The Netherlands: Amsterdam + Starlight Express in Dortmund

As we drove up to our accommodations near Amsterdam on the evening of July 14, this is what we saw...

A castle!!!

Seriously....we stayed in a castle for 2 nights complete with a moat and huge gardens in the back...

My girls instantly turned from 14 year old and 11 year old girls to little 6 year olds acting like  princesses (which they have always been to me anyway!).  This was especially true when we learned our room was the top room in the right tower!

It was absolutely hilarious watching them get all giddy about staying in the tower of a castle.  So, we made the most of it and had much fun at this place.

The little prince kissing the queen of the kingdom!

We have some great video of our ping pong game where AJ stood on one side and whacked the ball all over the place while we tried to make sure he didn't fall off...

If you are ever heading to Amsterdam with kids, drop us a line because this is one place they will love to stay in.  Plus, it is a youth hostel meaning it is very affordable (though the rooms are definitely 'no frills'....still...It's A Castle!)  

Amsterdam

One of the interesting things (for me as a father) to watch as this journey has progressed is our daughters' interest in the Holocaust.  It started after visiting the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem (called Yad Vashem) and accelerated after reading one of the most incredible books any of us has ever read, Rena's Promise: Two Sisters in Auschwitz.  If you have not read that book, click on the link (will open in a separate window), order it, and read it.

Once the girls finished that book they had a keen interest on learning much more.  So, they read books on Hitler's rise to power and how evil gained power and wielded that power with horrific results.

They started questioning how did all this happen, and how can we insure that it never happens again?  They started really thinking about evil versus good, moral versus immoral....and though they don't know the term yet (moral relativism) they are building in their own minds a moral foundation that understands that real evil exists.  There is nothing relative about it.  If it is not called out and confronted early, evil can and will create hell on earth.  

Frankly, our primary reason for visiting Amsterdam was because the girls read Anne Frank's diary and thus wanted to go see where she and her family hid during the war.

The Anne Frank House is the #2 tourist attraction in Holland, and we waited in line 90 minutes to get in.  It was worth the wait as the museum is laid out incredibly well given the small size of the 'secret annex.'  There are many short films usually 60 to 90 seconds long which give interesting bits of information along the way but also keep the flow of traffic moving.

In 2012, over 1,150,000 people visited the museum and over 27 million have visited since it opened in the 1960s.

Anne was a 13 year old girl when her family of 4 went into hiding in the upstairs area of her father's office with 4 other Dutch Jews.  They remained in hiding 25 months until someone betrayed them (no one knows who) in August 1944.

Anne's Father, Otto, in middle with the 4 helpers who brought food

View from Otto Frank's office on the lower floors...

The passageway to the upper apartment where they hid...

At the top of the staircase was a clearing which included a bookcase which actually was the door into the hiding place...

The actual living space had DO NOT TAKE PICTURE signs all over the place which we respected.  But here is something I found online which shows where these 8 people lived.  The picture below looks spacious but the annex most definitely is not spacious when you are actually inside it....

The Nazis failed to find them for 25 months because the annex / apartment cannot be seen from street level (even across the street) and a massive chestnut tree in the back helped shield the annex from the courtyard view.

Anne wrote about life in hiding...how she yearned to go outside, conflicts in the home, her hopes, her dreams of being a famous writer.  One note of interest was the king or queen of Holland speaking on the radio from England asked everyone to keep their diaries so that the world would have a record of what happened.  When Anne heard this on the radio she actually copied all her diary entries (which filled MANY diary books after 25 months) onto something like notebook paper.

Images of the copy she made were at the museum as were the diaries themselves.  Her father had a map on the wall showing where the Allies were based on what he could hear on the radio, but they didn't arrive soon enough.  The map ends with the Allies still in France heading toward Paris.  The Gestapo arrested everyone in the Annex August 4, 1944 (the day after my uncle died in France) and were sent to concentration camps.  Anne went to Auschwitz first and then was sent to Bergen Belsen where she died of Typhoid just weeks before the liberation of that camp.

The only person who lived in the Annex and survived the war was Anne's dad, Otto Frank.  One of the most poignant short films is Otto talking about Anne and his thoughts about what the diary said.  Powerful.

Each of our girls had one thing they most looked forward to during the European part of our trip.  V really looked forward to Austria & S the Eiffel Tower.  For H, she really looked forward to coming to the Anne Frank house.  There is something about Anne's story that really touched H and for that reason I really love this picture....

