“Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit” Galatians 5:25

2nd October 2009

Time flies when you’re having fun!

The last newsletter has been a few months ago. Many things have happened since then. Some ideas have become reality. All in all it’s a very exciting time for us to be here in Iceland! Enjoy reading!

Icelandic Summer

In the last update we shared that a team from Kings Kids Spain would come to Iceland and be involved in summer missions outreaches. This was really a great success. The group was a grand total of 16 (inc. leaders), these were young people passionate for Jesus and excited to make Him known through dance, drama, evangelism and music. For three weeks long we had this crazy group, only half of which could speak English! Yet in any case it was a fantastic time. The performances varied between beautiful traditional Spanish flamenco and very well performed drama’s that included the gospel message! Mostly the performances were on the streets. We could also arrange for them to perform in the zoo (the Icelandic zoo is actually just a petting farm!) At the end of our 3 weeks with Kings Kids we saw 2 young girls give their lives to Christ after the team performed in a park, Amazing! During the time Kings Kids were with us we also spent some time promoting Youth With A Mission with our brand new promo-brochures which we developed. It took a lot of time and effort to make, but we’re happy with the results! Two days after we were finished with Kings Kids we took a short holiday to England and Holland after 6 months not being there. It was good to be back and see friends and family in both nations. It was also a good time to reflect on how our time so far has been in Iceland!

What’s next?

As you know Mayke and I have a desire to see all Icelanders coming to Christ. Another desire of ours is to see the Discipleship Training School (DTS) in Iceland beginning Autumn 2010. We want to see young people trained for world missions. In the mean time we have an exciting challenge ahead of us. Our good friend Ewout from YWAM Heidebeek had a challenge. As he prepared his DTS in Holland he received news that 2 of his staff members (husband and wife) were expecting their first child… Wonderful!!! This beautiful news also brought a challenge for Ewout… He was 2 outreach leaders short for the school! After looking for other options in Holland Ewout gave us a call, “guys” he said “could you pray about leading a team from Heidebeek to Iceland and Greenland this winter?”  Mayke and I love leading teams and having a direct involvement in the lives of young people especially those with a desire to follow Jesus! And Greenland! that’s a nation that has been on our hearts since we were last there with a team in 2006/07. Excited we took time to pray and speak with our team here in Iceland about the possibility of leading and to hear their opinions. During our 2 weeks seeking God on this subject we felt the following Bible passage was speaking to us.

Hebrews 6:7 – 12

Land that drinks in the rain often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is farmed receives the blessing of God. But land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless and is in danger of being cursed. In the end it will be burned. Even though we speak like this, dear friends, we are confident of better things in your case—things that accompany salvation. God is not unjust; he will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them. We want each of you to show this same diligence to the very end, in order to make your hope sure. We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised. This Bible passage talks about being active and diligent in the things you do. We believe by leading an outreach team to Iceland and Greenland this winter we can continue in “helping His people” by showing them Christ, through this team. It’s still unknown how large the team will be. We will travel to Holland November 21st to be involved with their outreach team building weeks. We will return to Iceland with the team before Christmas. The outreach will end around March 5th 2010. To finance this trip we are still in need of £3000/€3300. This is for housing, food and transport cost for the 3 months in Iceland and Greenland. No Youth With A Mission workers receive a salary and all live by Faith Based Support. All the money that Mayke and I live from is donated by Financial Supporters.  If you would like to support us for this trip you can find bank details below.

Thanks for reading and be blessed,

Carl & Mayke

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Sorry, this entry is only available in Nederlands.

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Well friends, I have officially realised how much effort actually goes into maintaining a website!!!
Terrible actually when you think this site was created to help keep you all informed of the various things that Mayke and I are up to here in Iceland with Youth With A Mission! Our apologies for this!

To make things straight away right I (Carl) would like to introduce you to our more simple site. Simple in the sense that we will write down our thoughts and feelings directly onto the homepage more often, leaving you free to click and search as you please. But please click, search, enjoy our photo’s etc. We’ve also made a onsite agenda so if we have’nt posted but your still intrested in what we’re up to then you can check it out!

