Monday, December 24, 2018

Year End Blessings

As I'm writing this post, I'm at my parent's home in Karlsruhe. This past Friday, they have celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. It was held in the closest family circle enlarged by some dear friends. I'm thankful that my parents have made it that long. It doesn't go without saying after all that couples stay together nowadays, whether they are Christians or not.

In a way, the months of November and December were much quieter for me than the previous, rather hectic months when I didn't really have help in the office. Actually, at a point when I couldn't have gone any further, things worked out for me to have at least a temporary help until January, and then as of mid-January, I'm going to have a new colleague who promises to be very nice and competent.

For Thanksgiving, I had another dinner with co-workers at my home. It was a smashing success. They really liked the food, and I was also able to raise some money for my project in Serbia. I'm very thankful for these opportunities.

On Wednesday, I'll be headed towards Puerto Rico, where I'm going to visit a former lifestyle guest with her husband. Sister Ada already wanted me to come visit a couple years ago, but then it didn't work out; and last year I wasn't up to flying overseas already having just returned from the US. But now I really look forward to this sunny break, even though it will be only for a couple weeks. I will also preach there and give some health talks at the weekends. This time, I will have some help from Christine, a former co-worker from Uchee Pines. I pray that the Lord will bless our efforts.

I'm currently transcribing some talks on mental health that I have found insightful. One of them is by Vickie Griffin from Michigan, US. I can highly recommend watching it under this link on Audioverse.
"It is possible to feel wrong and to do right. God gives us the energy, and it’s a miracle. It’s not all about feelings. As a matter of fact, the opposite of depression is not joy. It isn’t. The opposite of depression is resiliency. It’s the ability to tunnel through problems until you get to the lighter side of things, until you get to solutions. God actually uses trials to build character and resiliency into our lives. So we are waiting to get happy when there won’t be any problems anymore, but God allows problems to grow us into resilient people that aren’t depressed."
I also appreciate the fact that there are verses in the bible that don't only tell us that God is our helper and comforter right now, but that also contain promises for the future, like Psalms 27:13-14:
“I had almost fainted unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait on the Lord, be of good courage, and He shall strengthen thine heart.” 
Yes, even if we don't feel like praising the Lord right now, we can believe that we will see His goodness in the future, and that He will make a way out of any darkness we may find ourselves in!
"Why are thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God." (Psalms 42:11)

My parents on their big day



Thursday, November 1, 2018

Back to School

Since yesterday, I'm with family in Germany. I'm enjoying this short break over Reformation Day, All Saints and All Souls Day. Wow, so many holidays in short order, but at least the latter two are also official holidays in my organization. I'm actually combining this trip with a mission from work, because on Monday, I'll go "Back to School". Yes, after almost five years I will go back to one of my former schools again to share with the pupils about my work and about the EU in general. They started this initiative over a decade ago with a lot of success. I'm very much in favour of such actions, as it is not only a very rewarding experience for me, but it's also great promotion for the European Institutions. And since the work of my current Directorate-General is very close to the life of EU citizens, they even encourage us to go on these trips.

Right now, I'm still recuperating from the stresses of the last couple months. It's been mainly positive stress, but of course every human body has its limits. It all started with this really bad cold I contracted while at camp meeting in August. Then I had a lot of visitors - which was great, but in a way also exhausting. Then my workload at the office steadily increased - and the fact that I still don't have a new colleague in the secretariat didn't help with that of course.

The fall is coming in with great force now; the temperatures having dropped notably in these past days. But it's already been back to 15 degrees (60 F) and we are enjoying some nice sunshine. We actually had a lot of that in the past couple months, with warmer temperatures than usual at this time of year. That's how I especially like Brussels, because during winter time, sunshine is a rare commodity, and thus I'm determined to enjoy it while it lasts! I also look forward to my upcoming mission trip to Puerto Rico at the end of December. I'm invited by a former lifestyle guest from Uchee Pines, who lives there with her husband. I'm going to combine this short vacation with a couple of weekend health seminars which I'm going to conduct together with a former colleague from Uchee Pines. I'm sure we will have a blast!

