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