Year End

At the time of this writing, I'm sitting in the train from my home city towards Thuringia, Eastern Germany. I'm going to attend a New Year's retreat there, which is organised by a church member in Nuremberg. There will be lots of people in my age group, and I look forward to the fellowship and the hikes we are going to take in this beautiful part of Germany. 

The last couple of weeks, I spent with my family and friends, enjoying the fellowship, shopping tours, walks in nature, while doing some teleworking from abroad. I'm also grateful that I got to experience another Christmas with my 100-year-old grandma, who is still going strong for her age. 

The past weeks have been filled with many blessings. One highlight was the organisation of another Fundraising Thanksgiving dinner at my home for my colleagues. It was a successful event, and I'm thankful for the positive response of my co-workers. 

This past quarter, I've been enjoying the study of the book of John. The gospels are so rich, and there is always something new to learn about Jesus and His life. 

What tongue can tell, waht pen can trace and unfold, the mighty moral results of looking with earnest believing hearts unto Jesus, our Helper? "But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory even as by the Spirit of the Lord" (2 Corinthians 3:18). What a grand victory! Beholding, you become a changed man. Consider this: We behold, and catch the bright beams in the face of Jesus Christ. We receive as much as we can bear. Let us not stop to quarrel over circumstances, but keep Christ in view. Through the transforming power of the Holy Ghost we become assimilated to the image of the blessed Object we behold."                         The Upward Look, page 268

Isn't it powerful? My prayer for you and me is that we may behold Christ even more this coming year, and that we may experience His transforming power in our lives through the Holy Spirit!

Beautiful wildlife walk yesterday

A stately moose

ASI & OCI

At the time of this writing, I'm sitting in a hopelessly crowded train towards the capital of Germany. My final destination is Dresden (capital of Saxony), where I'm joining my German speaking co-workers for our Annual Review meeting with our managing authorities responsible for the EU funded programmes for regional policy. I appreciate that I'm allowed to join this annual trip, especially as it's taking place each time in a different German city. I'm also thankful that I can combine this trip with a fact finding mission to our venue for next year's summer camp (which will be held in Saxony), as well as a visit with dear friends in Thuringia. 

The last few weeks of my life have been quite eventful. At the end of October, I attended the ASI Europe meetings in Sofia, Bulgaria. It was very inspiring and uplifting. I was also happy to see that all the funds needed for the various projects were raised. Our "Hope Life Centre" in Brussels was also among the beneficiaries, which was a great blessing. 

The weekend after, I joined the OCI AdAgra meetings, which took place in the Netherlands this year. I enjoyed it a lot, especially as I was already acquainted with the main speakers, Paul & Natasha Dysinger and Chad & Fadia Kreuzer. After the event, I was able to ride back to Brussels together with the Kreuzers. They had a few days to travel before their next speaking appointment, and so we were able to spend some extra time together. The programme at AdAgra was quite full after all, so it wasn't really possible to spend a lot of quality time talking with other participants. However, I really liked the topics, especially the spiritual applications; and also the musical programme was a blessing. 

Now I look forward to discovering Dresden, as I have never really been there. There are lots of delays again on German railways, but we are hopeful that we will make it there still at a decent hour tonight!

Some impressions of the old city centre in Sofia

Edwin & Paul Dysinger sharing about agriculture

The venue of AdAgra

Blessings Galore

There have been so many happenings lately, but so little time to write them down. So where shall I start?

September 19 was a very special day in the life of our family, because my dear grandmother turned 100! It was such a blessing to experience this day together with her, still being in good health for her age, and also being able to understand what's happening around her and still knowing the people who love her and care for her. Even the Lord Mayor of our city came to congratulate her! 

Grandmother and I

Newspaper article on the visit of the Lord Mayor

Another blessing is that our move to the new church building is imminent now. Yesterday, we worshipped in our old building for the very last time! So today, every member is encouraged to help with the big move. In fact, we already started moving the non-essential items last Sunday, but there is still quite a bit that needs to be done both in the old and in the new building. All is still work-in-process, but with the Lord's help, we will soon have an ideal space for our church services. The Lord is good!

With some dear Sisters at our old church building 
(the boy is extremely sad to leave this house...)

Last weekend, the Pope came ot Belgium. It was a huge endeavour for the city of Brussels, and I don't even want to know how much money has been spent on the security aspects alone! On Sunday, before he flew back to Vatican City, there was a public mass held at the big stadium right by the atomium, and about 35.000 Catholics from all over came to see the "Holy Father". I was quite impressed by the dedication these people manifested. They cheered and waved their flags, and even children were brought to him so that he would bless them. But why do they put this man on a pedestal? Never having been part of the Catholic church, this has always been a mystery to me. After all, it's not people we should worship, but God alone. But I pray that these Christians will come to a right understanding of the bible, making it their one and only foundation of their believes.

Many people came in busses to see the Pope

Thos who didn't get a seat in the stadium, could watch everything on screens outside

New Church in the Making

I probably never shared about our church building project on this blog. This is a rather recent development. Actually, it's been many years that the church leadership realised that our current space is way too small. We are just occupying the third floor in the Conference building, and that's maybe sufficient for a congregation of 50-60, but not for 100+. In fact, every week I tend to leave this place with a headache, because of all these noises on a rather small space. 

Nevertheless, the Lord has been good to us, and we have found an adequate place to buy, in a nice residential area in the south east of Brussels. I consider it a miracle how He has led in the financing of this project, enabling us to raise 100.000 Euro last year in May, and now even raise 50.000 Euro more to do the necessary renovations. Of course 100.000 Euro is not enough to buy a church building in Brussels, but the rest is being loaned to us by the Inter-European Divsion in Berne, Switzerland. So we will have to pay off a mortgage now, but there are so many advantages in owning this building. 

Currently, our brethren are still busy with the renovations. I went there last Sunday to help feeding them, together with some other Sisters. I was quite impressed by what I saw there. We are all excited to move in there at the end of October, Lord willing!

Our brothers working

The baptismal font

View to the garden

With my Sisters serving lunch

Back with a Vengeance

Please forgive me for not writing. I know it's been a year since I posted here the last time. But of course there is always something happening to write about, so I will do my best to make it a priority again to share at least about some of those happenings in this public journal. 

We are in late summer already, and again, I can look back on a very blessed camp meeting in the Westerwald region. This year, the organisation was particularly challenging for us. It already started around April, when our two international speakers (Frank Fournier and Ron Duffield) had to cancel their participation in short order. So we had to look for replacement speakers, which we could thankfully secure before the end of May. However, one day before the camp, one of the international speakers had to cancel because of a conflict in his agenda he somehow had overlooked. But with the Lord's help, we were able to fill all the gaps with speakers who were already there, including one brother from our team, as well as one of our former speakers who was also present at the camp. 

So our only international speaker for the adults was Michael Carducci, and Maurice Berry was there for our youth. We were also blessed by Roman Ril as our German speaker; and those who filled the gaps were equally used by the Lord in a powerful way. If you are interested, you may watch the recordings on our YouTube Channel. 

Our international church here in Brussels is going to move to a new building next month, Lord willing. I will post about this more later. 

Yesterday, I got to go to the famous flower carpet at the Grand Plaza, which is happening there every two years at this time. It was beautiful! But as pretty as these flowers look like, they are going to fade within a few days. This reminds me of Isaiah 40:8:

"The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, but the word of our God shall stand forever."

Indeed, only His word can be a constant in our lives. It's the rock that we can stand on today, and it's the rock that we can stand on tomorrow!

Mary, Janice and I at the flower carpet