View of the canal and church next to the hiding place...

View of Anne Frank house from across the canal.  It is the building with the tree in front of it.  Notice how the annex cannot be seen from street level.

Touring Other Parts of Amsterdam

After eating lunch and sitting on AJ, we headed out to explore more of Amsterdam...

We found the Tulip Museum...

And the cheese museum (our relatives in Wisconsin will love this one!)

And we went on a Rick Steve walking tour of the famous neighborhood near Anne Frank's house (where AJ lost the hat he is wearing in the picture below....we split into two groups late in the day and ended up finding it...but kind of lost each other for about 30 minutes!)

During that walking tour we came across two guys singing and playing instruments in the street and they were REALLY good.  We got a video of them but no pictures and we continued seeing them in different places the rest of the afternoon.  They are either very restless or only know 4 songs so they move all the time :0  

We did get pictures of flowers all over the place...

And we got Ben & Jerry's ice cream at a place that gave us 3 free pairs of sunglasses (S wearing one such pair in next picture on the canal boat).  We teased S because she has lost 3 pairs of sunglasses during our journey so this was the 'make good'  The sunglasses are actually decent, so that trip for ice cream was quite a good one.

Finally, we ended our July 15 tour of Amsterdam with a boat tour lasting over an hour.  We learned that Amsterdam is 1.5 meters below sea level....that the airport is actually 5 meters below sea level....and 46% of Holland is actually below sea level!

One of my thoughts when I heard those stats about Holland was of all the global warming / sea is rising / its going to be the end of the world alarmists.  If it really happens, I'm quite certain humans will figure out how to adapt without killing our entire species in the process.  If half of Holland can exist below sea level, I'm sure coastal cities around the world can manage if seas rise slowly but surely.  In the meantime, I think the worst solution would be to hand even more power and influence to various big government entities around the world.  But I digress....

We learned that Amsterdam has 1000 bridges with over 100 canals and over 100 kilometers of canals.  Take that Venice!

Smallest house in Amsterdam...

Corrie Ten Boom Museum - Morning of July 16

Another amazing book the girls read was written by Corrie Ten Boom called The Hiding Place.
The book outlines the true story about her Christian Family, their obedience to Jesus Christ in praying for Israel as the Bible says to do (more info at end of this post), and the story about how they hid Jewish people in their home.  They assisted many Jews, served as a way station for some, and 'permanent home' for others.

They too were betrayed to the Nazis, but the hiding place in their home was so good that the 6 Jews hiding on the day of the family's arrest were never found.  Corrie and her family were sent to concentration camps; many family members never returned.  A miraculous clerical error happened which caused Corrie to be released in late December 1944 at the age of 52.  The next week all women over age 50 at her camp were sent to Auschwitz and the gas chambers.

Her sister had a vision that they would have houses where their persecutors could go and heal from their deep wounds and learn about the love of Jesus Christ....and those houses became a reality after the war.

Corrie relates the story of meeting one of the worst guards, being asked to forgive, and doing so out of obedience to Jesus.  She told her sister during their captivity that she would never be thankful for the fleas.  She could be thankful for all the other aspects of her persecution and use it to glorify God, but she would never be thankful for those wretched fleas.  She talks in the book about her little Bible and the Bible studies they were able to have in the barracks of the concentration camp being precious to her.  She later learned that the reason the guards never came into their barracks where they held Bible studies was because it was so infested with fleas.  Be thankful for everything!

The Ten Boom Museum is in Haarlem (suburb of Amsterdam) and is free.  Our guide met Corrie before Corrie passed away in the early 1980s at age 91, and our guide was clearly passionate about Jesus Christ & the mission of the museum.  Our only complaint was the speed with which she would talk about a given room and then give us very little time to look at pictures / artifacts in the room.  There was no way to go back through the home after completing the tour.

One room she definitely slowed down for was the room with the secret hiding place.  It was so good that the Nazis never found the hiding place.  The Jews stood in this dark little hiding place for 2 days while the Nazis occupied the house.  Resistance workers showed up after the Nazis left and moved them to new hiding places.  5 of the 6 Jews hiding on that day survived the war.

Entry way into the secret hiding place...

Some of the people who were in hiding...

Survivor visiting the museum after it opened years ago and writing a letter to the Ten Booms...

AJ pushing one of the panic buttons which were used to alert everyone in the house to get to the hiding place.  

