Marc's Messages

Joel News on Ukraine

Because we regularly receive interesting contributions and comments related to what we just published in Joel News, I set up a simple weblog for these letters and articles.

In today's international edition we asked prayer for the political crisis in Ukraine. We received several impressing day-to-day reports from Ukrainian, Russian and American missionaries on the ground, including pictures. The ongoing demonstrations in Kyiv breathe the atmosphere of an outreach. Tents, field kitchens, a free sharing of soup, soap and (a hope of) salvation. Check out Joel News Blog for the full story. It's also possible to post your own comments.

Five love languages

Just finished Gary Chapman's book 'The Five Love Languages'. In his practice as a counselor he found that people feel most loved in a marriage in one of five ways: quality time, words of affirmation, gifts, acts of service, and physical touch. The essence is that we learn the primary love language of our partner, so the relationship thrives. Liked the book as it's very down-to-earth.

Good news to the poor

Read an interesting interview with British 'antiglobalist' Noreena Hertz about her new book 'I.O.U. The Debt Threat and Why We Must Defuse It'. She wants to free Third World countries from 'illegal debts', resulting from loans granted to undemocratic regimes, that haven't been used to develop the nation, but often went straight into the dictator's bank account in Switzerland.

Just imagine: the total debt of Africa south of the Sahara is 170 billion dollar, as much as the costs of the American intervention in Iraq. And for the price of four Stealth airplanes, you can send 150 million children to school. Also Christians are calling for a 'year of jubilee' for the Third World and joined forces in The Micah Challenge.

Connect Netherlands

How about relationally connecting young leaders in the Netherlands and Flanders who carry a call from God for their nation and Europe? This afternoon Maaike, Rebecca and I prepared for a first 'Connect Netherlands' meeting, to be planned in early 2005, and in the evening we shared the vision with a first group of 11 emerging leaders (8 from the Netherlands, 3 from Flanders) to find out whether this resonates with them and what God has been showing them. It was very encouraging, God is challenging us to enlarge the place of our tents and not hold back (Is. 54).

Life is communication (5)

The fourth day of my training in communication and personal effectiveness (earlier episodes: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4). My presentation went well, as expected. Hans used the interaction in the group to introduce and illustrate the principles of Transactional Analysis. It's basically learning to recognize and break with dysfunctional parent and child roles, so we can communicate as adults who take responsibility for their own thoughts, emotions and actions.

After lunch I asked Hans about his plans to emigrate to Canada, where he wants to join TACF, and we ended up talking in the group about communication with God, prophecy and the work of the Holy Spirit. One of the participants shared that she had experienced a dream or vision of Jesus and recognized He was the 'real deal', but is still trying to grasp it. Interesting and encouraging.

We also practiced giving proper feedback in three steps: describing what you see/hear (or asking an informative question), describing the effect a person or situation has on yourself (or asking understanding for your feelings/position), and suggesting a solution/agreement (or asking a procedural question). Very helpful.

Africans take the lead

Made some initial connections for the Global Day of Prayer, scheduled for 15 May 2005. Last Sunday Ioan Peia, a prayer leader friend from Bucharest, Romania, told me that already a year before this initiative was being launched, the Lord had shown him in a vision 500 million (!) people uniting in prayer all over the world.

The Global Day of Prayer started with a business man in Capetown, South Africa, who decided to rent a stadium to gather people for prayer. In just three years it spread over the whole African continent and beyond. Hosting the IPC and the Global Day of Prayer, the South Africans are now providing leadership to the prayer movement at large.

Another interesting development comes from Dawn Ministries, one of our partner ministries, that just appointed an African leader as their new president, supported by a Latino and an Asian leader. It's the expression of a new reality in the worldwide church: leadership is shifting from America and Europe to the non-western world. Exciting.

Board meeting

Meeting with the board of Joel Ministries today (the guys that keep me on the right track). It was good to pray into and discuss our goals for 2005. There will be a stronger focus on prophetic writing, training younger leaders, and catalysing new things God wants to do in Europe. I will not take on operational responsibilities in platforms and strongly cut down on my workload. Let's see how that works out as I experiment with my new style of 'organic planning'.

The 60 Minute Dad

Just finished Rob Parsons' book 'The 60 Minute Father', a book for busy dads who should spend more time with their kids. Not much revelation, as I already practice most of it, but I really loved the anecdotes.