So today, I went to the cemetery together with my grandmother and her care taker. Since it's All Saints day, there were a lot of people visiting the graves of family members. I even saw some moslems there, bowing down and even kissing the tombs of their passed loved ones. And I witnessed a Catholic procession that went through the graveyard. I captured the group when they had a little service next to the graves of people who died during the bomb attacks when World War II was raging here (see picture below).

I don't believe in the immortality of the soul, but from time to time I enjoy visiting the tombs of dear people who are resting there, notably my grandfather and my great-grandmother. But how much more am I going to enjoy resurrection day, when I will finally see them again! Interestingly, one of the priests holding the little ceremony in front of the graves was reading from the book of Revelation:
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Look! Gods dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new!"  ~ Revelation 21:3-5
 Oh what a joyous day that will be!

Grandpa's tomb
Great-Grandmother's tomb



The Catholic procession
The victims of the bombings in Karlsruhe

Sunday, September 16, 2018

Where Shall I Begin?

Indeed, I have no idea where to begin with my sharing for today. So many things have happened in the past weeks.

Again, our German camp meeting was a tremendous blessing. This time, 15 people from my local church attended (plus three former members who now live in Switzerland), as well as five members from other places in Belgium. Them and all the other participants where blessed abundantly. Unfortunately, I got sick during the week, but I kept up well till the end - with the exception of my voice. Nevertheless, I actually found it not such a bad fate to be relatively "speechless" towards the end. After all, I had had to talk so much in the first phase of the camp meeting, trying to put everything together with registration and tackling our new software. So at the weekend, I was able to step back. In fact, that's the advantage if you do logistics, because Sabbath is really a day of rest for you then. In a way, those who are involved with the programme are getting extra busy that day. Thank God, I made it safely home, in spite of not feeling so well.

And we were also blessed again with a nice group of Uchee Piners. I was so thankful for having had the Pershin's as main speakers. In addition, my former co-worker Ashwin came - initially only to help with the health workshop, but then we asked him to replace Dwayne Lemon, who unexpectedly had to cancel his participation as one of the main speakers. We also had Alberto from Serbia, who did a great job together with Andrey and Ashwin to hold the afternoon hydrotherapy/natural remedies workshop. They really made an effort to make it very practical for the participants. Like for example we didn't have any ice available to demonstrate contrast treatments. So I organised a ride for them to the closest gas station, which was less than 10 minutes away. Later I found out that they had to go to two more gas stations until they finally got the ice! They were really dedicated - and the feedback was very good.

The weekend before last, we had a wonderful church retreat in the German part of Belgium. Again, the Pershin's were main speakers, and they were such a blessing to my brothers and sisters. We stayed in a cosy, newly renovated youth hostel. Would love to go back to this place. Not only because of the nature aspect of this area, but I absolutely enjoyed being able to speak to everyone in my mother tongue :-).

And last weekend, I was again blessed with visitors! Tes, a former Uchee Pines student who lives with her husband in California now, came over to Europe. After a few days in Antwerp, they arrived in Brussels last week on Saturday and attended the church service. In the afternoon, they got fully involved with the distribution of flyers for our stop smoking programme that will take place at the end of September. On Sunday, I did some tourist activities with them. It was really nice to talk about the "old times" at Uchee with Tes. On Monday, they took off to Paris and London. First time in Europe for both of them. Uh, that reminds me of my first trip to the US back in 2000, noticing that this vast country is a totally different territory, although the people look quite similar to the people in Europe.

So I thank the Lord for His guidance in everything. Especially the latest happenings (of which I can't share right now, for the sake of brevity) have shown me again that HE is still in control, and that HE still holds every single atom of the universe in His hands! Praise Him for that.

Finally, I would like to share an experience: On Tuesday, during our "Away Day" with my Directorate-General, we (more than 500 people) were asked to gather in groups on the grass and form the letters of our DG, which is REGIO. Then, in order to take pictures of us, a drone was sent up to the sky forming our name. So as we were all standing there, smiling and waving at this drone, I was imagining Jesus Christ coming back in the clouds. Will we be first of all ready to meet Him? And if not, will we greet Him the same cheerful way?
"And the Lord himself shall descend from Heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord."            ~ 1. Thess 4:16-17
May the Lord find us faithful.

