Whatsit Wednesday: Environment station

It sounds strange in English. In the Netherlands, city neighborhoods all have their own “environment station” or street. It is called a “Milieu perron” and consists of several containers which are partially underground and partially above ground. These containers are for various sorts of trash: glass, paper, plastic-metal-drink containers, and even diapers. Every week or two a truck comes, lifts the containers out of their hole in ground, and empties them, taking their respective trash to the trash collection and sorting area in the city. 

Everyone here is used to separating their trash. In the house one already considers what kind of trash it is. Food scraps are put into a green container which is also placed on the street to be picked up regularly. Paper is usually collected in some sort of cardboard box and then either taken to the environment station or placed o the street to be picked up once a month. Even batteries and electronics can be collected at the local supermarket in special boxes. 

In Maastricht all the rest of the trash (which is called “restafval”) was put in a red and white plastic trash sack and put out on the street to be collected twice a month. You could not put your sack out until after 5pm before the day of collection. Ion 2025 the city of Maastricht is changing their rules. Suddenly, the environment station will look quite different. If it will encourage people to continue separating trash or not is a big question. 

The environment station will still have the containers, but now most of them will be for “rest”, the stuff people used to put in the red-white sacks (which they had to buy). The containers for glass and paper will remain, as will the container for diapers. But the containers for PMD (plastic-metal-drink) will be turned into containers for “rest”. And people will need to use a special card to dump their trash here. It will be weighed or measured in some way. 

In the meantime, the PMD will still need to be sorted, but this will happen in the house. All of the PMD will now go into a plastic sack (which is free at the time) and placed on the street to be collected twice a month. For some people this change simply means exchanging sacks and carrying heavier sacks to the environment station. But for older people, this may mean that they have difficulties getting their trash out. 

Some of the reasons for these changes has been that the environment stations recently (in 2024) were getting more and more messy. People would simply drop their trash sacks at the station, not separating anything. Trash was left blowing about in the wind - not placed in the containers. Officials hope that this will now stop. I will be interested to see how many sacks are now simply dumped at the environment station (because people do not want to have it weighed or do not have the money for it). 

In a small country full of people like the Netherlands, taking care of trash and the shared spaces has always been a challenge. This has become part of the national identity. It will interesting to see how this evolves in the coming year. 

Looking ahead in trust

At the end of a year, we tend to look back and see where we have come, how far we have come. At the beginning of the year we look ahead to see where we are going. Both positions can disconcerting. Did we get as far as we had hoped or expected? Where in the world are we headed? But in both places it is good to remember first to whom we belong. 

One of the most encouraging things that we can see, looking back at the past year, is that several people who were struggling with their faith have found strength in God and have returned to the family. They, too, had many moments of struggling, thinking, wondering. And in the end the love of God and the encouragement from the family in Maastricht touched their heart and gave them courage to return. We look forward to seeing them grow in the coming year and becoming part of the encouragement that God brings through this family. 

Although we never know how God is working in people's hearts, we always pray that God will bring the people we are talking to and meeting with to Him and His salvation. Some of our conversations in the past year were very difficult and disappointing. We are all struggling with being the people we believe God desires and following His Word as truth in our lives. But this is not always easy. These types ion conversations will continue in the coming year, but we are thankful that we are still talking. 

In this new year we already have several new people who have shown and stated their desire to know more about life in Christ. We are looking forward to the ways that God will use us and them to help us all to grow in faith and love. We would love to know you are praying for us and all the people with whom we speak this year. We want to present the good news as it should be presented, having courage to speak when we should. 

As usual, we look forward to plenty of activities in this coming year, including several that will be organized by the congregation in Maastricht. In just a few weeks I will be at the annual meeting of the camp board. This summer Shirley and I will be directing a week of camp (the oldest youth, 15-20 year-olds). In May the congregation will organize another youth day and somewhere along the way we are looking at organizing a singing workshop again (we haven’t organized one of these since before Corona days). 

Most importantly, we know that whatever we are doing we can only do with the strength of God in our lives. We want to keep a focus on Him in all that we do. The congregation will be working through the gospels in the first 4 months of the year (thanks to our supporting congregation at Woodbury). Several of the young families are looking forward to the opportunity to do this with their kids as well. We all want to know that no matter what comes at us in this year, we are walking in the light with the One and Only King of kings. 

(a group went to see a movie together at the beginning of the year; 4 are not pictured)

Whodunit Wednesday: Who am I?

The past few years Shirley has been working on discovery her ancestry. This began with looking for her older sister whom she had only really met once in her life. We found her online, but too late for Shirley to ever talk to her. In the meantime, Shirley has discovered even more about her mother’s side of the family (they go all the way back to the Salem witch trials), the family of her previously unknown sister’s daughter, and some cousins from her father’s side. 

I know that my father in the past had a genealogy done, although he has never seen it. I also remembers several conversations with my mom about her ancestry. I know that I comes from a lot of German and Prussian background. But might there be some other interesting discoveries? When we named Stephan, we became aware for the first time that there was another - much better known - Stefan (with an “f” instead of “ph”) Raab. Could there be actual links somewhere? 

As a matter of fact, I know that there are other Raabs that we are not related to. Back when we used to send actual paper newsletter and the beginning of email newsletters, I received messages strongly asking me to stop sending emails to someone who had the Raab name but was not related. And if you google my name, you will most likely first come up with a well-known journalist - who is not related. 

Last night we spent time with a young couple from the church, sharing stories about our lives and looking at pictures. We saw their “old” pictures (they are just 20 and 21 years old) and then we looked at pictures when we were younger. The usual exclamation was, “That’s you?!” Looking at a picture and then at the real person, you recognize some of the characteristics, even if the hair has changed. 

But are we simply our DNA? Is that who we are? Of course our genes have influenced us, just as the environments we grew up in. But is that the totality of who we are? Ever since becoming a Christian I have seen those elements as the building blocks that God has used throughout my life to make me who I am. I am a child of the King. I am a sinner who has been and is being made holy, day by day. Can you imagine someone being holy? That’s me. I am a saint. Not that I do everything right, of course. But God sees who I am and who He is making me to be, every new day that He gives. 

Who are you? 

Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.  Ephesians 2:19-22