Vondelpark

on saturdays, I have gotten into the habit of doing a very intense form of journaling with Shawna and a couple of other ladies of Dutch nationality, Esther and Harmine. this journaling has been so good, and a really good tool to get in touch with getting my subconcious congruent with my concious life. in addition to the fact that it has been so great to get to know these other ladies on such a deep level. Shawna is in Poland right now, and i have been here at the house with the kids and Dan's mom, Linda for the past couple of days. we have been having a good time taking Shea to ballet, among other things... SO much pink.

but i am side-tracking... yesterday, Harmine and I had lunch and got to know each other a bit better - exchanging life stories and all. this morning, she showed up (i think esther spaced it out... she has a lot going on at her house at the moment) and since the other 2 of our little tribe were not present, we decided to go for a walk and talk more about faith and life. it has been a very damp morning, and fortunately we didn't get caught in the rain. we walked over to vondelpark, walked in and out of all these muddy little walkways. our conversation was one that was so life-giving and challenging for me. in the past 2 years, she has come to know and trust God and is in such a beautiful place. we talked about the problem of evil, the realtionships that exist between people, attitudes towards hetero- and homosexuality, the role of women, churchianity as opposed to christianity ... so many things. many of our topics covered things that cannot be answered easily, if at all on this earth. there are so many things that we don't have answers to, but i think that it is the pursuit of trying to seek deeper understandings for those things that we are drawn into a deeper understanding of God and of the world around us. needless to say it was a good conversation and we had a great time walking for a couple of hours. she is becoming a close friend and advocate for the work that i am doing here.

speaking of what i am doing here, i went to the PICNIC '07 on wednesday and yesterday... slightly disappointing. my intention was to go to some of the free workshops on marketing and business models, in addition to seeing the cutting-edge technology-meets-art and music stuff. the workshops were mostly just a platform for companies to advertise themselves, and the tech-and-art was minimal, but what was there was really good. made a connection with a guy the created something called "the girlfriend experience" (check it out at www.mediamatic.net/girlfriend) which is something that is MOBILE and he has gotten backing from Rabobank! i am meeting with him and another guy (Miguel) that is helping me make connections at festivals, crafting the business plan with me. so, at least there was something good that came out of it. ;) Miguel and Noelle (Shawna's oldest) are going to go to the Amsterdam Underground Festival (http://www.amsterdamunderground.nl/index.php?id=english) tonight, so hopefully that will be a bit more cultural and helpful. more connections perhaps. that is the hope anyway.
so, that is life here... going to Crossroads Amsterdam with Ari tomorrow to hear Ari speak about Russia to the youth group, working on crafting my business plan, working on Field Orientation with CAI, meeting with people and spending time community building with the people that have been placed in my path.

not the best pic of my friend Phenny and i...