This was a city that I loved, totally, utterly, and completely. It was also the one that affected my heart the most.
Amsterdam is beautiful, the colourful houses all lining the canals, the houseboats with little patios and gardens docked at their edges, the cheese shops everywhere (did I mention the free samples?), the bridges, and hundreds of bicycles parked everywhere, the flower markets, the museums, and don’t forget the windmills. (There was only one in the city, and we walked clear to the other side just to see it.)
And then you turn the corner. You are faced with rows of windows just large enough to fit the bodies of beautiful half naked woman into, lit up with red lights, lining the streets of the district that is so aptly named. The sex clubs and shops. The hundreds of cafés with the smell of marijuana permeating out into the streets. (At one point in time, a few years ago, that is where you would have found me, surrounded by a cloud of smoke). It broke my heart, and for every one woman that was standing in a window, some doing little dances to attract potential customers, some sitting on stools texting and looking bored, there were probably one hundred more in a brothel somewhere else in the city. The people on the streets walked by, perusing the windows and clubs, as if it were the most normal thing in the world. Human beings were either selling other human beings for profit or purchasing them for pleasure, and thousands numbly walk by as it happens.
One evening we walked by a street evangelist, he was holding up a sign that was condemning people to hell if they didn’t turn away from sin and accept Jesus, and he was pointing his finger at a prostitute in a window and shouting at her. She angrily opened the door and came out, dressed in a whisp of clothing and began screaming and swearing at the man in an Eastern European accent to get away from the windows and leave them alone. It was a hard scene to take in. If this woman’s only encounter with Christ is a pharisaical finger condemning her to hell it’s no wonder she doesn’t want to listen, and if this man’s idea of who Christ is and what he represents is condemnation filled and fear based instead of the redemption that is full of faith hope and love then my heart breaks for him. The Lord that we serve didn’t cast the first stone, in fact, he didn’t cast any stones, he helped the woman up with a kind word and love in his eyes.
That evening the hostel had a scripture meditation session that Joey and I attended. The meditation was on Psalms 33:12-22, we read over the verses slowly a couple of times out loud and then meditated on them and prayed. We then read it aloud again and talked about the parts that stood out to us.
13From heaven the Lord looks down and sees ALL mankind; 14from his dwelling place he watches ALL who live on earth—15he who forms the hearts of ALL, who considers everything they do.
The ALLs stood out to me and reminded me of the scene that we had witnessed earlier. He doesn’t just see me, or you, or the people that believe in Him. He formed ALL of our hearts, He watches ALL of us, He sees ALL of us. He sees the prostitute, he sees the pharisee, he see the rich, the poor, the hungry, and the full. ALL of us. And He loves all of us. I broke down crying and wept for the prostitute who has never encountered the love of the Father, and for the man who has only experienced the fear of man, and we prayed, for the woman, for the man, for the city, for hope, for love, and for redemption.
The hostel is a Christian hostel, set right around the corner from the heart of the red light district, there is also an organization that is called Not For Sale, it’s an international organization that works globally in areas where sex trafficking is happening on a high level and reaches out to the women that work in the Amsterdam sex trade, creating jobs and teaching the women life skills, and showing them Christ. (It is an organization that I want to look into when we return home) Most of these women aren’t local Amsterdamian women, most of them come from the poorer Eastern European countries and have left home looking for jobs or are enticed by someone that is promising them work and money if they leave home.
The light of Christ is shining in Amsterdam, amidst all the darkness His love and redemption is real and apparent, it just looks a little different.
