Sing and be happy

This month is a month of singing. We are thankful that we can help congregations in their singing. We enjoy the time together as much as they and we all learn something from one another. This has always been a part of our ministry and as long as I can sing it will remain so. God has put a song in our hearts and singing is what we all will be doing together when we finally get Home. 

This month we have several opportunities to help in singing. The congregation in Haarlem (about 2,5 hours north of us) asked me to come and help them learn new songs and learn how to sing better. We went up at the end of August and will return near the end of September. This is a mix of learning music notation - what is a fermata, what is the difference between ff and mp, why do we breathe at a comma - and remembering that singing for God is about singing with your heart and your head. 

I always want to remind people that God made us to sing. Singing is divine, built for who and what we are. It is the only thing that touches mind and soul at the same time. You can literally feel the sound in your body, but you need to pay attention to the words you are singing. So taking time to look at the words in a song, making sure we understand it, is just as important as learning the rhythm or tempo or harmony. 

The group in Haarlem was excited to learn new songs and to learn more about singing. It was also a great time of fellowship, especially for us. We do not get to see the members of this congregation very often, although many of my Dutch roots come from here. I worked as an evangelism apprentice here when I first came to the Netherlands and learned my Dutch in this city. 

This past weekend we were in Cologne, Germany for a day of singing. Every February Uli and I see each other at the Advanced Bible Study Series (ABSS) in Germany. He is from the congregation in Cologne and I am from Maastricht. We started getting together for a singing back in 2014 when we talked about including Aachen again in some way. Aachen is in the middle between the two cities. We organized a singing and have kept this up (with some exceptions during corona years) every year. We have been in Cologne twice, in Aachen twice and in Maastricht three or four times. 

This singing day n Cologne brings us together with another congregation. We had 6 members from Maastricht attend (it would have been 8, but two were incapacitated, including Shirley). The group also included a refugee couple and a visiting couple from the neighborhood. We sing and speak more in German, but this time we also sang some in French. When we started members from Liege, Maastricht, Aachen and Cologne all attended, making it quite international. This time in Cologne we remembered that in heaven we will all be able to sing together in whatever language it will be. 

This coming weekend several of the members from Maastricht will join others from around the Netherlands and Belgium at the Family Day at camp. So we will get to sing and once again enjoy the wonderful fellowship of being together. This time we will simply take part in the singing, rather than lead any of it. But a week later we will be in Eindhoven for our monthly 3rd Wednesday singing there where we also help with learning new songs. Often people simply need to learn a song and see that they can sing it. 

We enjoy singing songs that members in the Netherlands and Belgium have written, songs written by Russian brothers and translated either into English or Dutch (or German), or new songs crossing over to Europe from other areas of the world. It is exciting to see how the song that God has put in our hearts continues to pour over into words of praise to Him. 

(You can find more photos of our time in Haarlem and Cologne here.)

Whensday: Summer Solstice

Almost every Sunday evening I get to have a video call with my best friend. He has been my best friend since Junior High and is the one who brought me to Christ. We consider each other brothers (which we are in Christ). He calls around 9:30 in the evening my time, which is the beginning of afternoon for him, and we pray together. It doesn’t usually last too long, unless I get talking. 

This past Sunday was Father’s Day in the US and he and all of his kids (he has 4 girls and a boy), together with his lovely wife were celebrating outside in their backyard. He checked in to say hi and I got to wave to the girls. Then he commented on something that I have come to take for granted: “Is it still light there?” I flipped the camera and showed him the still light evening, sunlight fading in the background. Where he lives, the sun sets around 8pm at the very latest. 

This is one of the things that I truly enjoy about where we live and miss when we are visiting in the US. In the Summer, the sun sets at about 10pm. This is of course especially true around this week. The longest day of the year is June 20 or 21, the Summer Solstice. Further north, like in Sweden or Norway, or in places like Stonehenge, there are special celebrations for this day. There is nothing like that in Belgium or the Netherlands, but we all enjoy the long days. 

Sometimes this looks like concerts being enjoyed in the evening light. Other times you can go out for an evening walk (trying to get a bit cool after what is for people here a very warm day) and smell people still barbecuing, hear them laughing out in the yard. People here are always looking for as much sun as they can get. If that means staying up until the sun sets, then they will do it. Getting up at the same time the sun rises is a different question entirely. 

This Summer Solstice the congregation in Maastricht will be down at camp for the day. This has become a bit of a tradition for us as a church family. We take time to be together in this wonderful place, encouraging one another, getting to know each other better and enjoying the beauty of camp in the Ardennes. We will eat, sing together, discuss God’s word, take a walk through the woods and know that we are family that belongs to God. 

And I look forward to even longer days. God promises us eternity together with Him. The sun will not set and we will have enough time to do all the things that are the most important. That is part of what this time of year reminds me of. 

Bible camp birthdays

Since Saturday last we have been down at camp. This was actually posted early, along with the Wednesday post, because I knew that we would not be able to post normally. This time of year is always busy with Bible camp - and it is often the time that I get to celebrate my birthday. 

