March Newsletter

LIGHT in the Lowlands
Reaching out to the people of Belgium and the Netherlands

March 2008

Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage - with great patience and careful instruction. 2 Timothy 4:2

Dear brothers and sisters, family and friends,
I will try to summarize all the different activities in this month, but I fear that I will not be able to tell you as much as I would like in this letter. God is working mightily!
Outreach and in-reach?
This month was full of opportunities to share our faith and encourage one another. Sometimes that was within the context of the church, other times as a means to reach out to others.

It is a real privilege to teach, but also to learn from our young people. March saw the start for 2008 of our youth days in Maastricht. This time we also included a short quiz on a Bible topic.


This month there were separate youth weekends. The guys had a games console weekend and looked at “How to get there from here”, talking about what ‘salvation’ is.
The girls looked at their “Spiritual DNA” in Eindhoven, talking about who we really are in God. These are opportunities to invite non-believing friends and also to deepen relationships within the church. It is exciting to see how God uses these opportunities. Pray for us in the coming months as we plan for the next season (2008-2009) of youth weekends.

What is prayer? And how do you do that? Last year I was asked to assist with a Catholic youth weekend. This year the same people approached me to help once again. I mentioned that I would pray about it and get back with an answer. This led to me being asked to present a lesson on prayer. These young people are being told that this is an important time in their life, that God should be part of their daily choices. And yet, the examples they have around them (even their parents) are not always positive (most people here do not attend church, and yet they find these traditions important). So, in addition to helping work on a song and some poems, teaching about the Bible and simply being an example, I talked about the priveleg of prayer. I was excited at this chance to touch lives once again.

In addition to the work with the youth, we also continued our regular studies. Mr. W and LJ continue to ask good questions. They come from very different backgrounds (one an elderly Catholic gentleman, the other a Chinese PhD student), but are able to focus on what is really important. Keep them, and us, in your prayers.

We also had some wonderful studies within the church context, building one another up. We had a visit from a church in Oxford, Alabama, who works with the church in Curacao. Since many people from Curacao also come to the Netherlands, this church understood how important it is to keep up those contacts and visit here as well. We had a nice visit at Shadira’s house (she is from Curacao).

We also had a wonderful time around Easter. Easter Monday is always a gathering of all the Dutch-speaking churches (organized in The Hague). This year was devoted to workshops on the resurrection. I presented a workshop on how to stand up for your faith - if you really believe Jesus is risen.

The next week we had a wonderful potluck dinner in Maastricht with a special class on “New Life in Jesus” for those who have some questions about baptism. We discovered that one of our visitors is our sister in Christ! I hope to give you some more of this story soon on the blog, so keep tuned if you are online.

Activities and events
Next to all of these planned events we had several other activities to challenge and encourage us. As mentioned last month, Willemien received a new knee. This month was her rehabilitation, which only took her an amazing three weeks. She was soon home walking the dog. The hospital staff called her their ‘wonder child” (Willemien is 86!).

We were pleased to attend a wedding of one of our student contacts from the past. Agnes had stayed in Maastricht and we got to share in her wedding day. What a joy! We also went up to Eindhoven for a funeral. Roel de Gruyter’s mother passed away and it was good to be there with and for him on that day.

A completely different activity was the Moslim-Christian debate that I attended with our young brother, Tim. The debate was organized by a Moslim organization around the question “Jesus, son of . . .”. The same evening a film from the Dutch politician, Geert Wilders, came out on internet. He is very much against the Koran. It was an interesting evening. We need more opportunities to talk about what the differences are between these two. And I pray that people will read their Bible more and think critically.
We are presented with so many opportunities to learn and grow. I am so thankful for the strength and guidance of a wonderful Father!