EPL in Brussels

Went to Brussels today to hang out with the EPL team, who just finished 48 hours of prayer and worship in the EU capital. It was good to catch up and evaluate developments in the global prayer movement. We also decided on several changes in the EPL setup:

1. A new name: IPC Europe, positioning EPL as the European segment of the International Prayer Council.
2. A replacement of the current leadership team and 'working group' with a small core team of people who can reasonably commit more time to EPL and will be operationally responsible.
3. A realistic scaling down of EPL plans to a once-a-year prayer and worship event in a key city in Europe, as part of the vision to form an 'altar of prayer and worship to the Lord' in Europe, linking prayer leaders from different nations.

Because my focus for this year is more on Connect Europe and DAWN, I will end my operational commitment to the EPL leadership team. We will stay friends and hang out now and then, but I'm not responsible anymore to organise and provide leadership to events, which is a relief.

Looking back over the past five years of my involvement with EPL, there were several highlights:

1. Every time EPL met in a nation, there was (unknown to us beforehand) a significant political, social and/or spiritual development going on. Apparently God gathered his prophets and intercessors 'for such a time as this' to accomplish his purposes. It was and still is wonderful to be part of this spiritual dynamic, as history (His-story) is often being shaped by the intercessors.

2. I learned to appriate and work with people with different personalities and backgrounds, which was sometime strugglesome, but always great learning.

The big frustration for me with EPL were the unrealistic ambitions versus the inability to properly process things. Often plans got stuck on the level of organisation, implementation and communication. This tends to be a problem when you put prophets and prayer leaders together in a leadership role: they hear from God and have big visions, but they're not very able to 'earth' things, which also means they often need significantly more time than 'normal' people to process an agenda. With DAWN I see the opposite: the strategic down-to-earth approach tends to undervalue prayer and the prophetic. In Connect Europe, with the younger leaders, there's a more balanced approach, synergizing the intercessory, prophetic and strategic building components.

On the picture EPL friends Warren and Anneli praying over icy Vienna, when we met there two years ago.

This week in Joel News

This week in Joel News International: Prime-Minister of Vanuatu dedicates his nation to Jesus. In the Dutch edition a special on spiritual warfare in the context of reaching cities and nations.

Less frequent but better sex

EO published the interesting results of an extensive national survey about 'Christian marriage' in the Netherlands. They found out that Christian couples have less sex than the national average, but mark the quality of their sexual relationship significantly higher. Another interesting finding is that half of the Christians (and 60% of the Baptists) had sex before marriage, 60-70% uses anticonception and 6% (16% of the Pentecostals) had an affair.

Injustice in Iraq

Metro published a quite shocking report about Iraq. Because of the American army's use of depleted uranium (DU) in ammunition, the country is severely polluted with radio-activity. Not only did this lead to 'Gulf syndrome' among an estimated 85,000 American and British soldiers (of which 9,000 already died), it also slowly kills the Iraqi population because the food chain and water system have been infected.

Since the first Gulf war cancer has increased with 600% in Iraq, and many deformed children are being born. Solders and civilians who are being hit by a DU bullit, might not die immediately, but will die anyway as a result of the radio-activity. The problem with radio-activity in the ground is that it will remain active for millions of years, which basically means that Iraq will be a very unhealthy place to live for many generations.

The American (and also Dutch) government plays this down, although they know the consequences. This is bad. In the terrorist attacks on the WTC 3,000 lives were lost, but the war in Iraq already cost over a 100,000 lives (of which over a 1,000 Americans). As a result of the radio-activity, this will be millions in the generations to come. Who said the war in Iraq was just or in proportion? It's not.

Life is communication (4)

The third day of my training in communication and personal effectiveness (earlier episodes: 1 / 2 / 3). Hans explained the principles of Rational-Emotive Therapy (RET), a behaviour therapy developed by Albert Ellis that focuses on uncovering irrational beliefs which may lead to unhealthy negative emotions and replacing them with more productive rational alternatives. He also introduced the eye accessing cues of Neuro-Linguistic Programming, and constructive and negative ways of dealing with anger.