Picture of the Belgian group at German camp meeting

Bryan & Penny Gallant together with Alice and Janice

Children sharing from their programme

Enjoying nature at camp meeting


With the Pershin's at the Belgian coast

With Tes under a giant smurf :-)


Tes and her husband with a giant waffle


Saturday, July 21, 2018

Zwin Nature Park

Although Knokke has become my favorite place at the Belgian coast, and meanwhile I have been there several times, I had never made it to the "Zwin Nature Park" just outside Knokke. So last Sunday I finally went there. I didn't plan my coast trip long ahead, and thus it was difficult to find somebody to come with me; so I ended up going by myself.

It turned out a very worthwhile visit of one of the most idyllic places I've been to. They also call this place "the international bird airport", where all kinds of different birds come during the warmer season in order to hatch and enjoy the summer. There is a trail with different observation points, and you can also take a hike in the nature reserve.

Of course whenever I go this direction, I have to visit the sea side. So I spent another couple hours on the beach, enjoying the water and the rustling of the ocean. Given the time of year and the lovely weather, it was pretty crowded; nevertheless the world cup final obviously held back some people who might have otherwise traveled there for the day (at least I got a place to sit on the train back, which doesn't go without saying during this season). But since I couldn't care less about soccer (or any other competitive sports for that matter), I didn't have to stay put in Brussels :-).

Other than that, I've been working on some home improvement projects lately. Thus, after almost 16 years, I decided to change my bathroom shelves. It was really high time, as they had started to get rusty. So I found some beautiful and inexpensive bathroom furniture at the IKEA store. The problem is always the assembling, as I wouldn't consider myself a "handywoman", In fact, it's always a headache for me if I have to figure out technical stuff, and thus I was very thankful that it all worked out.

At my work place, it has been a bit more busy for me, as my co-worker in the secretariat took up a post at our Director's front office. But things are still manageable, and hopefully I will have a new colleague soon. I look forward to our German camp meeting, which is only three weeks away now. As usual, some organisational aspects have been challenging, but I pray that we will resolve all issues and that it will be a blessing. I especially look forward to having my friend Amy from Uchee Pines with her family this time. They will not only be speakers at our camp meeting, but also at our church retreat in Belgium at the end of August. So I'll be able to have them at my place for a few days. I'm sure that will be fun!


The stork had a little one



The nature resort


Lookout point



The ocean - just beautiful
My new bathroom furniture :-)

Sunday, April 8, 2018

Cooking Class

Just wanted to post a few pictures of my recent cooking class. It was a great blessing!





Sunday, March 25, 2018

Change

So it's spring now, and today you even get the impression that this may be true. However, in the past few weeks it appeared more often like a prolonged winter, with temperatures below freezing. But I'm confident that we will get there eventually - I only wish I didn't have to struggle with daylight savings every year at that time.

Last month I started a different post within my organization. It's a long story, but there were several factors at my old position which made me consider this change. I'm now with the Directorate-General for Regional Development and Urban Policy. It's a geographical unit that works with structural funds for Germany, Austria and the Netherlands. I'm  thankful for this change. I have nice colleagues, and overall there is a relaxed atmosphere in this DG. I'm also enjoying the proximity to my home, as our offices are at the outskirts of Brussels, in the same commune where I live. So I don't have to go to the European Quarter anymore each day, but now I can even walk to my office if I want to, as it takes only about 15 minutes.

So the Lord has been good to me. He knew what I could handle and that it wasn't in my best interest to stay at the old post. But even if we face situations where there doesn't seem to be a change for the better, we can still trust Him. He is the omnipotent, the all-knowing and loving God who knows each of His children and whose power and wisdom are infinite.

