(By Suzanne, ((and Caleb)) Netherlands)
The 13th of June 2014 was a memorable day for the Dutch, as it marked the start of the World Cup Soccer for Holland. During the weeks that followed, the country was gripped by the excitement and hope that maybe this time…. As the team won matches and progressed to the round of 16, crowds started to gather to watch the matches on large screens put up on city squares. This brought back memories of that other World Cup Soccer which we experienced so intensely, spending days and nights on Cape Town’s fan mile, passing out tracts and witnessing to thousands of football fans. We decided to “ride the wave” of Holland’s football success and witness to as many as possible while it lasted, perhaps even all the way to the final!
Within days, a missionary friend and translator (God bless you, Koos!) provided us with the Dutch version of the “Play2Win” tract, which Anthony put together for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, so we were ready to go. For the quarter finals against Costa Rica we went to Utrecht, Holland’s fourth largest city. In spite of the fact that we weren’t able to stay right up to the match, we distributed a good number of tracts and received quite positive responses and had some good conversations with people. We were glad to also have printed a stack of English tracts, as we encountered quite a few foreigners.
The day of the semi-finals dawned rainy, with gale-force wind, but nonetheless Caleb and I went into Rotterdam, armed with tracts, praying for the weather to improve and/or hoping to find at least a few football fans, or just any people, out and about.
It was extremely quiet in the streets, but we were praying for the Lord to lead us to that one person that He made us come out here for. And after half an hour or so, when I had just crossed to the other side of the walking street for a moment, I saw that Caleb got into talking with a man in his late fifties. I waited for a couple of minutes, and then decided to see if everything was okay.
As it turned out, the man had been told that he had cancer, and for six months he expected to die soon. But then, after 6 months the doctors told him they had made a mistake, that he didn’t have cancer, but something else (we couldn’t figure out what exactly, but nothing too serious), and that he wasn’t going to die. He had stopped Caleb because he’d gotten a tract from him some minutes earlier, and wanted to ask him why all this had happened to him, since Caleb seemed to believe in God.
The man really felt it as a punishment that all these things had happened to him. As I approached, I heard Caleb tell him that God must still have a plan for his life. After he’d explained his situation to me also, we tried to encourage him that he’d been given a great gift, to be able to continue living and doing what really matters. We of course sympathized with the fact that it must have been a great shock for him to think that he was going to die, and then to find out later that he suffered all this anxiety for nothing. He kept on asking “why”, so we told him we believe that the reason why we’re here on this Earth is to love God and others, and that there must still be people whose lives wouldn’t be complete without the love he has to give them.
We then offered to pray for him, for his complete healing, and for Jesus to assure him that all that he went through happened for a very good reason, and to please show him what it is the Lord wants him to do now. He readily agreed and when we looked up from the prayer we saw there were tears running down his face. Deeply moved and with very few words, he said goodbye.
We were duly impressed, in awe, at the Lord’s amazing answer to prayer, convinced that this must have been why Jesus wanted us to come here on this inopportune evening. It truly had been worthwhile! After roaming the streets for a while longer, we were heading back toward the train station, when I gave a tract to two young people, a boy and a girl of about 16 years old.
The boy started asking me questions… what this was all about, whether I thought it was a good idea to try to present Jesus to people through a tract about the World Cup, etc. His questions, though direct, were sincere, so I tried my best to explain in a way he would understand. Meanwhile, the girl stood by and listened. At the end of our conversation the boy said: “Thank you very much! Good luck!” and as they walked away the girl turned around and looked at us for a few moments with a beautiful smile on her face.
These young people didn’t know much about Jesus or about faith, neither did they look like they would be at all interested, but this encounter reminded us once more that everybody needs answers, no matter what they look like.
That night, the Dutch team lost against Argentina, ending our World Cup campaign. “We” never won the World Cup, neither did we get to reach thousands with the tracts, but the knowledge that even a handful of people will be better equipped to play the Game of Life, with Jesus as their Head Coach, is the sweetest victory.