Whodunit Wednesday: Francis Halzen

Do you know what ghost particles are? In English we would call them neutrinos, but in the common tongue in Dutch they are called “ghost particles” (as well as officially being called “neutrinos”). The Nobel Prize for Physics was recently awarded to Francis Halzen for his work at the IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole (Antarctica). It is here that neutrinos can be tracked and captured. 

Francis Halzen was born in Tienen, Belgium in 1944. He studied Physics in Leuven and worked for CERN from 1969-1971. After this he moved to the US where he has worked as a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. It was here that he came up with the idea to build a giant detector for neutrino’s. This would have to be built in Antarctica because of the ice that was necessary to capture these particles that are everywhere and yet undetectable. 

Neutrinos pass through the Earth and our bodies every day. We just don’t notice it. Scientists for some time have figured that these particles exist, but it has been impossible to detect (and therefore to prove) them. In 1988 Halzen first presented his idea: when a neutrino collides with an atomic nucleus, it releases a flash of light. This light can be tracked if there are sensors in glacial ice. IceCube is a full cubic kilometer of ice - designed to capture these particles. The first one was detected in 2011. 

Halzxen is only the second ever Belgian scientist presented with the Nobel Prize for Physics The other was François Englert in 2013.

Plans are moving quickly

For those who may not have been able to read between the lines, here is a quick update of what is happening in the coming months. 

After much discussion, conversations with supporting churches and prayer we have decided that it is time to return to the US. While we first thought that we would make this step in early 2027, everything has been moving much more quickly. Our house sold within 2 weeks and we will be out of the house at the end of November this year. The shippers come on or around November 17 and we purchased our tickets to return to the US already. 

So on December 7 we will fly to Indiana where we will for the first time ever be able to spend Christmas with our son’s family. We will also immediately start looking for houses in the Indianapolis area so that we can get set up as quickly as possible. Our things may show up some time around Christmas, or later. We would like to be in place already, although things may not move quite that quickly. 

In getting ready for the shippers and turning over our house, we have been cleaning pout - discovering what we have had in the cellar and attic for many many years. The bedrooms and living room already look quite different, since we have passed on a good bit of our furniture. But what do you do with all of the memories? They remain, firmly locked into some things, some pictures and mostly in our minds. 

And while all of this is happening, we continue trying to keep up with our various activities with the church. We have our weekly Bible studies, singings and are planning on helping with a marriage workshop near the end of November. Soon we will be looking at how we can continue some of these activities online as well as pick up new ways to serve wherever we end up in Indiana. 

We know that we will have a good bit of culture shock to work through. We know that we will miss the people we have been with for more than 30 years here in Belgium and the Netherlands. But we also know that God will bless us with new relationships where we are going. We know that we will be in a position to build even more on our relationship with our boys and their families. 

But it sure is moving quickly!

(Photo of our living room with just one couch and 2 chairs from the other room - so that we have somewhere to sit).

Where oh where Wednesday: the center of Africa

Depending on how old you are, you might know this country as Zaire or Congo. If you know it as Congo, you might have to ask yourself which Congo. This is the Democratic Republic of Congo, or DRC. 

The country started out in history books as a free state, a private “country” owned by Belgian King Leopold II. The atrocities that took place there have continued to shock people throughout the decades that followed - as they became known. The Belgian government took over the colony because of many of these atrocities. But they continued the exploitation of the country until its independence in 1960. 

Names like Lumumba (who was assassinated), Mobutu and Kabila are perhaps well known, each for their own reason. Mobutu was the one who changed the name of the country to Zaire, attempting to return to a more original name. The Congo river was also known as the Zaire. The name came from a Portuguese adaptation of a local language name. 

Kabila changed the name back to Congo. But there are two countries named “Congo”. The Republic of Congo is on its border, which is why it calls itself the Democratic Republic of Congo. Its capital is Kinshasa and it is the 2nd largest country in Africa, the 11th largest in the world (according to Wikipedia). Over 124 million people, mostly French-speaking, call this country home. 

Most recently, the DRC was one of the surprise darlings at the World Cup held in the United States. They reached the knockout phase after having kept Portugal to a tie. In the knockout phase they went ahead against England before finally losing 2-1 and dropping out. Their play was exciting and inspiring.