This week has been an interesting week. Tuesday and Wednesday were two national holidays here in The Netherlands. Tuesday was Remembrance Day and Wednesday was Liberation Day. Each holiday is to remember World War II. On Remembrance Day the country comes together to remember all the horrible things that happened during the German occupation; the Queen comes to Amsterdam to lay wreaths in front of The National Monument at Dam Square and at 8 pm there is 2 minutes of silence. Well this year, someone screamed during the silence and it caused mass panic. People were running everywhere and 50 people were injured. Some of our staff members were in the middle of the crowd and were stepped on by people running; they are fine, but very shaken up. I was at a manager’s house across town having dinner and didn’t hear about it until late. I think there are still a few different reports of what happened, but everyone is a little shaken by it. Wednesday was a calmer day. It was a celebration day to say thank you to the forces who liberated the Dutch (American, British, Australian); there were free concerts at different places all around town and the mood was much better. It was a good day, especially with how the day before went.
Today the main topic is how all the garbage workers of the city are on strike! So now there is just rubbish all over the streets. Amsterdam is actually a very clean city; the street cleaners are out every day, but not now. It is supposed to last for a week, but I just read in the paper where they have decided to make it indefinite. Our neighbors do not like that. Our nightman last night put the trash out on the street because it was supposed to be picked up today, and then the paper comes out and the front page says there is a strike. So we had a lot of the neighbors complaining about all the rubbish bags everywhere. I had one lady pointing and yelling at me in Dutch today, and because I couldn't understand a word that she was saying, it kind of made the whole cituation funny (which is probably really sad, but you have someone yelling at you in another language about garbage and you'll find it pretty funny too). I just want us all to pray for our neighbors. They don’t like the fact that we have a hostel there. The one that have been around since before the hostel was created, don’t mind. It’s the ones that have moved in after the hostel was started. The hostel has been there since the 70s; which is something that I don’t understand, cause they knew what they would be living next to when they bought their house. We always try to be respectful of our neighbors and we are one of the quietest hostels in the whole city. So lets just pray for our neighbors. I don’t think they understand what our ministry is and I’m pretty sure the ones who complain don’t know Christ.
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