Where they hid the extra ration cards...

Ration cards...

Our guide and the warning signal clock....

If the warning signal clock was in the window it meant all was well.  If not, then it meant to avoid the house.  On the day they were arrested, the Gestapo put the clock back in the window (either by tragic accident or because they were tipped off on what the clock meant).  The Nazis posted a guard inside the house for 2 days.  Not realizing the Ten Booms had been arrested, members of the resistance would see the clock in the window and have food etc. for the people.  When they knocked on the door they were surprised by the Nazis, and if they didn't have a good explanation on why they were there then they would be arrested.   Unfortunately, 16 additional people were arrested.

We purchased the movie while we were at the museum not only to watch it as a family but also to support the museum.  We watched it about a week later and were very disappointed.  The book is MUCH MUCH MUCH better, and we would only recommend reading the book as a result.

We ate lunch in Haarlem, AJ chased pigeons, and I looked for some formal slacks to wear at a 50th Wedding Anniversary celebration we were going to be attending a few days later.  But we learned that clothes in Europe are expensive!  Wow....$250 USD for a pair of nice slacks.  No thanks!

Dortmund, Germany

We drove several hours to Dortmund, Germany where the musical Starlight Express has been playing for 25 years straight...

Look at those good lookin' ladies!

Starlight Express is a musical about trains and our friend Joe Oleferowicz was music director here in the 1990s.  When we saw him in Vienna he suggested we go see the show if we got the chance.  We got the chance, and we took it!

AJ loved the trains...

And the girls loved the set and the musical (which we had been playing in the car for the previous couple of long drives....so we know this musical very well now!)

It was a fun night and I'm glad we made the detour.  Next stop Copenhagen Denmark.

Til then, God Bless

Other Favorite Pictures

After a long day of touring, we came back to the castle to walk in the gardens.  The girls were a bit tired and getting cranky.  Just before we took this picture we said "Hey, act like you love each other!" and this was the goofy result...

AJ graduating from chasing pigeons to going after the big birds with help from S....this is where he lost his hat by the way (which we found late in the day)

What the Bible says about praying for Israel...  The Ten Boom family started praying for Israel as far back as the 1870s and would be referred to as Christian Zionists today.  This point was made during our museum tour and it got me wondering what the Bible says about praying for Israel.  I found this article (copied below in case the link breaks in years to come) http://www.whatchristianswanttoknow.com/why-should-we-pray-for-israel-a-christian-perspective/   and think that is a good starting point for understanding.  In the end, God says pray for Israel, so our family will do just that!

Copy of what is at link above:

Why should we pray for Israel?  Does the Bible instruct us to?  Should we also be praying for the peace of Jerusalem like the Old Testament prophets sometimes did?  Should a Christian be obligated to pray for Israel?

In Psalm 122:6 it says, “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: “May those who love you be secure.”

God’s Chosen People?

God calls Israel the “apple of His eye” which is a term of endearment (Duet. 32:10, Zech. 2:8).  God adds a blessing to those nations and people who bless Israel and a curse on those who curse Israel (Gen. 12:2-3).  Do these blessings and cursings still apply?  I do not see why they don’t since God changes not (Malachi 3:6).  God was seen as the husband of Israel (Jer. 3:14).  God is evidently still concerned over Israel, saying in 2 Chronicles 6:6, “Yet I have chosen Jerusalem, that My name may be there, and I have chosen David to be over My people Israel.”  Wherever God places His name is where He still places His love.  Jesus wept over Jerusalem, knowing what their fate held, “As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it” (Luke 19:41).

This may be the very reason that God has prospered the United States.  America is one of the few nations that have chosen to be her ally but that seems to have recently began to change.  When America withdraws her support and defense of Israel, God could take His hand of blessing off of the U.S.  Perhaps He has already begun to do so since relations with Israel have cooled off lately.

Israel is surrounded by hostile nations and a religion (Islam) that seeks her destruction.  A blessing is pronounced over those who will pray for and bless Israel (Numb. 24:9).  God will never abandon Israel and in the end, Israel will be saved by God Almighty (Malachi 3:6, Romans 11:1).  Since Paul commands Christians to pray for governmental authorities and leaders, (Rom 13:1-7) why should we not also be praying for peace in the Middle East and in particular, for Israel?  No, Israel is not perfect and she has made many mistakes, but they are God’s chosen people (Duet. 6:3-4).

