Fellowship

One of the things that we enjoy so much with the congregation in Maastricht is how they understand how important it is to spend time together. We have various opportunities to get together, but they are all different. And different members can make it to different activities. Still, the most important thing is being together. 

At the beginning of the month we had our first Friday singing. Since our house is a mess, and since things are transitioning to taking place without us, this month the singing was held by Ruud and Karla at their house. This means that Ruud can be there, even if he was still recovering from a hip operation. The living room was full, the singing was great and the joy was complete. 

In that same weekend we needed to figure out how to get together to clean the building. This periodic cleaning is shared among the various families, but this time was a deep cleaning. So some made it on a Saturday morning, while others stayed afterwards on Sunday afternoon. For both groups the time spent together was valuable and the building got clean as well. 

This past Sunday was our 2nd Sunday Games. Whoever can and wishes stays afterwards, shares some soup which Tonia has made and their own sandwiches. After a lunch together we sit around the table to play a game that Andrew and Adriana (our young Ukrainian couple) have brought. They have all sorts of games and it is always exciting and fun. Mostly it is great to get to know one another and to be able to laugh together. 

In the coming weeks Shirley and I will be looking for opportunities to see as many members of the various churches in the Netherlands and Belgium as we can. We attended the Family Day at the beginning of September where we were able to say goodbye to some. We will lead our last Wednesday evening of singing with the congregation in Eindhoven this week and our last Saturday singing with the church in Haarlem at the end of the month. Near the end of November we will go to the Copa - a soccer tournament with the various churches - so that we can see some folks again. 

It is so good to see how God makes families and how big His family actually is. We are so thankful to have been able to work with so many people and look forward to how things evolve in the future. As we think about our transition to the US, we consider how we will also start developing relationships there and look forward to how God will use us. 

Take every effort to take part in fellowship opportunities wherever you are. God has an amazing great family and every chance we get to take part in being together is a chance to grow and to encourage others as well. We are so thankful for this life in Him. 

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).