PRAYER WARRIORS
Please keep the following in your prayers.
- Pray for Mr. W. and LJ as we continue to study together. Praise God that they are willing to listen!
- Pray for our plans in the church: WoW course, our church study weekend, men’s studies and our weekly Bible studies as well as our daily contacts.
- Pray for our regular visitors A., S.,V. We had a wonderful lesson on New life in Jesus. V. and I. are studying the Bible together now!
- Praise God for Mishell. She has come as a visitor, but is our sister in Christ, baptized in Hong Kong!
- Pray specifically for our plans for June. We are organizing a youth weekend and concert to challenge our youth and reach out to our city.
- Thank God that all went well with Willemien’s second new knee.
- Thank God for the time we had with the young people during the Catholic youth weekend, teaching and encouraging.

THANKS!
- For your faithfulness - it cannot be easy financially for many now, but you remain a strength!
- For all the emails, phone calls and comments on the blog
- for your prayers and encouragement
What’s coming up?
MAY
Work camp
Maastricht study week
Leadership training
JUNE
Youth weekend
Listen Up! concert

DID YOU KNOW?
Tidbits of information about Belgium and the Netherlands
Science and knowledge
Some important, but obscure discoveries are attributed to Dutch and Belgian scientists. VanderWaal forces, magnetism, or blood pressure in the body were all discovered by Dutch or Belgian scientists. But even our everyday life is impacted by the discoveries made by Dutchmen and Belgians.
Christian Huygens developed pendulum clocks for navigation, but Gerardus Mercator is the one who gave us cartography and maps. Einthoven developed the electrocardiogram (ECG) but Quetelet invented the body mass index (BMI). Tinbergen figured out the dance of the bees while de Smedt invented our modern-day asphalt.
Have you come across something typically Dutch or Belgian? What did you think of it? Let us know. s.raabs@tele2allin.be

ON THE FAMILY SIDE . . .
In between all of the various church activities this month we were also able to slip away for a day or two. You can see more of that on our picture site if you have can get online. But before that came at the end of the month, we enjoyed some good meals with various friends and long time contacts.

We hadn’t seen Gerard for quite a while. He has been studying with Scott for quite some time and continues to have good contact with one of our previous summer students. It was good to have him over for dinner this month and renew our friendship.
We also spent some good time with LJ who we are getting to know better and better. She had to move, so we helped move her meager belongings to her new apartment. In the following weeks we had dinner at her place twice and once at our place. In April she will cook for us again - at our place! And at the end of the month we also went over to Jacques and Mieke’s for a wonderful dinner. Mieke reads the Bible with Scott as well. So we have had plenty of good dinners this month. Stephan is even going to prepare a meal soon which he also has to be able to prepare for school.

Easter Monday is usually a busy but good day in The Hague. We leave at around 7 in the morning in order to make the 3 hour drive. Once there we sometimes have a minute to drink coffee before getting started (Scott usually has some part in the program). This year we were able to talk to plenty of people afterwards. We don’t plan on getting home before 7 p.m. and this year was no different. Thankfully Snuffles can handle a long day like this at home without any troubles (although she was definitely glad to see us when we got back!)

The last day of the month ended up being a wonderful surprise. We had seen that a day-trip to Canterbury, England wasn’t that expensive, so we asked the boys (who had vacation at that time) and made the plans! What a wonderful day!! Long, but wonderful. We left the house at 4 a.m. to get to the boat in Calais on time. But we were in Canterbury by 10 a.m. - without any troubles driving on the ‘wrong’ side.
The day was planned as we wanted - we would choose as we went. So we stopped to see Greyfriar’s, took pictures of “English alleyways”, ate a bacon sandwich with “brown sauce”, walked along the sea in Whitstable and Herne Bay, napped on a bench in the sun and had a thoroughly wonderful time together as a family.
Near the end of the day we headed back to Dover, got something to eat and loaded back on to the ferry for the continent. By 2 a.m. we were sneaking into Luk and Holly Brazle’s house in Ghent (they let us spend the night, of course!). The next day, as rainy as it had been sunny in Canterbury, we walked around the city of Ghent and took in the history.

We pray that your month was like Sean’s - he said these were some of the best days he had had. He was ready to enjoy all that we came across.
Have a great day today as you live with God!