Listen to what the prophet’s and Old Testament writers say about Israel:

Isaiah 48:12 “Listen to me, Jacob, Israel, whom I have called: I am he; I am the first and I am the last.”

Psalm 105:43 “He brought out his people with rejoicing, his chosen ones with shouts of joy.”

Isaiah 41:8-9 “But you, Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, you descendants of Abraham my friend, I took you from the ends of the earth, from its farthest corners I called you. I said, ‘You are my servant’; I have chosen you and have not rejected you.”

Deuteronomy 7:8-9 “But it was because the LORD loved you and kept the oath he swore to your ancestors that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt. 9 Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments.”

Deuteronomy 14:2 “For you are an holy people unto the LORD your God, and the LORD has chosen you to be a peculiar people unto himself, above all the nations that are upon the earth.”

Why We Should Pray for Israel

There are dozens of Scriptures where God says that we should pray for the peace of Israel.  In Psalm 122:6 it says, “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: “May those who love you be secure.”  Not only does this say that we should pray for the peace of Jerusalem, and by extension, Israel, we read that “those who love you [will] be secure.”  This is a clear signal that God would be pleased that we pray for Israel’s peace and safety because God is not giving up on Israel (Rom 10:1).

In the New Testament, Paul prayed for Israel’s salvation, saying, “Brothers and sisters, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved” (Rom 10:1).  If Paul is telling the church that his heart’s desire is to pray for Israel and that “they may be saved” that should clearly be our prayer for them also.  Believers today are grafted into the natural olive tree – described as ethnic Israel – for we are “fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household” (Eph. 2:19).  Romans 11:24 is clear about this: “After all, if you were cut out of an olive tree that is wild by nature, and contrary to nature were grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much more readily will these, the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree!”

What about the Lost 10 Tribes of Israel?

Perhaps you have heard about the lost 10 tribes of Israel which were separated from Judah when the Northern Kingdom was taken into captivity by the Assyrians (2 Kings 17).  The fact is that nothing is lost to God.  They are lost to history perhaps, but to God, never!  Revelation 7:4-8 says that these tribes are not lost if God knows where they are:

“Then I heard the number of those who were sealed: 144,000 from all the tribes of Israel. From the tribe of Judah 12,000 were sealed, from the tribe of Reuben 12,000, from the tribe of Gad 12,000, from the tribe of Asher 12,000, from the tribe of Naphtali 12,000, from the tribe of Manasseh 12,000, from the tribe of Simeon 12,000, from the tribe of Levi 12,000, from the tribe of Issachar 12,000, from the tribe of Zebulon 12,000, from the tribe of Joseph 12,000, from the tribe of Benjamin 12,000.”

The Remnant of Israel

God has not rejected His people Israel and today we are Jews who are ones inwardly as Paul writes in Romans 2:29 “No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a man’s praise is not from men, but from God.”  Neither has God rejected His chosen people.  Paul testifies to this fact in Romans 11:1-2 “Did God reject his people? By no means! I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin. God did not reject his people, whom he foreknew. Don’t you know what the Scripture says in the passage about Elijah—how he appealed to God against Israel.”

Further, Paul says that “If some of the branches have been broken off, and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root, do not boast over those branches. If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you. You will say then, “Branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in.” Granted. But they were broken off because of unbelief, and you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but be afraid” (Rom 11:17-20).

“I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in [or has been saved]. And so all Israel will be saved [true Israelites, whether ethnic or spiritual, e.g. Rom 2:29], as it is written: “The deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob [Israel]. And this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins” (Rom 11:25-27).  This does not mean that all of Israel will be saved…the entire nation and all Israelites of all time, but those who come to believe in Jesus Christ. This will happen someday when Israel finally recognizes Jesus Christ as the Messiah.  The nation will finally accept Him as the Prophesied One.

Today there are Messianic Jews who already believe that Jesus is the Messiah.  The national stock of Israel will join these Messianic Jews, but not until the “fullness of times” or when the last person is saved prior to Christ’s return as King of kings and Lord of lords. That time appears to be fast approaching.  Jerusalem means “king of” (Jeru) “peace” (Salem).   Jerusalem is anything but peaceful right now but the King of Peace is coming.  Until then, believers ought to be praying for the peace of Israel and for the King of Peace to come soon.  Even so Lord, come quickly. That is my prayer and I hope you will join me in praying for His Kingdom to come and for the peace of Jerusalem and for Israel.