November Newsletter
Greetings from the Netherlands!
Currently, I am living in Amsterdam! I am here as a full-time volunteer, working at an art gallery across from Central Station making this a great location for tourism and foot traffic. My days here vary but some of my favorite times include connecting with expats and working on practicals to support the long-term ministries. I only have one month left here; I wanted to share more about why I have come to Amsterdam.
I am here for ministry/missions however, in full transparency, this trip is much different than my previous mission trip. I felt pulled to come to Amsterdam last November and spent lots of time trying to understand what was in Amsterdam. This was until around February when my outreach team and I got more involved in human trafficking relief work and a clearer picture began to form. During my outreach, I learned the value of building long-term relationships specifically within trafficking and exploitation relief efforts as there are innumerable layers to this hidden industry. Knowing I have limited time in the Netherlands, my goal approaching this season was to build relationships and connections that could feed into more long-term efforts as I pursue both an education and a career.
Moments From Montana
I would also like to highlight the progress made this summer. I returned from my mission trip in March and shortly after moved to Montana for a seasonal job at Glacier National Park! The summer was full of beautiful sights, fun memories, and a lot of learning. However, I stepped back from consistency with blog posts, and newsletters.
During the summer life moved very quickly and I was readjusting to a new place, new people, and a new type of work- bussing dirty tables- yes, it is as glamorous as it sounds. Regardless it allowed for more time to apply to Universities- I spent many of my off days working on different written applications and interviews! Considering it will be two years since I completed high school- attending school again will be a pleasant adjustment.
Building Momentum?
After high school, I took a gap year with little clarity on College. While volunteering I spent a ton of time thinking about potentially going into missions/ volunteer service full-time but concluded that the best next step would be furthering my education.
I would love to pursue a career that could make a difference in exploitation, advocacy, and justice. I plan to use my experiences and connection through volunteering, to further motivate this pursuit. I also would like to emphasize my appreciation to everyone who has supported this work through words of encouragement, prayer, and finances. Moving forward I would love to continue with missions but realistically, things will look different.
Nonetheless, I will continue to share the realities of exploitation in a quarterly Newsletter- no longer a monthly newsletter and will likely shift the blog space from hands-on experiences and testimonies to something different. I don't know what direction the blog will take.
Thank you to everyone who has followed along, if you have any comments or questions feel free to send me a message! I would also like to invite you to read the blog post Perfuming a Corpse about the Redlight district and the outreaches done here! Below is also a link to donate towards housing and meal costs- I am still waiting for a total bill but if you feel led to financially support any of this, it is always widely appreciated.