"What has faith to do with feeling? Faith takes God at his word, with or without feeling. It "is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." We can believe our fellow-men, and can we not trust the word of God? When we go to him for wisdom or grace, we are not to look to ourselves to see if he has given us a special feeling as an assurance that he has fulfilled his word. Feeling is no criterion. Great evils have resulted when Christians have followed feeling. Satan can give feelings and impressions, and those who take these as their guides will surely be led astray. How do I know that Jesus hears my prayer? I know it by his promise. He says he will hear the needy when they cry unto him, and I believe his word. He has never said to the "seed of Jacob, seek ye me in vain." (Signs of the Times, May 15, 1884, par. 4)


My new office building from the inside


I like the trees everywhere

There are nice surroundings at my new office


Monday, January 1, 2018

The Open Bookcase

A new year has begun. The good news about that is that we are another year closer to the second coming of our Lord and Saviour! Nobody knows what 2018 will bring, but it's good to know that our times are in God's hands and that He is still the Ruler of the universe.

Since December 31st, I'm with my parents in Germany. I will stay here for my father's birthday tomorrow and then head back to Brussels on Wednesday. It's always challenging to be with family, given the fact that their lifestyle and their beliefs are completely different from mine, but the Lord has been helping me. The temperatures have been moderate, not really like winter. I only wish it had been less cloudy and rainy, but I took advantage of every ray of sunshine.

Yesterday, there was a special year-end service at the local SDA church. After that, I walked to the little Lutheran church in the city center to meet with my family. There was an ensemble of professional musicians performing a classical concert. The one who played the harpsichord is the director of the lay orchestra my mother is part of, and that's why my folks go there every year. They performed pieces of three different composers, one of which was also part of the ensemble. But his compositions didn't speak to me at all. It was kind of jarring, high-pitched, and not melodious at all. Strange modern music I would say. However, I did enjoy the Bach pieces they played.

This morning, I went for a walk and passed by at a shopping center nearby. They have a nice little project there called "Open Bookcase". They turned an old telephone box into a place where people can either drop off or take books home. So I took the opportunity to leave some literature there. What I like about this way of sharing is, even though it's not very personal, you can be assured that those who take the books are definitely going to read them. So I pray that the Lord may water this seed.

The Open Bookcase

And here is a little snippet of the Bach performance last night:



I would like to close with a New Year's Day letter written by Ellen White to Dr. and Mrs. Kellogg on January 1, 1886. May the Lord help us all to draw closer to Him this year!

"I wish you a happy new year. The old year with its burden of record has passed into eternity. Now let every thought, every feeling be that of remembrance of God's love. Let us gather up one token after another. . . .

The evidence we have of God's care and love for us is expressed in the lessons Christ gave to His disciples upon the things in nature. . . . The eye is not to be fastened upon deformity, upon the curse, but upon the riches of the grace of Christ that has been provided so abundantly, that we may live in this world, and act our part in the great web of humanity, and yet not be of the world. As pilgrims, as strangers looking for the bright things of God, the joy that is set before us, seeking a city whose builder and maker is God, and by beholding the provisions made for us, the mansions Jesus has gone to prepare for us, talking of the blessed home, we forget the annoyances and the fretting cares of this life. We seem to breathe in the very atmosphere of that better, even the heavenly country. We are soothed, we are comforted; we are more than this, we are joyful in God.

We could not know that gracious purposes of God toward us, but for the promises, for it is from them alone we learn what He has prepared for those who love Him. As the flowers in God's wise economy are constantly drawing the properties from earth and air to develop into the pure and beautiful buds and flowers and give forth their fragrance to delight the senses, so shall it be with us.

We draw from God's promises all that peace, that comfort, that hope that will develop in us the fruits of peace, joy, and faith. And by bringing these promises into our own life we bring them always into the lives of others. Then let us appropriate these promises to ourselves. . . . They are like the precious flowers in the garden of God. They are to awaken our hope and expectation, and lead us to a firm faith and reliance upon God. They are to strengthen us in trouble and teach us precious lessons of trust in God. He in these precious promises draws back from eternity and gives us a glimpse of the far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. Let us then be quiet in God. Let us calmly trust in Him and praise Him that He has shown us such revelations of His will and purposes that we shall not build our hopes in this life but keep the eye upward to the inheritance of light and see and sense the amazing love of Jesus."

Published in The Upward Look, p. 15.