and this year they will be celebrating their 10 year anniversary! it actually happens to fall over the weekend we get there and so we are going to be throwing them a birthday party! we're going to be spending the day doing a walking tour of the church's history in the city: places where the church has had meetings and significant connections. i'm really excited for this day of just being able to see God's providing and His plan for this church! it's also going to be a great way to get to know the city of Amsterdam! the next few days we're going to spend in the city, doing street evangelism and even working with an organization called Not for Sale! (view the campaign's website here!) that is by far what i'm the most excited to do. God has given me a heart that breaks for abused and mistreated women. this organization works to build relationships with some of the women that have fallen victims of the sex trafficking in the Red Light district. one of the ways this organization works in Amsterdam is by serving a humble meal of soup to the women. we get to help serve the soup and even eat with them. we get to share Jesus with the trafficked women. we get to love them!!!! the other days in the Netherlands we are traveling to a university town called Groningen where we will be doing to church planting type activities. Amsterdam50 is looking to expand the love of Jesus and capture the hearts of their country for God.
man, i am so pumped about that! God is so good. tonight even at the h2o worship gathering i was re-captivated by Jesus. we started a new series called The Glory of The Cross. tonight we revisited the Lord's Supper through the context of Exodus 12. basically, after the Israelites were enslaved by the Egyptians, God's heart for His people moved him to plague the Egyptians until Pharaoh would relent. in the third plague, the plague of the first-born, God said that He would kill all first-born members of each family. in order to protect the Israelites from this punishment, he told them to sacrifice the most perfect lamb they could find and take the blood and smear it on their front doors. the blood was a sign of the covenant relationship the people of that household shared with God. flipping forward to Matthew 26, Jesus says "this is my blood of the covenant..." Jesus is the PERFECT SACRIFICE! Jesus is the lamb! at this point in time, He knows that execution is soon before Him. and He is the only sacrifice that can buy our freedom from our sin. one of the worship songs we sang tonight was Nothing But the Blood. my favorite lyric: "nothing can for sin atone, nothing but the blood of Jesus. not of good that i have done, nothing but the blood of Jesus." dang. so powerful, and so true. awesome night of worship for sure.
there's this one song that came to my mind as well called More Like Falling in Love by Jason Gray. it talks about how faith is like falling in love with Jesus. the reason why we follow Him is because we believe in Him and have a relationship with Him. we are sons and daughters of the Father! Galatians 3:26 even says so- and we LOVE our Daddy!
my heart is overflowing tonight. oh sweet, amazing grace. God is so incredible.
thank you for taking time out to read this post. i appreciate you!
love,
mabel jean
