Happy Fourth of July!!

Wow - to all the Americans, have a wonderful day celebrating the blessing it is to live where God has placed you, in many ways we have such freedom! Oh and how I love fireworks so think of me when you are enjoying them! The Americans here are going to make dinner ath the house but it's kind of comical because we're making fajitas! Easy and speedy, that's the American way.
Well, there seems to be so much to say because so much has been happening here the past couple of days! I would love to be posting something on the blog everyday but alas this will have to do for now. The outreach went well, thanks for your prayers. A lot of people showed up for the free food - for dessert we wrapped up bananas and chocolate in foil and threw it on the BBQ, I highly recommend it for your BBQ tonight! Here's a picture of me preparing the bananas with Matthieu, a French guy on staff here (watching France beat Brazil in soccer/voetbal with him was hilariously wonderful!):

Desire, a Dutch girl on staff here (actually her time here just ended, we are so sad to see her go - an amazing woman of God!) did a drama to a song after the BBQ. It questioned who nailed Jesus to the cross, only to discover that we all have. In the background is a poster that says "Who nailed him there?". We held the outreach in our garden, check it out:

Another cool thing that happened is that Christina, a girl on staff, loves Amsterdam and the area in which our Shelter is so she offers tours of the Jordan area once a week. I joined her and several guests on Saturday - it was really neat, we really do live in a beautiful part of the city. The coolest part was that afterwards I was able to talk for a long time with one of the guests who is a Christian Scientist, I learned a lot about her beliefs as well as had the chance to share the gospel with her. She says she cannot understand that we are saved by grace alone, not works (Ephesians 2:8-9). I thank God for the opportunity to talk with her and for this chance to learn so much about other people/cultures/religions. She told me she was surprised that I even cared to listen to her - what a joy it is to have the love of Christ!
Oh, and a huge praise - Steven, one of the cleaners at the Shelter accepted Jesus as his Lord and Savior two days ago. He is such an answered prayer in so many ways - a testimony to how God is really using this ministry, pray that we would continue to be bold and compassionate toward all we come into contact with!