Afternoon Delight/Dutch Doorman

This is the first time I've got my blog on before midnight.  Hence the title.  The majority of people reading this will shame me for waiting this long to make my own coffee.  Londoners did it well, but the Dutch seem a little rusty in their coffee etiquette.  After a late morning of classes being cancelled, a few friends and I went to pick up some essentials: coffee, chocolate, red meat..


That's something I really miss.  I haven't had red meat in weeks.  Our major food groups here consist of potatoes, bread, and potatoes.  To put this into perspective, I've had potato salad at every single meal since I've been here.  What I once hated, I somehow now enjoy.  


That should be the theme of this whole trip.


Using that moment of depth, I will now segway into more serious matters.  Last night, we packed most of our group into our little dorm room and worshiped. To catch you up to speed, I found a guitar while we were in England.  However, it didn't end up being as cheap as I had hoped.  I hate the British pound.  A few days later, I got a message from an old friend who asked to support our group by paying for the guitar.  I debated whether I should even write about it, but what I want you to read is that the Lord works in more ways than we can grasp.  Back to last night, after we dedicated these pieces of steel and wood to His name, we sang of His goodness and His love for us.  I was proud of Goldstein for stepping up to share some of his testimony with the group.  He dissected the Trinity and spoke of its connections to his life and his faith.  He had about fifteen minutes to prepare to share and killed it.  Rawspec, Stein.


We started class today.  We kind of started class today.  We woke up at noon, had the daily dose of pasta, had our 1:30 class cancelled, and then laid around for a few hours.


Alright, confession.  This blog post has been sitting at the bottom of my screen unfinished for about a day or two now.  You could have never known.  Good thing I'm a man of character.  Let me catch you up to speed.


I won't bore you by talking about class.  They're all the same, and no one sympathizes when it comes to school.  It's true. 


Bear with me as I flashback to our Sunday night worship.  I dare you to check the grammar of bare/bear.  While we were singing some worship songs here in our dorm, I looked up to find one of the staff members of our building standing in the doorway and smiling.  We asked if he would join us, but I honestly can't tell you whether he stayed or went.  He just kind of stood there for a while, smiling in the doorway.  I didn't think much of it that night.  Until tonight.


On our way out of the building, our friend from the other night was there working the front desk.  After waving to him, I kept walking towards the door.  He called for me to come back.  I will now switch to dialogue to save us some time.


"The singing last night, what was it exactly that you were doing?"
"Oh..we were worshiping the Lord. "
"Yes, explain.."
"Oh..well, we were singing songs because were a community of believers." 
"Oh. Tell me what you believe." 
Here's where I kind of panicked.  
"Well, I believe that God sent His son Jesus Christ to die on a cross for my sins so that I might live my life for Him and spend eternity in Heaven with Him."
"Oh," he said.
After waiting a few seconds, wondering if everything I had ever learned in church had just proven itself void, he said, "That's cool.  I really like that.  You know, in three years that I work here, I never see anyone do that." 


This is where it hit me.  It was that familiar moment when God uses a Dutch doorman to slap you in the face.  That moment when you realize how much time you've been wasting.  The thought of hitting my knees and praying for forgiveness was the first thing that crossed my mind, followed by the realization that I was standing in the middle of the lobby and could wait until tonight while blogging. 


I've had the lyrics to an old Nickel Creek song ringing in my head all night.  And that's how I'll end this post.


Can I be used to help others find truth,
When I'm scared I'll find proof that it's a lie,
Can I be led down a trail dropping breadcrumbs
that prove I'm not ready to die.


Please give me time to decipher the signs,
Please forgive me for time that I've wasted.