The Giving Economy

So far being back on the island, God is providing for my income as an artist.
I am feeling superblessed I have to say.
I am doing only things I love! What a luxury.

But what excites me is that more and more I get into the giving mode. I mean: I work so I am able to give. Happily I send my invoice of freelance work and get the money on my bank account: to pay someone else for her hard work. There is a lady who cleans our house. I pay her salary. I don't have a fixed income, but how cool to give it away so someone else has her income too. And so it continues. I wanted to buy a ticket for a friend who lost both her parents due to cancer this year. In a couple of months time, both parents died. I think this is devastating. God told me to pay her ticket, which is around 700 dollars. I thought it would be totally worth it. That is, if she agrees.
I was really upset when one day I opened my laptop and the screen was all scrambled! I re-started it, i took the battery out and put it back, and still the screen was scrambled. I cried of frustration, this laptop's screen broke already 3 times. Also if I would need to buy a new one, I wouldn't be able to get this ticket for this friend. At this point I bursted out with tears.
My parents prayed for me and with me I got the same bible verse 3 times from different sources. In the end my mother switched on my laptop the next day and the screen worked as if never something was wrong with it. So when the specials arrived to buy the ticket for the friend, I told her to send me her pasport details. But she actually declined. It would be too much for her and she atually needed to stay at home (or her place in Amsterdam) to calm down from all the traveling up and down (she is not Dutch) and so traveling again was just too much. I totally understood. She also wanted to pay the ticket herself if she would come. I said, well I can at least pay half of it.
Anyway, she didn't reply and I think the idea for her to retreat here and come to rest was good, but still it was the timing that wasn't right.
Meanwhile I got a severe lower back pain. It is the bed I am sleeping on. I do exercises regularly but when I get op the next morning my lower back is like a block. I spend the ticket money on a bed especially for my back, with special mattrass. It was a big investment, the bed was like 900 dollars.  Well, my back got only worse! And the shop doesn't take back what they sell. I hate that, they should stop being darn greedy and if the costumer is not happy with the product they should get their money back. Especially for such a expensive purchase. Again we prayed for them to take it back. She said she will try to let the manufacturer take it back. 2 weeks later, still now news. I am learning how to do biblical budgetting, but i think the bed wasn't budgeted, it was just a urgent need. I thought I prayed about it with God, but i don't know for sure. Now this bed is just laying there, it's a delicious bed, but not for my back :(

Als I am working on the generating automatic income, to become economically independent or self-sufficient. This has been consuming most of my time instead taking action for the Art Ship and Platform. This makes sense because I already need to sustain myself first.
I will start a family business with my cousin. I got into this innovation prize competition already. Exciting! I have a green idea. It might really take off and be an success. No, it will, let's trust!

I will make the Book-an-artist website. It's all designed already. I will make the christian caribbean dating website. (but this one is free) And also the christiann version of airbnb.com if there isn't one yet. Ideas enough and work enough. And next to that I'm working on my art projects. Joy!

Okay! Gotta go bring food for my grandma and do some shopping. It is so extremely hot today.

Jonasism

Recently I went to a retreat for women of my church.
The point of a retreat is that you let everything go and all the tools are there to catch up with God.
But it's always the other way around: God wants to catch up with you. He always speaks to you during a retreat, is my personal experience and the experience of other people. Sometimes even when you think you have nothing to retreat about, he talks to you anyway. Because again: it is God who comes for us. He always takes initiative. It never really is the other way around.

We studied and disected the book of Jonas. I am a missionary and not a prophet, but Jonas really sucks as a missionary. I mean, he just hated the idea to preach about God to another nation that wasn't Israel. He hated the idea that God cares about other nations besides Israel and that other nations also would have a relationship with the living God. He preferred to DIE. Wow! And still, God used a 'bad word' guy like this!

