Sinterklaas.

Amanda's Sinterklaas gift was inside this homemade treasure chest; it is now Grayson's favorite toy
Well, our first "Sinterklaas" has come and gone. Here in Holland they have a separate holiday apart from Christmas to celebrate St. Nicholas - the 4th century Turkish bishop known for his kindness to children & the poor. Today was his birthday, and it is the big gift-giving festival here, with a lot of unique and fun traditions. Amanda and I were fortunate enough to celebrate Sinterklaas with some Dutch friends, who taught us the traditions.

Many Dutch folks will celebrate on the evening of the 5th, the day before Sinterklaas's birthday. You get together with family or close friends, eat pea soup & peppernoten, sing songs, and of course exchange gifts. The gift giving is fun - but there are rules:

• You exchange names, so you're only responsible for one person. That way you can really spend a lot of time and creativity on the gift.
  
• You wrap the gift in a unique or silly or over-the-top kind of way, typically either reflecting the person's personality or going along with the them of the gift inside.
  
• Then you write a poem for the person - it is supposed to make fun of the person (in a kind way, of course!), while at the same time giving hints as to what the gift is.
• Then going in turn, each person first reads out loud the poem written for them, then opens their gift.
• You're not allowed to tell anyone who you had - sortof like "secret santa" - even after the person opens the gift!

The entire process is so much fun. And we had a blast last night, giving and receiving gifts, laughing at the poems (and in my case, people laughing at me as I had to read mine in Dutch!), and always saying, "Dankje, Sinterklaas" after each present. I think that everyone should implement part or all of the Sinterklaas tradition into their Christmas gift-giving!

All of that though - the wrapping, the writing of poems, etc. - is mostly for adults. The kids get to celebrate in another way. On the evening of the 5th, they put their shoes out (nowdays by the radiator) with treats for Sinterklaas's horse stuffed inside. Come the morning of the 6th, their shoes will be filled with cookies/candies/gifts...sortof like our stocking tradition. So for kids in Holland, it is the morning of the 6th, not the morning of the 25th, that is exciting. They wake up early and run to find what Sint has left for them.

We couldn't resist - even though Grayson is way too young to remember, understand, or even care, we set out one of his little shoes. So this morning he had his favorite teething-cookie and a little present from Sinterklaas waiting for him underneath the radiator. He got his first train set; Great-grandpa Gemeinhart will be happy. He hasn't quite figured out that the trains are meant to ride on the tracks, or for that matter that the tracks aren't merely handy teething toys.



So now we are officially Sinterklaas veterans. I feel more dutch having experienced it.

If you're interested in the evolution from the Dutch Sinterklaas to the American Santa Clause, or even just the Sinterklaas tradition in general, go here or here.

Tot ziens!
John

Moving into Stage Two

Amanda, Grayson and I have been in Amsterdam now for a little over six weeks. While we are certainly still in a bit of a "honeymoon" phase, enjoying all of the little quirks of a different culture and city, the first official stage of our life here is coming to a close.

I would call this first stage, "settling in." Getting settled has involved:

• becoming comfortable moving around the city (bikes, trams, metros, etc.)
• making our apartment a home
• learning how to live every day life, such as buying groceries

Though our learning curve will continue, there is only so long one can spend merely getting settled. It is time to move on to Stage Two.

Let's call stage two, "language learning." Similar to settling in, language learning will be something that takes quite a while - it will actually take our entire time here. But, these next few months will be devoted to spending the vast majority of time to the process of language acquisition.

Here is a brief description of what (we expect) our lives will be like. I will be in class four days a week, for four to five hours a day. Amanda will spend that time with Grayson (as he is doing some language acquisition of his own!), and will potentially be able to develop some friendships that she's made so far. I'm expected to put in as much time studying per week as I am in class, so Amanda and I will do a fair bit of studying together. That way not only will we get to spend time together, but she'll be able to get a head start for when she starts classes next quarter. For the most part, the only other things that we will be able to give our time to is our team, small group, and church.

Please be praying for us, because we're about to enter into a very busy and diffucult time! But we are incredibly grateful, because without the Lord's provision this certainly wouldn't have been possible. About a week ago we thought that we would both have to wait until February to start language school...but here we are.

And God has been so good to have blessed us with an incredible weekend as we are ending Stage One. We got to spend time with our team: eating homemade Chipotle burritos together, talking about church, and laughing a lot.