Today the group confronted me because they felt I was disinterested in giving a presentation. I explained I didn't forget about it, just wanted to be flexible in when to fit it in. The conversation went something like this:

Hans: "Do you realise what you are doing now?"
Me: "I'm explaining myself."
Hans to the group: "Do you feel he really received your feeback?"
Group: "No."
Hans: "Why do you want to explain yourself?"
Me: "Because I don't think you understand my intention and perspective."
Hans: "But do you understand why the group gives you this feedback?"
Me: "No."
Hans: "Then you better ask, instead of giving an explanation."
Me: "Group, can you explain what you mean?"
Group: "Because you bring it up pretty late, with a slight nonchalance, you give us the impression that you don't really care about giving this presentation."
Me: "I'm puzzled, that's completely opposite to my intention."
Hans: "Apparently there's a gap between what you mean and how you are being perceived. You made up your mind about this presentation, but didn't communicate it timely and pro-actively to the group. You didn't recognize they might have developed a different perspective on it or felt differently about it than you."

This style of 'confrontational coaching' is helpful to bring relational undercurrents and automatic communication (or lack of communication) patterns to the surface. But it also takes a lot of energy. After a training day like this I'm completely worn-out.

The Greatest Dutchman (2)

Watched the finals of 'The Greatest Dutchman' on television. As expected with the current wave of public emotions following the murder of Van Gogh, fellow-victim and politician Pim Fortuijn won the election. How deep a nation can fall... What bugs me is the lack of historical identity, people seem to be swept by emotions and the hype of the day. In terms of accomplishments Fortuijn is simply no match for William of Orange, Anthonie van Leeuwenhoek or Desiderius Erasmus. He doesn't even come close.

I think KRO made a mistake by allowing people on the list who are not dead and buried for at least 50 years. Even worse is the fact that, as national newspaper De Telegraaf reports, KRO didn't count in all the votes. The voting computers couldn't handle the massive response and gave up. Afterwards it turned out that William of Orange had beaten Fortuijn with 31,000 votes.

This feels like the American elections to me. Although there's no chance that the Americans would have even considered a homosexual dandy as the 'Greatest American of all times'. My only consolation is that my favorite Erasmus received most hits in Google, and is at least the most searched-for Dutchman.

Der Untergang

Karolien and I went to see the just-released German movie 'Der Untergang', about the cataclysmic last days of the Third Reich. The central stage is Hitler's bunker in Berlin, the central person his private secretary Traudl Junge.



The movie was labelled 'controversial', because Hitler is being portrayed as a human being. The fact that he was, that 99 percent of the Germans voted for him, and that many in his inner circle supported him unto death, despite his completely irrational behaviour, is the wake-up call of this movie.

Especially the scene where Magda Goebbels poisons her own children, just hours after having received a decoration from Hitler for being the 'most couragious mother in Germany', shows that the Third Reich was not just a demonic system imposed on Germany, but a demonic ideology that many chose to believe in. Nazism was the ultimate expression of social darwinism. The right of the strongest inspired Hitler not just to kill the Jews and invade Europe, but also to despise his own people for loosing the war, even to the point of utter self-destruction.

The arrival of Saint Nicholas

Saint Nicholas is back in town. The honoured bishop of Myra will tour the Netherlands between half November and his 'birthday' on 5 December to bring presents and candies. He arrived in Utrecht by boat, and I took the boys downtown to give him and his 'black petes' a warm welcome. Although the boys know it's just a dress-up party, they were very excited and didn't forget to strategically position their shoes in front of the door.

Yesterday we celebrated Saint Martin, a feast at which the kids go from house to house carrying lanterns and begging for sweets. Saint Martin (of Tours), the Roman officer who shared his cloak with a beggar, and thus became a symbol for charity, is also the patron saint of Utrecht. He also inspired the monastic missionary movement of his time.

Planning and rhythm

Today was a good follow-up on yesterday's training. In the morning I had a meeting with Paul, a young leader I'm coaching, to talk about communication and team dynamics. In the afternoon I caught up with Maaike (CE/SoSu) and raised the subject of planning and management (check out the ten helpful hints for time management on her weblog).

Because I tend to live by inspiration and intuition rather than by organisation and structure, I'm trying to find a way of planning that meets both needs. That breeds and channels creativity, but also structures the practical things that have to be done. That's organic rather than technocratic. Now my friend Kerstin Hack from Berlin, who's also a creative person, just published a book about it in German titled 'Swing: Living in the Rhythm of Creation'. It's about integrating healthy rhythms in your life, including moments of planning, creating order and reflection.

Although I'm not a chaotic, have a relatively high productivity, and see good progress in the teams I'm part of, I know I could improve if I would be more intentional in my planning. A clear framework for decision-making helps. It's all a matter of staying focused on the things God has prepared for me in this season and the seasons to come.