(When I noticed that Jonas hated the idea I was wondering some other things about Jonas.
Did Jonas like to eat fish? What if he hated fish and especially the smell of fish?
Could Jonas swim? What if he had fear of large quantity of water?
Was he claustrophobic?  But these questions are off topic.)

I wonder what my Jonasism is. What are areas I really don't want to go for, people I really don't care for. I remember growing up in Curaçao I didn't like Venezuelan people. At all. I didn't like the Venezuela I knew from TV. Now I don't really bother with that. But I really really urged God never to send me to Venezuela, like he send Jonas to Nineveh. God could send me to Venezuela now, if he wanted, because I changed. I won't be thrilled, but I'd do it just the same.
My other Jonasism is that I'm not thrilled to work with today's kids and teenagers. I'd be good at it actually. But I don't want to play the parent. And kids of this generation are, sorry to say, so rude. They lack respect and think they are so wise and know everything, because they have seen it all. They are like adults that deal with their children issues in an adult way, while still in a little body. It's horrible. So my Jonasism is that I would avoids kids and teenagers, this grew like that in the Netherlands. But I need to point out that I actually LOVED to work with Kenyan kids and teenagers. They steel you heart. All your love, you had know idea about, just pours out for them. So for Kenyan kids I will make the exception.

What I also learned during the retreat is that God is specific in his plans.
1. He has a specific plan for an individual
2. He has a specific plan for a nation
and his will is not depending on us.
His will be done even if we don't cooperate. Or he uses our disobedience in the end for the good. The only bad thing in disobedience is that other people, innocent, get hurt in the process.
3. God already has started to work out the plan. He already prepped it and the people involved, even the authorities he already prepared. This king of Nineveh immediatly took measures to obey God and so his whole people. This is really awesome. If God makes even the government or authorities do what needs to be done so it's all official. I LIKE this
5. Continue to trust God and surrender to Him. 
4. Don't fill the plan in the way you want. Ask God for the details.

I've got specifics!
So here I am. I  regularly check with God if God really is behind this Art Ship and Art Platform thing. You know, if it is not just my own thing. God told me that it IS his thing, (i understood this thru preachings and thru several bible verses in devotions) BUT, I asked God for more specifics then.
And now things are even more specific and clear about the content of the Art Platform. The Art Ship maintains the same, but the Art Platform will have to have a better way to sustain itself:
It will be a place where churches can have their retreats! Also it will have an outspoken Christian image and will be for Christian artists worldwide. I thought it will be that the people who run it would be christian but that it would be for all artists, both on the island as internationally. Nope.
So the building, I already got it that it will be a place where 'restore' with God and 'healing' from are the main things also has the very logical 'retreat' element as well. That it is a retreat is very obvious! It is located like that, it is built like that, but that it will be as a place for retreat totally makes sense. So it will be like those retreat houses, for churches (or groups) and also for individuals. They can book a room and really retreat their and connect with God.
The general element that I thought it would have: that it is for everyone involved in art, and that they will meet with God, has been narrowed down. Of course non-believing artist can still apply for artist-in-residencies but they are well aware of the fact that it is all a christian art thing.

It is to also unite Christian artists world-wide.
In Holland I have met so many Christian artists, in different places and on different moments, that think exactly the same as I about how to create art about your faith in Christ, or your relationship with God. We are all on one page and that is confirming that it is the same Spirit.
Not only artists, but anyone with a creative profession (also architects, designers etc.)

This platform is for them. And the authorities will be super open to it. They will make it happen.
I just need to notify them of the idea. So now that the plan is more specific, I could again re-write it and notify the government that there is a plan for this building. In my own mind (this is the human part that fails God: I think the current government sucks so much! and that they will do nothing, because they are capable of nothing. Also the bureaucracy is so horrible that any plan won't even reach it's destination. BUT! I just need to obey God and stop asking Him if these plans are his and get into action. Then He can actually SHOW that yes, these ARE his plans or else they will definitly not happen but just stay what they are: dreams.