Mayke and I are doing very well together. We enjoy being married and its good to know that you have the person with you who has the ability to bring the best out of you! Its also nice to know with this whole moving to another country you have someone close who knows you, and who you know. Rummikub seems to be at the moment our favourite passtime along with watching good bbc documentaries. I can also add and thats because Mayke is not in the room right now that I am officially the Rummikub champion!! Married life is good!

The last few weeks have been pretty crazy as we change towards our summer routine. We’ve been busy getting ready to host our first team as YWAM Iceland. In 3 weeks time we will recieve a group from Kings Kids Spain. This group will be with us for 3 weeks and we’ll be taking them out and about in Iceland and together evangelising in various towns/cities. This is very exciting as the last few months have mostly consisted of us trying to learn Icelandic and feeling like we’re not really getting very far. Hosting a team is an excusable distraction for us from this, and is also really enjoyable for each one of us!
Summer here in Iceland is crazy, it was only since after the longest day that we remembered what evening looked like, slowly but surely the days are becoming shorter… I mean today the sun set at 12:30am!!!

With hosting a team in the summer we (YWAM Iceland) also have time set apart for promoting our ideas and courses. Promotion flyers can be very a very good way to give information about what you are doing somewhere, but what do you do when you have no flyers??? The answer is simple… you make them! Our team had the challenge to see who could come up with the best flyer for a DTS in Iceland. Mine did’nt win the vote but I think you would say it is a fair attempt for a person with not one design bone in him

As soon as we complete all the touch up’s on the official flyer I’ll post it up here too!

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Today is Tuesday April 28 and finally I have a chance to update the website (or at least the English part of it!)

I guess many of you are wondering how we have been the last couple of months? Some of you may have heard various things through our emails and newsletters but are still waiting for “The Hard Facts”. Well here’s a short summery on how are time til now in Iceland has been.

Like you read before we arrived in Iceland late in the evening of February 26. We decided to stay at our friend Stefans house for one week while taking the time to search for an apartment on the internet. This changed quickly – One week soon became two and Mayke and I made the desicion to move to the Salvation Army guesthouse rather than take advantage of the fantastic hospitality of our friend and his sisters. We expected the buisness of finding an apartment to be soon rounded up… but finally after just over a month in Iceland the Lord provided in a wonderful way! Its a great priveledge to come under the blessings of the Lord. God says He will provide and He does. You see God had already made a way for us to recieve an ID/Temporary residency here, that was miracle number 1 but then with the house… this was just amazing. Regularly we met together with my friend Stefan to pray. In his coffeehouse he has put in the basement his very own chapel. Well at least twice a week we would meet with him to pray and be encouraged at with the things the Lord was doing in his life but also in ours. Anyways at a certain point we were praying for housing for ourselves (Mayke and I) but also for the rest of the team who would be arriving in just under two weeks. That day the Lord would provide in a house in which the team is now living!!!

After this we were so happy to have seen God provide in a house for such a great price we enthousiastically said to one another – we can wait for a house as long as God keeps showing us these miracles!!! Then Mayke reminded me about an email we recieved speaking of a man who was renting out rooms and possibly had one apartment for rent. I called him and he answered ethusiastically saying he could show us the rooms and apartment but he already had a person in mind to rent the apartment. He picked us up from downtown Reykjavik and showed us everything. As we walk about the rooms he told us that normally he would rent the rooms individually but in the car he felt the Lord telling him to offer us all the rooms and rent the space as one apartment – WOW!!! 

We took an evening to think and pray about it and had a good feeling, we called back the guy and told him we wanted the rooms as an apartment. He was happy, we were happy, he even gave us the first month rent free to decorate!! But here is the best part… Its a great size (kitchen, bathroom, livingroom, bedroom and … sparebedroom), its in one of the nicest areas of the city. We have a seaview from every window and are 60 seconds from the sea, its affordable, includes water and electric and was 100% completly the provision of God because we spent so long looking for a place that would just fit a double bed that we thought a place like this wouldnt exist!

God is good!!!!

Furthermore the rest of the team all arrived safe and we have begin to search with one another as to what are the wisest steps for this coming season. Its exciting and we believe Iceland will come to know the Lord. Its a good time to be with YWAM!

God bless! 

Carl (and Mayke)

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