Life is communication (3)

The second day of my training in communication and personal effectiveness (earlier episodes here and here). We had some homework for today: formulating five personal goals for this training and doing a competence survey to gain insight in our strengths and weaknesses in practical work situations.

My five goals are: growing in expression, empathy and conversation skills, getting more in touch with my emotions, and using more concrete language.

My effectiveness profile showed that I'm doing quite well in the four survey areas: productivity, teamwork & communication, handling change and handling stress. Strengths are passing on information, keeping agreements, aiming at quality, honesty and openness, and fast learning. Areas to improve are handling conflicts, planning and personal organisation.

In the morning session we evaluated our week and discussed several live cases, which was very helpful. One guy who's a manager at an insurance company shared that their management team had just decided on a reorganisation plan, and explained how they wanted to communicate it to the workfloor. We gave him a hard time. The key was of course to really listen to people and lead by example, which is something most managers have difficulty with. (Btw, Ton Kasteleijn mailed me an interesting interview with Jan Marijnissen in Management Team).

Hans, the trainer, explained the difference between listening and not listening. This may seem very obvious, but it isn't. Defensive reactions, quick interpretations, value statements, bouncing back, denying what the other person is saying - all typical non-listeners' reactions. Active listeners ask informative questions, paraphrase what the other person is saying, and express their feelings. This explains why sometimes conversations are not flowing well.

In the afternoon Jeroen, an actor in television soap GTST showed up. He played some real-life characters to help us handle difficult conversations. The interesting thing is that, although you know it's an act, you tend to show your normal communication pattern. Hans thought it was a good idea for Jeroen to play the role of my wife. Too bad. At the end I even had pity with her. When I came home Karolien said, full of mercy: "Don't worry, I will coach you in handling me." Not sure how to interpret this...

Turmoil in the Netherlands

Things are escalating further in the Netherlands, following the brutal murder on film maker Theo van Gogh last week (see earlier postings here and here). There have been attacks on mosques, islamic schools and even church buildings. In The Hague a whole neighborhood was closed down today as part of a special force raid to arrest members of a terrorist cell (my friend Ronald who lives right in this neighborhood reports about it on his weblog).



In the meantime there are political tensions because a Moroccan guy who works for the secret service leaked information to terrorist groups. Tomorrow there will be a heavy debate in Parliament on the issue, which will put further pressure on the Minister of the Interior. Our PM asked the population to remain calm and refrain from polarising talk and actions.

It's a situation that's very similar to the period following the murder of politician Pim Fortuyn in 2002. It was right before our national prayer campaign 10 Days for Holland. It's part of the shaking our nation is going through, therefore we need stay spiritually alert and pray for God's purposes to be fulfilled.

College degree in pastor's wiving

Satirical newspaper Lark News reports that King of King's College in Lafayette welcomed its first candidates for a groundbreaking minor in pastor's wiving, the first such degree offered in the country.

"After years of grasping in the dark, pastors' wives can learn how to deal with rampant in-fighting in their women's ministry groups, whiny women seeking marriage advice they won't ever use, children who go through extreme rebellion, board members who accuse them of secretly controlling the pastor, and being called the 'b word' on occasion," says professor Helen DuLac, the minor's director. "To be a pastor's wife you don't have to speak Greek and Hebrew, just be able to listen to it with an expression of sincere interest," says DuLac.

Also funny:
Church creates section for huggy, touchy couples
Rise of 'testimony crimes' worries police

Did Jesus die for THIS?

Anyone familiar with Bill Hybels has heard it: 'The hope of the world is the local church.' "On dozens of occasions, I heard the phrase and nodded in agreement," says pastor Chad Hall in Leadership Journal. "The phrase led me to commit or recommit myself to serving the local church. The phrase caused me to weep. The phrase gave orientation to my life and to my work. But lately when I hear it, my response is different. No commitment. No tears. No direction. Just a one-word question filled with doubt: 'Really?'

"I'm starting to believe the hope of the world cannot possibly rest with the not-for-profit religious organizations dotting our landscape and holding themselves out to be 'churches'. It just can't be true. It's not that I doubt God or the unique and saving nature of Jesus; I truly believe Jesus is the hope of the world. I do not doubt that God's plan is to empower and inspire ordinary people to carry the life-giving message of salvation. I do not even doubt that communities of believers are the God-ordained means for carrying out this grand plan. What I doubt is that what passes for 'church' these days is the manifestation of Jesus in our world. I even doubt that my own church is a church."

