Whatsit Wednesday: Bookbag on a flagpole or "hanging out the flag"

The last several weeks the Netherlands has become a country of book bags. As you drive through the city you will see them: book bags hanging out on the flagpole under a flapping Dutch flag. This shows that there is a graduate at that house. Everyone is happy. And everyone can know it.

In the Netherlands when you are in your senior year of high school, you can look forward to exams at the ends of the year. Not just any exams. Not just end of year exams. These exams are for your whole school time. These state exams test if you have truly learned all that the schools say you have learned, from beginning to end. There is no cramming for the exam this year and then forgetting it. Everything you have learned will be on this test. 

After the exam, students go home and wait anxiously. They have to wait for a call from their teacher. They will be called one way or the other, but of course they hope to hear that hey have passed. There are tons of examples of students picking up the phone and listening intently to the news given before exploding in joy that they have passed or silently putting the phone down to wonder what their summer will look like. If you do not pass now, you can still re-take the exams and hope to pass the second time. 

But if the scream of joy was heard in your house, then the book bag is ready to be hung out. These leather bags are typical of what the student has been using throughout high school, biking or bussing to school every day for the last 6 years or so. And now everyone in the street can celebrate with eh graduate. Everyone knows. It is not uncommon for neighbors walking by to congratulate the family or whoever is outside at the time. 

It is time

We are dealing with some basic realities, in our home life and in our work. Reality: there always comes a time of doing after the time of planning and preparation.

At the end of August, after several official years of planning (and several more unofficial years), our Bible camp site finally got official permission to begin with the renovation works that we have been planning for so long. We want so much to be able to make better use of the facilities we have in the Ardennes. If all goes as planned and as God wills, we will have a new meeting hall in the Spring and everything will be ready next summer to welcome our summer campers.

But before that could happen, the old hall needed to be taken care of - torn down. The old fiberglass roof which rained on the inside just wasn't getting the job done. When it rained, the holes in the roof leaked. When it wasn't raining, the moisture would often condense on the roof and rain down anyway. The windows on one side of the hall came from a different era. We had double glass on one side of the hall and plexiglass - actually simply plastic on wooden frames - on the other side. A lot of hard and loving labor went into making this hall. Years of great lessons and fellowship in what the various churches created here for each other. But now it was time to move on.
So we did. It was time. You can see some of the pictures (and maybe you already have) as well as a video showing some of the fun in getting the demolition done. It was a bittersweet labor of love. But we are looking forward to what will take its place and how we will be able to enjoy that.

At home, we have enjoyed watching Sean grow up. He has shown interest in so many things. His first plan was to be a professional football (soccer) player - and he was very adamant that he would do it! And he still enjoys playing, but that is not where his interest lies. Then he talked about having his own business, but in the end - somewhat out of the blue, though not completely - he is moving over to Brussels to study film.
In the last months we have prepared by finding out about the metro and the train (he will come home each weekend with the train and will use the metro to get around Brussels), about what he needs for school, visiting Brussels, setting up his room (he will be staying with good friends Bill and DeeDee Bundy) and getting things ready back at home. Sean still plans on working each Saturday and rehearsing or performing with his band as well.

Brussels - what a mix!

But there comes a time when it will start. And today it was time. On Sean's birthday (for all his life until now he always spent his birthday at school - it is the first day of school here) we went to Brussels with most of his things. Today we took the last bits and left him behind there, with advice and admiration, our prayers and admonitions. This week he will get used to living in Brussels before he really starts classes next week.

We are so thankful for the things that God allows us to see in this life - the work that He is completing in so many people. We are thankful that we can be part of that and will keep planning and doing each day, because it IS time.