Kerk van de Nazarene

Okay, no pictures of this one... But a pretty cool thing happened today.

I'm not an avid churchgoer, and if you don't count Christmas and Easter, I probably only go a few times a year. However, it is striking how when you do that it seems like the message particularly applies to you and GOD is asking you to return to him. 

I went to the mass the first week of 2014 and the cardinal was there in Houston giving the mass and even blessed me before my trip. That renewed in me my sense of obligation and I wanted to find something in holland.... I searched online and was looking for a church, it had to be in English, it had to be catholic... Turns out it just wasn't fitting my "criteria"... I was ready to give up until Easter but then my friend mentioned that a mutual friend of hers goes to church every Sunday and I should just check it out, practice Dutch, and meet new people.

So here I am on a Sunday morning, having to actually wake up, get ready (no all day pajama party)... Put both my "outgoing" and "learning" (for Dutch purposes) caps on and head out with a new friend. Despite what you may think... With me moving away and making new friends pretty quickly and all...., it's always difficult to open up to new people and I've been very lucky that their kindness is just all around me.

The spectacular thing was, as soon as I entered the church it felt very cozy... Or gezellig... And then the most amazing thing happened - there was a guest speaker speaking English!! With a Dutch pastor translating every word.... (So I did learn some new phrases). I was speechless. Here I was searching for the perfect church, making excuses everywhere week, feeling lazy about waking up early, nervous about meeting new people and yet here is GOD saying "look you didn't have to worry, I'm giving you a message!!! In your language!!! And you just had to trust me!!!" 

I'm not going to get very religious on this blog... But I think it's a message we Can all accept- don't worry about everything, don't worry about the future too much, don't try to make everything perfect... Follow the steps that are shown to you and it will work out. You can't see 5 steps ahead, but you can know that if you follow your intuition and your heart, and hear messages even when there is no neon sign... Life might just surprise you....

Here are some pics of me walking around the harbor...