I remember as a kid that I was alternately happy and sad that my birthday was not during the school year, but instead during the summer vacation. That meant that no one from school really knew that it was my birthday. It also meant that I didn’t get to celebrate it in any way with school mates. But on the other hand, I didn’t have to celebrate it with anyone I didn’t really want to. So that was a blessing. 

Here in Belgium (and in the Netherlands as well) birthdays are times for the birthday boy or girl to invite people over and serve them. One should usually stay at home because people will be calling to wish one a Happy Birthday. This who come over (and they are often expected to simply come over) are to be welcomed and served coffee and tea along with cake - by the birthday boy or girl. When you are young you bring small treats for the whole class if your birthday is during the school year. 

I have seldom had to do any of this. That is because I am usually down at Bible camp on my birthday. The Benjamin week is usually the 4th week of July, which would include my birthday. Although I do not always direct the Benjamin week (or teach), I have done for quite some years. In fact, the first summer we arrived I taught the Benjamins. 

This year Benjamin Camp starts on Saturday, July 27. So I will have welcomed the campers with a small treat and they will probably have sung for me. There will be others during the week who also celebrate their birthday. The beauty of such a day is that you are with good friends in a beautiful place celebrating a life with and in God’s love. 

In the congregation in Maastricht we pray and sing for those who have celebrated a birthday the week before the Sunday. Of course I will miss “my” Sunday since we will be at camp. But I expect I will still be “put in the circle” the Sunday after we get back from camp. It is good to know that we are part of family in so many places. And it is exciting to know that God is willing to have used us and still uses us in so many ways wherever we are. 

The photo is of my birthday in 2012. I am the crazy guy with the crown. You can see more photo’s of that week by clicking on the photo)

Wild wonderful Wednesday

This is the first 5th Wednesday this year that I have been able to write. So we are going to do things a little bit differently. I won’t be taking you to any spots near our house. Instead I will take you far away.

When Shirley and I started our life together we had no idea of what was to be in our future, but we wanted to face it with a smile and courage. So we made even our difficult times an “adventure”. If something was an adventure, then we could handle it and enjoy it. We did not have the possibility to travel much in the beginning, so even our walks out and around became adventures. We named our feet (mine were Ralph and Fred) and asked how they had enjoyed the adventure to the muddy swamp at the edge of the field, for example. 

And through the years we have had some amazing adventures. When we had our first car, we went to help pick someone up in Forth Worth, Texas. Unfortunately, our car broke down somewhere on the highway in Fort Worth before we could get to the young man we were to pick up. We spent the next few days walking from the cheapest hotel we found near a garage we found willing to tow our car. We had just enough money. We got coffee at the McDonald’s, purchased some cheese and bananas at a little supermarket and prayed that the garage would work out a deal with us. For two days we walked back and forth between the cheap hotel, the supermarket and the garage. I can still remember the smell of the asphalt of Forth Worth. 

Then there was the visit to the hotel in San Antonio, Texas a few years later. We wanted to visit San Antonio because that is where Scott was born. As we arrived downtown in our brand new second hand little station wagon, baby Stephan in the baby seat in the back, a pick-up truck turned left through our green light and smashed our cute little car to bits. 

Everyone seemed fine. Somehow (we still do not remember how) we got to the hotel we had planned to stay at and we made an adventure of the next few days wondering how we would get back to Abilene. That was solved by a brother (Bob Gorsline) who was traveling through and was able to take us with him. We never did see the Alamo, although we were able to purchase a sombrero. Ralph and Fred had a good time. 

But our adventures were not restricted to Texas, nor were they all difficult times. Between the two Texas adventures we traveled to Europe on a survey trip to see if we would be able to do missions there. This was before Stephan arrived and we had a Eurail ticket which meant we could travel all over Europe with the train. Ralph and Fred were excited. We would often plan our trip so that we could sleep in the train, saving costs. 

We walked up the hill to the castle in Salzburg, Austria. At least, we walked a good part of the way. Shirley did not do well with the altitude, so it was slow going. But we made it. In Greece we walked through the market and up to Mars Hill, imagining what the apostle Paul saw when he had been in the same places. We ran through the narrow streets of Venice as we hurried to get back to the train station after a day visiting the canals and bridges and glassblowers. And in Bremen we walked calmly through a park, finally sitting on a bench as we waited and prayed for a lost passport and Eurail pass which finally showed up when we returned to the train station. 

This past weekend we met up with our Chinese professor friend who is hosting her mother in the coming weeks. They told of the trips they will take to Paris, Rome, Venice and Munich. It reminded us of the journeys and adventures we have had. Life is exciting if you can make it an adventure. And oh the stories you have when all is said and done!

Where have you been? Where are you going? What adventures have you experienced? What adventures await you? Ralph and Fred still enjoy everything I throw at them. Walk with joy and courage. Walk with God and it will be great.