We also got to visit a great bookstore in town, Amsterdam's version of "Barnes & Noble." Grayson loved the Kinderboeken section. We even bought him his first Dutch book. On the way home from the bookstore, the little guy fell asleep in the bike seat for the first time! In a proud parenting moment, Amanda even got him all the way upstairs and into his crib still sleeping.

But the highlight of the weekend by far was the arrival to the Netherlands of Sinterklaas. Yes, today is the day that the "Sint's" steamboat from Spain docked in Amsterdam. He, along with his helpers, paraded through the streets to much joy of all the children - most of whom were dressed for the occasion. Grayson will never remember this, of course, but we got plenty of pictures to prove to him that he saw Sinterklaas when he was a baby.

All I have to say is, I feel sorry for those of you in America waiting until Thanksgiving day to see Santa ride his over-sized sleigh through the streets of NYC. We've got the real guy here in Amsterdam! And yes, this is a picture that we took of Sinterklaas as he rode by...

Be sure to check out our facebook pages over the next couple days, as we're sure to upload a ton of more pictures from the last week or so. You're not gonna want to miss some of the Grayson pics - way too cute!

UPDATE: For a great description of my first day in language school, along with the very philosophical question, "what would you say," please read Julia's blog entry for the day.

Movie, Map & More

Movie

For those of you who know me and Amanda well, you know that one of our great joys in life is to watch a movie at the cinema. Well, after more than five weeks here in Holland, we were finally able to make it out last Saturday night. Rachel Baransi came over to our flat to watch Grayson as we made it out to see the new James Bond film. Here's a quick recap of our adventure:

• 8pm - Leave Grayson & Rachel; bike to the metro station
• 8:15 - Hop on the metro
• 8:25 - Arrive at our stop & walk to the Pathe' movie theater
• 8:35 - After waiting in line for almost 10 minutes, we find out that the two showings of Bond in our time range are sold out...sort of. Apparently there is an online reservation system, and so all of the seats were accounted for. However, if you reserve a seat online you have to arrive at the theater at least 20 minutes beforehand to buy your ticket - if you don't, the ticket is up for grabs!
• 8:36 - Wander around outside trying to kill time until 8:55 (20 minutes before the showing we wanted)
• 8:45 - Impatient, we get back in line
• 8:55 - Buy two tickets that were left unclaimed!
• 8:56 - Wait in line 20 minutes for popcorn & soda
• 9:16 - One minute late, we enter the theater and find our seats (Row 7, Seats 17 & 18...they are assigned)
• 11:30 - Leave the theater fat and happy, and make the metro/bike ride home.

It's a bit of a different experience than back home. Plus, there are Dutch subtitles during the film. That makes it sort of difficult when the actors on screen speak a language other than English - yet another reason to learn Dutch!

All in all, though, we had a great time, and were so happy to finally get to see a movie. And now that we've had our first movie-going experience, I think the next time will be much smoother.

Map
For some reason, Grayson loves maps. Here's some evidence:
Too stinking cute. If you keep reading, there is a link down below to a video of the little guy crawling around on the map. Why was he crawling on the map? He just loves Amsterdam so much.

More

• Language School Update: I got in to the class this quarter! One spot opened up, and I just got an email today inviting me in. So I start this coming Monday (the 17th). Very exciting, and very scary at the same time. Please be praying that I'd be able to absorb it all quickly. Amanda will be waiting until February to jump in, but I'm sure that she will help me study until then. Julia is still sorting through her options.
  
• The Netherlands football (soccer) team is newly ranked 4th in world! The USA comes in at 24; down a few slots from the last rankings.
• Along with the video referred to above, I have uploaded several more videos (mostly of Grayson) onto youtube. Check them out.
  

President v Prime Minister

If you haven't heard by now, the entire WORLD was very interested in the little event that took place this past Tuesday in the States that we like to call the Presidential election. Gor the past couple of weeks, when folks here in Amsterdam find out we are American, that is all they have wanted to talk about.

Not only are they interested because the results would inevitably have a global impact, but also (I think) because the system works so much differently here in the Netherlands. They are intrigued by the campaign process & how much money is spent along the way. The are intrigued by the electoral system. They are also intrigued because, well, they don't vote for a president here.

The Netherlands is a parliamentary democratic constitutional monarchy (i.e. they have a queen, citizens have rights based upon a constitution, and they vote for a representational parliament). Allow me to be technical for a moment or two. The Dutch vote for their parliament based upon a "proportional representation" system...and they vote for parties, not candidates. So hypothetically, if one party got 80% of the votes, they get 80 members of parliament, 10% would get 10 members of parliament, and so on. This is overly simplified of the actual system, but that is the basic idea.

