One Thing After Another

So many things have been happening lately that it's difficult for me to keep up with blogging. My Thanksgiving party last week turned out a blessing. Although a lot of my colleagues had other commitments that evening, I had eight people at my home, including some former colleagues, as well as the two other ladies from church who also work for the EU. My guests liked the vegan food (although there was no turkey), as well as the alcohol-free champaign (although some of them would surely have preferred the real thing!), and we had a nice time together. I shared a DVD about the medical-missionary project in Serbia that I have been supporting, and I also shared my personal experience related to it. The result was that I raised 165 Euros for the project (two of my colleagues even donated something the day after when I brought some left-overs to the office). So this year, Thanksgiving was really a happy event.

I'm also thankful about the outcome of my cooking class, which took place last Sunday. For this event, I also had eight people at my home, even a lady from my neighbourhood. I showed them some healthy options for sandwich spreads, and it was well received.

The next big event will be another health presentation I'm going to give at my workplace on December 13. This time, I will have the opportunity to speak on the frontal lobe of the brain. A highly interesting topic, but also quite controversial. I guess some people will not like to hear that things like coffee and alcohol impair the functioning of this part of the brain. I still have to prepare quite a bit for this. May God help me.

This coming Sunday, we are going to have our first meeting for our planned health expo next April. Valérie Dufour, associate director for health ministries at our Division, is going to take part, so that we can get this started. I'm thankful that I was able to establish contact to some of the members of our second French speaking church in Brussels. They conducted an expo back in 2008, so they already have experience with this. The two brothers I got in touch with seem to be very motivated. So I really hope that we can get this organized. It will not be easy, but I pray for the Lord's guidance.

Anyway, I'm glad it's Sabbath. There was a big strike in Belgium today. Tens of thousands of people have marched through Brussels to protest against new austerity measures brought on by Europe's financial crisis. I didn't see the demonstration, but I had to cope with the ramifications of it, as it also resulted in a partial transport strike. There was absolutely no metro and no bus going from my place, and I had to walk to and from work, which was about 40 minutes each way - and I had to walk briskly! So I really got in my exercise in today, and I think I'm going to sleep very well tonight!

Some of my Thanksgiving guests

My friends from church: Viliam from Croatia and his wife Jana from Slovenia,
who works for the European Council. To the right: Agnieszka from Poland,
who works for the Secretariat-General at the Commission

My cooking class attendees

The sandwich spreads - and a zucchini cake in the background