Happy August

Well, it seems that with the turn of the month the weather here is starting to seem more like a typical summer in the Netherlands. The perpetual rain for the last two or three weeks seems to have stopped along with the unusually cool temperatures (it wasn’t uncommon to see people wearing jackets). I had a visitor for a quick couple of days, John from the small group of undergraduate men I led while in seminary. He had just finished a summer language program in Germany and had a few days to spare before catching his flight back to Chicago. Unfortunately, the rain dampened things a bit, but we were able to do some of the touristy things in the area together like going to the Euromast. Here’s a view from the top.

Norma, one of our church members works for the Hendrik Kraemer Instituut in Utrecht. One of the services provided by the Institute is language and conversational training for pastors and missionaries. She recruited me to come up one day and spend some time in conversation with the new Moderator of the Protestantse Kerk Nederland (a Dutch denomination formed as a merger between the Reformed and Lutheran churches). His new role will require a lot of travel in the near future and speaking engagements in English. To help him build up his ability, he’s spending time with various native English-speakers to talk about specific topics of relevance to the denomination. Later in the afternoon I had some time to simply walk around Utrecht — the ancient spiritual center of the Netherlands — and visit the tower of the Domkerk, still the highest church tower in the country.

I mentioned before in my last post that cruiseships are a more common site these days. Just to give you a glimpse of how close they are to where I live, I snapped this photo just as one of them was about to depart the Port of Rotterdam and continue on its way. The view is directly out of my bedroom window.

Our summer Bible study continues to be both a challenge and a blessing: a challenge to reduce an entire book of the Bible down into a one-hour or so overview (!) and a blessing to hear the insights and questions that our lively group brings each Wednesday. We have people from Nigeria (Hi, Ediri, I know you’re reading this!), Aruba, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, England, and probably a country or two that I’ve left out. After the first few studies, I finally hit upon a method that seems to work well for such a compacted study: spend half the time giving background information on the book being studies, particularly historical details that might not be evident from simply reading the book; followed by a more open group time where we share a bit more in-depth on a particular story or text chosen by the group members. We’re nearing the end. Upcoming studies are Ephesians, Hebrews, and Revelation.

Wednesdays are generally the busiest day for me. After getting up and ready for the day and spending some time in prayer and reflection, I leave my apartment and walk to the church. About halfway in-between, I stop by the Albert Heijn market to pick-up a coca-cola and some spicey peanuts along with one of the free daily newspapers. Once at the church, I’m focused on “Mamre,” the ministry with asylum seekers, until the middle of the afternoon. Sometimes I have another appointment after that, sometimes I use the time to prepare a few things for Bible study, and sometimes I just take a nap! In the evening, I’m back at the church for Bible study and then get a quick bite to eat before heading home for the night.

Speaking of Mamre, we took some time out on Tuesday for a brief outing to the town of Delft, about 15 minutes away. I think of Delft as being a kind of mini-Amsterdam, but without all the people. The town is important in Dutch history because it was the place where William of Orange was assassinated way back before any of us were born during the country’s revolt against Spanish rule. Here’s a candid shot from the afternoon out:

The “Friends” working group met once again to move forward with plans for the fall semester and preparations for the annual influx of international students (of which Rotterdam has the highest number in the country).  Jan Brinkman and I also had a meeting to explore my possible future involvement with the organization sometime in the future beyond Rotterdam. Please keep this in your prayers as I continue to prayerfully discern the way forward.

We are also continuing work on setting up at least two “pilot” home groups in the southwest area of the city. We have a small core of people who are enthusiastic about the idea and now we simply need to find a time to meet that works with everyones’ schedules and a small-group model that would be easily adapted for use by the group. With summer vacations upon us, we may have to continue our plans in September.