A painfully honest article. More here. Also see pastor Doug Johnson's interesting response to this article.

The mighty Google

Search engine Google is getting better and better. With the Dutch version it's now possible to track UPS packages, immediately get a train schedule or a scalable Michelin map of any town in the world. More here.

Google also launched the beta version of Google Desktop, which quickly finds any document (also e-mails and chats) on your own computer. If you wish to closely follow a certain (news) development, you can use the beta version of Google Alerts. Or let professional researchers do the job for you with Google Answers. And for smart shopping there's Froogle.

Towards a going theology

In Connect Europe we're trying to find a good mode of teamwork between prophetic and apostolic people. Simon Mason (UK) mailed me some thoughts on the shape of church to come:

The nations is the key, and it is the ongoing GOING and dynamism of the leaders that make the difference. Every revival ends when the leaders entrench into consolidation and maintenance.

This is why the renewing of the mind and a rediscovery of 'going theology' and practice is crucial to maintaining the revival God is stirring. It will be a prophetic event that will spark the going ala Acts 13, but it will be the quality of the apostolic understanding that will maintain the momentum.

This was the difference between Peter and Paul, their understanding. Peter was accidentally always catching up with what God was forcing him to do ie go to Samaritans, then Gentiles etc. Paul was intentional, it was part of his theology from the off, so only required 5 of them to get going. Flexible, mobile and dynamic - the apostolic dimension of the church to come.

Now all we need is a model to practically enable Mark 3:14. He appointed twelve - designating them apostles - that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach.

This links in to what we did in Geneva, and we will process this more when we meet in December with the European team.

Bush hiring Jesus

From Kole's Queeste: a nice cartoon of Bush trying to hire Evangelicals, and the correlation between IQ and politics.

Europe and the Dutch

Last week Intermediair ran an interesting article on 'what Europe thinks of the Dutch'. They asked six experienced correspondents in Brussels (from the UK, USA, Germany, Italy, Spain and Belgium) how the Dutchies are doing in the field of international relations.

They praised the Dutch for their open and down-to-earth approach, and their ability to value collective interests over their own. They tend to be very direct (the British would call this rude) and have clear opinions, but they can also integrate different perspectives and build consensus. The Dutch like fair play and are committed to keep agreements, which make them reliable players in international teams. So far our little Holland promotion for this week.

What's in a week...

It's crazy how much stuff can happen in one week.

On Monday Taco unfolded one of his plans to change Europe and start in Driebergen (of all places). Big question: what are the issues that really turn Gen X and Y on, and where the Kingdom of God could come in?

On Tuesday a Muslim fundamentalist killed Theo van Gogh, which kick-started a public discussion on respect and freedom of opinion. Van Gogh called Muslims 'goatfuckers' which was not really nice, and unnecessarily hurting and polarizing. But the issue turned much bigger. The murderer left a letter on his dead body with threats to several politicians and stating that his terrorist cell aims to bring down the Netherlands. To make it more specific, daily newspaper De Telegraaf published a death list of politicians that are being targeted by this group, among these the (Jewish) mayor and vice-mayor of Amsterdam and several prominent Parliamentarians.

On Wednesday we realised that we'll have to cope with Bush for four more years (check out some great cartoons here). Pete Greig mailed me with 'greetings from the land of presidential insanity'. Journalist Greg Palast has good reasons to believe that actually Kerry won the elections. DAWN buddy Andrew Jones hopes God will use Bush to open up the Middle East for the gospel, and loves the idea of being able to blog from Bagdad or Saudi Arabia. Of course this braveheart got hit with 27 nasty comments.

On Thursday a great meeting at Habbo with the Connect Europe team. Heidi told us that she was invited to the British Parliament to prophesy over politicians. Cool. And Maaike saw an angel, which is also not-so-common. The prophets in our team also prophesied over me, which was a good kick in my ass. Rob installed a webcam on my computer, and will also get me on MSN, which makes me even more chattable.

On Friday I published an extra edition of Joel News NL, in which intercessors tell how they spoiled Six Flags' Halloween program. When they prayed, the occult shows collapsed and people even got fired. Prayer can ruin things if you're on the wrong side. Also did some promotion for the restoration of the Jewish synagogue in Utrecht.

Life is communication (2)

The first day of my training in communication and personal effectiveness. The trainer skipped the normal introductions. Instead, we had to observe each other and then share our impressions along six points: what does this person want to learn at the course, what's his/her job/profession, age, private circumstances, character and hobbies. In Christian circles we might call this prophecy, but in this setting (depending on your gifts) it's a matter of social sensitivity or better guesswork.