To the point. The Dutch only indirectly elect their Prime Minister. The party which receives the most seats in Parliament (based on elections) is given the power to form a coalition government with two other parties. And the leader of that party becomes the Prime Minister once the government is formed. The current Prime Minister of the Netherlands is Jan Peter Balkenende of the Christian Democratic party.

We elect our President through the system of the electoral college...which is only slightly less indirect. At least we have the illusion of voting for a person when we're really just voting for a vote. I leave it to you to decide which system is better.

So there you go. Your cultural lesson for the day. I suppose, of course that there are a few other differences between the US President and the Netherlands Prime Minister besides the election process (for example, a Dutchman I chatted with yesterday said that ours is "basically the President of the world," not just the States), but those are just details.

Until next time,
John

Month One

Today marks the Nash family's one month anniversary of living in Amsterdam (and also Grayson's nine month birthday)! I thought it would be an appropriate time to recall some of the things we've experienced in this new city/country/time zone/continent. We have:

• traveled across the Atlantic Ocean with an eight month old baby and 16 pieces of luggage
• attended a national Vineyard conference one day after entering the country
• spent two weeks as roomates with Brooke & Allie
• figured out the difference between a 1 and 2 Euro coin
• rented an apartment
• already begun to feel at home in our new place
  
• bought bikes
• thought our bikes were stolen
• found out that they were really just confiscated by the "bike police"
  
• ridden bikes in the rain
• bought rain gear
• also ridden on trams, trains, buses, metros
• posted a lot of videos of Grayson on Youtube
  
• made dutch pancakes, aka crepes, for the first time
• made apple turnovers (almost) from scratch
• shopped at a few different outdoor markets
• attempted to use what little Dutch we know at appropriate times (e.g. "Een zone, alstublieft." Translation: "One zone, please," when getting our ticket stamped on the tram. Easy, yes...but also a confidence builder!)
• learned how to work our oven/microwave
  
• read a lot of instruction manuals that are written in Dutch
• become familiar with the layout of our street's Albert Heijn supermarket
• found a place to watch soccer
• became experts at "skyping"
• checked our facebook pages way too often for news back home
• avoided most of the election mudslinging
• bought a pumpkin for Grayson the day after halloween
• worshiped in Dutch
• registered for language school
• continued to build relationships with our friends here in Holland
• written more blog entries than I ever could have imagined

It is obviously difficult to put into words everything we've experienced thus far. But in everything, we have felt the grace and love of God - that is the most important experience of our time here so far.

I'd like to quote a short passage from the book My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers. In the October 27th entry he says, "the challenge of the missionary does not come on the line that people are difficult to get saved...the one great challenge is - Do I know my Risen Lord? Do I know the power of His indwelling Spirit?"

Even in our first month here, we have the deep realization that that is the great challenge. Not how successful we are at navigating a new culture, but how connected we are to Jesus. So hopefully, at the end of month two we can add to the bullet-point list: "have known our risen Lord and the power of His indwelling Spirit in a deeper way."

Thank you for your continued prayers and support from across the pond. We truly could not do this without you...

Tot ziens,
John

A Big Day

Well, this was quite a big day for us. We found out in the morning that the owner accepted our bid for the apartment - so we now have a home in Amsterdam! Right after finding that out, we went down and bought our bike at a nearby shop. We even got a seat for Grayson. Man, I wish I would have gone on some Tour de Highs. That would have prepared me a little for the bike culture here. Anyone planning on visiting should start riding with the crew from Joshua House now!

We rode the bikes home on back roads and Grayson absolutely LOVED it. He couldn't stop laughing and smiling. Even before we had the bikes out of the shop, he was reaching for the handlebars wanting to ride. We then came home, and the whole Nash clan took a nap. It was the first really good nap we've had yet. Gray slept over 2 hours! Prayer after prayer being answered...man you guys really are praying for us aren't you?

When we woke up, we rode our bikes with Brooke down to the Rijks Museum and looked at some Rembrants for about 1/2 hour till Gray got tired. Amazing. Then we rode home...in the DARK! All went well, and Grayson went to sleep like a champ. Wow. What an overwhelming day of blessing from God. We are so grateful - I can hardly express. Thank you so much those of you praying for us...we feel it loud and clear.

-Amanda