Marc's Messages

Reformation Day 2006

It's Reformation Day, and I was moved by this special report from Belarus, where in the midst of oppression, the believers take hold of God's call to reformation today. The battle for justice continues in Europe's last dictatorial regime. New Life Church, one of the actors for a new reformation in the country, was ordered by a court to sell its building of 1400 square metres to the state for one percent of its value - the price of a one-room apartment - in a further attempt to stifle church activities. Around 100 Christians entered their fourth week of hunger strike, supported in their protest by believers of all denominations. They realise that religious liberty in their country is at stake. Updates at New Life Church and The Big Orange.

Teach2gether in Aalsmeer

Tonight I taught on prophetic prayer for a group of organically wired people in Aalsmeer. Their initiative was called Teach2gether, which means the 'speaker' only gets 20 minutes, then there's a break-out in small groups and everyone comes up with relevant questions. These questions are processed plenary, followed by a time of practice. I liked it, it's quite relaxing to have only 20 minutes, and Gijs who was with me even took part of that.

Mushroom time

The forest is beautiful this time of the year. We made walks near Leersum and Ede, and I came across a wide variety of mushrooms.

Blackbook the movie

Karolien and I went to see Paul Verhoeven's new thriller war movie 'Blackbook'. It's about a young Jewish woman, Rachel Stein (Carice van Houten), who tries to survive in Nazi-occupied Holland. As part of her work for the Dutch resistance she starts a relationship with German SD officer Ludwig Müntze (Sebastian Koch, who also played Albert Speer), to spy out and bug the Nazi headquarters in The Hague, but then really falls in love with him. The movie is less black and white then 'Soldier of Orange', Verhoeven's first war movie that brought him international recognition. The good guys can be bad, and the bad guys good. Interesting detail: the 'Christians' in the movie all have quite distorted personalities. It's an intriguing, fast moving, high quality movie that keeps you glued to the screen from beginning to end.

Change of plans

The boys are spending a week with my parents in Enschede, while Karolien and I planned to head to south Germany to walk the forests and visit some friends. Unfortunately the generator of our car broke down just after we crossed the border, so we decided to return to Utrecht to have it repaired and 'relax a bit' at home. But this morning Rob called that the rain was coming through the roof of our office, because the building contractors who work there didn't cover it properly.



I was quite irritated, as I double-checked with them beforehand to make sure there would be no damage. We cleaned up the mess and decided to move office already this week instead of 8 November. The downside, apart from the extra work, is that I will be less online over the next few weeks, as our telephone and internet connection is not yet activated in the new office.

In search of a miracle

Novapres sent me a review copy of Gerry Velema's book 'Behind the Scenes. Another story about the EO television program In Search of a Miracle'. Recently Evangelical broadcasting company EO produced a reality series in which they took seven chronically ill people on a journey around the world to visit seven prayer healers. Their search for a miracle, including all the emotions that surfaced, were filmed and broadcasted nationally. None of the participants got healed. Perhaps God wasn't too eager with all these cameras around, pressing in to record a miracle.

Reformation of finances

It's not sure whether our planned Connect consultation on 'financing reformation', scheduled for 10-12 November in Prague, will take place. The business guys pulled out, leaving us with just the non-profit types, while the original idea was to have a shared think-tank. You might be interested to check out our initial conversation on this topic. Today Phil Anderson mailed around his contribution, that I really like, and therefore quote integrally:

Joel is moving office

Sometime ago Rob said: "I think we'll be out of this office by the end of the year." It's dangerous to have prophetic colleagues who say things like this. And my prayer to God to help me move out of my comfort-zone didn't appease things either. So - surprise - last month we were asked to leave 'De Bazuin', where we held office for more than five years, before the end of the year. First I didn't like it, because we have a cool office, then I thought: "OK, so this must be God, and likely He'll have something better." I looked at Marktplaats (kinda eBay) for temporal office space, and found a more spacy place close-by for half of the price. It's anti-kraak, but hey, we can't afford commercial rates and long-term renting contracts, so it's good for the time being. Today I got confirmation that we can move there, and so I made arrangements for mid-November. For pure nostalgia a few pictures of our 'old' office.

Could you listen with us?

Last Monday we mailed some of our friends: "We are halfway a week of prayer and fasting to seek God's direction for the coming time, and would like to ask you to listen with us, and in case you receive any (prophetic or practical) impressions or insights for our situation, share them - preferably this week. We sense we are on a threshold, a door into a new phase and dimension of ministry, that might include a geographic move as well, in- or outside the Netherlands. We have a rough indication of where things are heading, but it's important that we hear specifically from God where to move next, whom to link up with, our specific assigment, etc."

Diving in the water

Gijs, one of the younger guys I'm coaching, asked me last month if I would be willing to baptize him. I told him jokingly that I would wait till mid-Winter when it's freezing, just to test his commitment. But today he told me he just couldn't wait that long. Last Sunday he dived in the local swimming pool during a baptismal service, to get it done. Cool. Go Gijs, go!