So, I'm stateside again. Iceland was amazing yesterday. Getting to Denver late tonight.

Malta 2

So, Malta has been fun. We worked with refugees for the most part, and went to the prayer room and the Malta House of Prayer. We went swimming at Narnia guy's house, and went to the beach, and the market, and today is the beach again.

Tomorrow we fly back to Amsterdam, the next day to Iceland, and we have a night tour in Iceland, then to the US.

Can't believe outreach is almost over already.

Malta

We arrived in Malta, yesterday. We were picked up by three guys, one I never met, one we are currently living with, and one was the most interesting. he was a wealth of knowledge on Malta saving the western world. His name is Doug Gresham, and he invited us over to his house to go swimming in his 40 foot pool. You may recognize him. He's the step-son of C.S. Lewis, he and his brother have The Horse and His Boy dedicated to them. He's also the reason Fox made Voyage of the Dawn Treader instead of Disney. He happens to be the executive producer of the Narnia movies. I have met the executive producer of the Narnia movies, and didn't know about it until after...gah!

Also, Malta save the western world, twice. Once they were fighting the Turks, and so demoralized the Turk army that the army could no longer fight. The second was when the Nazis were trying to take over to open up attacks to North Africa and other parts of Europe. The Maltese army held them off long enough. The Nazis were bombing them, so that most of the building have been built since WWII. There was a church, where bombs were bouncing off the dome, because there was a prayer meeting going on inside. One bomb broke through and landed in the pray-ers, but it didn't go off. It is currently on display.

Paul also landed on the south side of the island. If you remember the story at all, Paul was bitten by a venomous snake. The people of Malta that it was judgement for a past wrong, but Paul didn't die so they all became Christians. At some point, something happened so that there are no venomous snakes on the island. A few years ago, there was a scientific study done to see why there was suddenly no venomous snakes. They brought venomous snakes from all over the world to Malta. Within twelve days, every snake lost its venom.

I also had a dream last night.
It was of a door with hundreds of locks in a dark room. People I didn't know walked forward and unlocked a lock (padlock, deadbolt, etc.). There was a gap of time when there were only a few locks left before the door's lock. a dim light began to filter through the keyhole, with a quiet tapping on the other side of the door. Another person unlocked another lock and the light grew, as did the tapping. Another person, then another, and another, and as they did, the light grew and the tapping became a soft knock. As more people came, the light grew brighter and the knocking louder, until it sounded like a battering ram against the door. The last lock was opened, so that the only lock left was the door itself. The knocking stopped, and the light was so strong the people were hiding their eyes. Someone, I couldn't tell who they were or what they looked like, walked up to the door with a heavy metal key, without being effected by the light. This person put the key in the door, blocking the light. People were angry from the loss of the light, not understanding why it was gone. The person wit the key turned it, and the lock opened. The person turned the handle, and the door burst open, flooding out the light from within.

When I told the person I knew it was for, he explained the the key was very significant to him and his family.

Creative Evangelism

So, today, our last day in Amsterdam, we did creative evangelism. Nicole, another girl in my group, and I were paired up and we decided to sing worship songs. So, we went to Dam Square and began to sing. Then, we decided God wanted us to go down this random street, so we did. And we walked, and walked, and walked. We had no idea where we were going, we just turned where we felt like we should. At some point on our walk I made the comment, "Wouldn't it be cool if God led us back to Dam Square?"We found this sculpture that Nicole got a ton of stuff for, and I couldn't figure out what it meant to me, until a girl and her dad walked by, and I knew I was supposed to give her a bracelet I had made. Then, we continued walking. I was planning on going out later and getting a soccer/football jersey for my brother. We walked out from a little side street to a bigger street, and there was a gift shop with the jerseys right out front, with the price I was looking for. We went back to Dam Square, but we decided to walk down another side street. Then, we realized it was the street we had come on in the first place. We went to the hemp store where we had bought hemp yarn, the stuff you use to make bracelets, to talk to the cashier that we'd met. She wasn't there, but we gave the cashier there a letter Nicole gave her before coming back to the church.

So, classes are done. Our day off is tomorrow. We're taking a bus to an authentic village, biking or boating around, depending on the weather, boating the canals, and watching a movie. Other than that, not much has happened in the past few days.

Day one Amsterdam

So, we did street evangelism today, which sucked. I really don't like it, because we had to wear these apron things, and those seemed to weird people out right away. I also wasn't able to say much to some of the people I wanted to, because we were partnered up with the people who do it every week, and I didn't want to upstage my partners when they were talking.

So, I'm tired, sore, and today was not one of my favorite days on outreach.

Classes start tomorrow.

Amsterdam

So, we finally arrived in Amsterdam, 24 hours later than planned. On Saturday, we left the school at 5:30, got on the bus at 7:00. We, then arrived, in Nairobi at 9:30 pm, two hours late. We got pizza and went to the airport. We slept at the airport, until 3:00 am when we checked in and got through security for our 4:30 flight, when we lost power. Our plane was diverted to Mombassa because of the lack of lights on the runway. We sat in the airport until 11:30m, when we finally were able to get to Cairo, where we had missed our connecting flight. We were put on a flight this morning, so they put us in a hotel and paid for our visas. So, we had hot showers, good food, and comfy beds last night. We got on the flight, and we finally made it to Amsterdam where we got on a train, then walked a mile, to the church we are staying at. We walk in, and our leader, Ruth's, parents are waiting for us with dinner. Now, we are headed out to a café for the birthday of one of my teammates.