Growing together

Today, Monday June 6, is what we in The Netherlands and Belgium call the 2nd day of Pentecost. All of the Christian holidays have two days: Christmas, Easter and Pentecost. For years this day (or the 2nd day of Easter) has been the day to gather the churches together for a time of spiritual encouragement. We share lessons from the Word, sing songs and conversation together in The Hague, Netherlands. 

Pentecost was of course the beginning of the wonderful harvest that God was giving the world. It was during this Jewish feast that God decided to come with power to begin new life for the whole world. And it was on this day that we read about in Acts 2 that people from many different countries gathered and heard the message of truly good news. 

Of course at that time, all of those people were Jews. They came from all around the known world, but they were Jewish. Still, God showed that He was meant to be shared with everyone. That morning the apostles were speaking of the mighty works of God in various languages. 

Today we will gather to share time with one another. We will talk about finding peace in troubled times. And as we were planning on Saturday, we struggled the most with translation. We will have Dutch speakers, English speakers and Ukrainian speakers. The Ukrainians have to translate from English, since they don’t understand Dutch. But the lessons are in Dutch. 

There will be a time of questions. These might come in Ukrainian and will need to be translated to English and then to Dutch. The singing will be in Dutch and English, but many of the songs will be ones the Ukrainians know and which they can find on their phones to sing along. 

It doesn’t matter. Today we will be together. Today we will glorify God together and share the truly good news with one another and all present - even some online. The fields are still ripe unto harvest, even in difficult times. We are thankful to be able to struggle in this wonderful way together.