Anyway I had an easy job 'reading' the person opposite, because she was so extrovert. The others had more difficulty with me. They thought I was an unmarried computer nerd who loves to play volleyball and doesn't have a strong mind of his own. Thank you, guys. The only thing that was spot-on is the fact that I'm sometimes hard to read and quite flegmatic. Anyway, it was a funny exercise, which at least confirmed that I could be more expressive.

In the afternoon we talked about communication levels and how in many situations the relational process or undercurrent is moving (or not moving) a conversation. You cannot solve problems in the undercurrent by talking content, but have to consciously tap into the undercurrent and bring it into the conversation. The trainer used our group dynamics to show his point. A good way to learn.

The SoSu crew online

Had the whole Soul Survivor board over yesterday, and they ate all my butter cake. Found out today that they also started blogging. Check out Maaike, Martijn and Elmar.

Because of the meeting I missed the impressive 'noise protest' in Amsterdam against the murder of Van Gogh. Click on the TeleVideo icon for the AT5 broadcast. If only Christians would shout out to God that way...

US elections inspire North Korea

A nice cynical headline in satirical newspaper The Onion today: 'U.S. Inspires World With Attempt At Democratic Election'. Observers from around the world report that they were inspired and moved by America's most recent attempt to hold a public election in accordance with the standards of a democratic republic.

"After all of the recriminations, infighting, and general madness before the election, the people of this fractured nation still found the courage to show up at the polls," said Anas Salman, an Afghan U.N. official who was in New York during the American electoral experiment.

The multinational watchdog group Organization for Security and Cooperation sent 600 official observers to monitor proceedings, from countries as disparate as North Korea, Syria, and China. Many reported that they came away deeply touched.

"To see a country with such overwhelming problems - problems that affect every last citizen - have so many of its voters feel that they can still influence their leadership... words fail me," said Dae Jung Kim, a North Korean OSC delegate. "Certainly, my report to my own government will emphasize this. I will recommend that my leaders implement such American election-time strategies and tactics as would fit the North Korean model of personal freedom, such as their elegant Electoral College and the inscrutable voting machine."

Freedom of expression?

Two years ago nonconformist Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn was killed just days before the parliamentary elections. The country was in shock - political murders simply did not happen in Holland. This morning nonconformist filmmaker Theo van Gogh, who worked on a Michael Moore style movie about the murder of Fortuyn titled '0605', was gunned down as well. Like Fortuyn he spoke out about the rise of islam. The killer is said to be a bin-Laden type: black beard, white djellaba, turban. Times have changed. The price of freedom of opinion and expression has gone up.

For the big news agencies and media (Reuters, CNN, BBC) the murder of Van Gogh is frontpage news, because of his better known great-grand-uncle Vincent, his Michael Moore appearance, and his controversional movie 'Submission', written by Somali-born Dutch member of parliament Ayaan Hirsi Ali, on the abuse of Muslim women. The news also pushes the American elections away from the Dutch frontpages.

One of the visitors of this blog commented that it's exactly 911 days after the murder of Fortuyn. Scary. It could be coincidence, but also extremely good timing.

Phew! I can stay in Holland

What do you do when you're a Somalian or Iranian refugee who wants to apply for asylum in the Netherlands? You have to pass a government-approved immigration test. Of the 30 multiple-choice questions about life in the Netherlands you need to answer at least 20 questions correctly. Otherwise your application will be turned down.

I just completed the online version of the immigration test, because for me as a native and highly educated Dutchman this should be peanuts. I thought. Reality is that I barely gained the needed 20 points. One more wrong answer, and I would have been put on a one-way flight to Somalia or Iran. Thank God I can stay in the Netherlands.

Last Saturday a Dutch TV station broadcasted a live show in which they asked Dutch politicians and other well-known Dutchies to do the immigration test. They barely passed it, and some even failed. I don't know who produced this test, but most questions are completely weird or about bureaucratic procedures. For instance:

1. You have a stain in your carpet. Can you mix two different cleaning products?
2. Who decides after primary school what your child's next school will be?
3. Where can you validate a foreign diploma?

Most Dutchmen don't even know about these procedures themselves. And what sense does it make to ask a refugee just before or after he gets to Holland how can he can remove a stain from his carpet? They should send the civil worker or committee who invented this test to Iran. To clean all Persian carpets in the country.