Thursday, April 21, 2011

Stenshult

Yesterday, I made it back from Sweden. It was really nice getting to know this place and the people there. The seminar with Pastor Mayer was very blessed and the message timely. He is also very pleasant to be around with. Compared to other institutions I've been to, it's a very small place. There are only three full-time staff members and currently, they have only one student, a young man from Africa.

During the additional days that I spent there after the weekend seminar, I got involved in the daily routine of this institution: I attended the classes, and helped out with sowing and transplanting in the gardens. Again, I was reminded that I miss country living.

The title of Pastor Mayer's seminar was "Security in an insecure world". One thing that stood out to me was how he connected Psalm 91:1 and 27:5. In Psalm 91:1, it says: "He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty." But where is the secret place? Psalm 27:5 says: "For in the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavillon: in the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me; he shall set me up upon a rock." The rock refers to the tables of stone, which are the ten commandments. They were kept in the Most Holy Place. So we have to go by faith into the Most Holy Place experience with Jesus. The 10 commandments are an expression of Christ's character. We need to let Jesus have control over all aspects of our lives and to give Him power over our sins.

The two main buildings on campus
Guesthousing
Pastor Hal Mayer
Sowing seeds

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Off to Sweden

It has been a splendid sunny weekend in Brussels, I only couldn't spend a lot of time outdoors. Yesterday, we had a special Sabbath for the immigrant churches, i. e. all the churches that are not French- or Dutch-speaking. These are the Romanians, Hispanics, Lusophones (Portuguese-speaking), French-Africans, and our International Church. They do this every year, so that the non-Belgian church members can get in touch with each other. I don't know what our church in Belgium would do without these congregations. The membership here is already quite meager, but without the immigrants, the church would almost die out I guess.

This afternoon, we had a church board meeting, which turned out to be quite long as usual. One of the points of the agenda was the issue of immodesty in dress, especially displayed by some young females. In fact, this is quite an issue at our church, and I somehow feel sorry for the brothers who are exposed to this every week. I suppose the problem is the ignorance of the young ladies about what they can trigger in them if they dress like this. But of course it's a sensitive issue to deal with. We agreed that the Pastor will give a talk on this subject, and I really hope that the Holy Spirit will convict them. My general observation ever since I'm sitting on this board is that we talk way too much about internal problems. But I guess this will be the case until Jesus comes back. After all, the first Christian churches were not without issues either, so there is nothing new under the sun.

I'm quite excited, as I will be traveling to Sweden at the end of this week. There is a self-supporting place there called Stenshult, and they are going to have a special weekend seminar with Pastor Hal Mayer from Hartland. I've been in touch with him for a while, as he is speaking a lot about current political events, and I've been providing him with information about the things going on here in Brussels. He has been wanting to meet me, but so far, I've never been able to attend one of his seminars in Europe. So I thought this is a good opportunity to finally meet him and also to get to know this place. I'll be staying there for five days. So far, I've never really been in Sweden, I only travelled through during my last trip to Scandinavia. In fact, I really ought to visit this country; after all it's the land of my forefathers. Yes, I'm Swedish in the seventh generation. It was sometime in the Eighteen Hundreds when a woman from Sweden came to an island in north-eastern Germany together with her illegitimate son. She worked as a cook for a Duke residing on this island, and her son was the great-grandfather of my paternal grandmother. Quite a story. I wish I had time to do some genealogical research while there!