I can claim to be officially Dutch now. Like everyone else in the country, I’ve had my bike stolen. I chained it up near a clump of other bikes in the city center on the way to a movie with a friend and when I came back it was gone. The lock was lying on the ground. Part of it looked as if it had been chewed off. The bike is not a great loss since it was a a kind of bea-up second-hand one that someone donated to the church. Nevertheless, it was fun riding it around town.
Yesterday, I spent the afternoon visiting with one of the directors for campus ministry with the Navigators in the Netherlands. They have their offices in a small suburb of Utrecht called Driebergen, in the same building as the Wycliffe Bible Translators. The Navigators have experienced significant growth in student ministry in the Netherlands over the last few years and are needing to add more staff to spearhead various programs. The whole organization is a bit different from its U.S. counterpart in that the university groups are organized like fraternities. One of their needs at the moment is for someone to work with international students.
Some of you have already downloaded my recent newsletter. I had to update it a bit after I discovered that one of the graphics doesn’t display properly if you’re downloading it from a Windows-based computer (specifically, in the article about the Alpha group, the Alpha logo — a man carrying a large question-mark — doesn’t show up). So, when you have a chance, take a look at it again (and if someone can tell me whether or not they see a man carrying a large question-mark, that would be helpful!).
On Saturday, I spent some time with a Polish man about my age who survives mainly by doing odd jobs here and there. The evening turned out to be somewhat bizarre, but also one filled with opportunities to extend basic pastoral care. Soon after I met my friend in the center of the city, he discovered that he had lost about 50 euros (about $65). We retraced his steps back across the Willemsbrug (William’s Bridge) to a small hill that overlooks the River Maas. When we got there, a small group of school children were preparing to launch a hot-air balloon about the size of a small child. We watched as it sailed up, up, and away into the sky until we could no longer see it. It was just around sunset and we were concerned that flights over the country could possibly run into it! Just then, the children launched a second one. It, too, followed the same path as the first and disappeared into the night. A few people on the bridge stopped to look. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a camera with me, otherwise I would have taken a picture. But I do have one of the Willemsbrug below.
When we returned to the city center (the 50 euros were long gone), we decided to have a little snack at the Burger King , not the most exciting meal, I know, but it was cheap and we weren’t in the mood for anything fancy. While we were eating, a woman who looked a bit disheveled came in and asked us for a cigarette. We didn’t have any, so she bummed one from someone at another table. She sat down at the table next to us, however, and I noticed she was shaking and seemed nervous. My friend and I engaged her in conversation and discovered she had run away from home in France and was wandering around the Netherlands. When I started to speak in French to her, she began to open up a bit more, but I was careful not to press too deeply about why she had run away. After a while I offered to buy her something to eat, which she accepted, and invited her to come to the lunch that we have every Wednesday at the church.
Just a word about Burger King and other fast food restaurants here. In most of Europe, you have to pay for each little packet of ketchup or mayonaisse that you want and there are no free refills on the soft drinks or coffee. Everything costs something! Normally, I would have opted for something better than Burger King, but its the only thing open really late in the city center. And, in this case, going to Burger King turned out to be an opportunity to be the presence of Christ to someone who needed it.
After my friend and I left, I went to retrieve my bicycle wich I borrow from the church. You may already know that biking is a popular (and cheap!) way of getting from place to place in the country. There are bike lanes everywhere and even at intersections there are separate traffic lights for the bike them. In fact, the Netherlands has the highest porportion of bike users of any country in Europe (Denmark is #2, in case you were interested). Unfortunately, bike theft is rampant in the country. So, most people ride well-used bikes that no one would want to steal anyway rather than something nice, new, and shiney! My bike from the church is no exception. The gears stick from time to time; part of the frame is starting to rust, and it makes a grinding noise from time to time. But for cheap transport, you can’t beat it! Here’s a picture of one of the stoplights along a bike path. In the photo you can also see a little sign to the right with a picture of a bicycle on it indicating that the bike path has traffic in both directions.
Finally, a word about the Wednesday night Bible study group that I’m leading. We had quite a lively discussion during out last session as we took a whirlwind tour of the four Gospels. One of the questions in the study guide we’re using suggested that “the most important event in history was the life of Christ.” One of our group members sparked a lively discussion by saying that she felt the book was wrong. “Why,” she asked, “would the life of Christ be any more important than other events in the Bible such as the creation of the universe, or the Exodus out of Israel?” Her question provided a good platform for showing how in the Christian faith Christ is at the center of history and of our lives. The Bible study group always keeps me on my toes!
One of the big events in Dutch news over the past few days has been the birth of a third child, a daughter, to the country’s Crown Prince. In the rest of the world, no one takes notice, but in a small country like the Netherlands with a royal family, this is big news. Newspapers and television stations across the country have already carried pictures of the little girl and her proud parents.
Speaking of news, the other item of note here has been the recent deaths of the students at Virginia Tech. One of those who died was a Dutch man who was on the university’s basketball team. When I went into the post office the following day to mail some letters, I told the man behind the counter that “I’d like to send these four letters to the United States, please.” He said something to me in Dutch that I didn’t entirely understand but I caught the gist of it which was, “let’s hope they make it through the bullets.” The woman who normally works behind the counter just rolled her eyes at him.
On a lighter note, I decided I needed a haircut this week. There happens to be (or so I thought) a hair salon within walking distance of my apartment that I’ve passed by many times. The sign says “Cafe, Kapsalon, Kebab, Pizzeria” (Kapsalon means “hair salon” in Dutch). I was always a bit unsure about the place because I could clearly see people eating in what looked like a Turkish cafe, but there never seemed to be any sign of a hair salon. This time I decided to walk-in and ask.
Well, I walked in, and asked the man working there if I needed to make an appointment to get my hair cut. He just looked at me like I was crazy. Realizing that something was wrong, I nicely pointed out that the sign outside his shop says “kapsalon.” He started to laugh hysterically and explained that a “kapsalon” is also the name of a Turkish dish which for some strange reason just happens to be the same name in Dutch for a hair salon. We had a good laugh over it together, and he offered me a free taste of a “kapsalon.” Needless to say, I won’t be going there for a haircut (but I will return for some yummy food!).
As I write this, we are in the wee hours of Easter Monday, a holiday throughout much of Europe. I’ve just put the finishing touchs on my first newsletter which you can dowload by clicking on the “Newsletters” tab above.
Blessings,
Brian
Happy Easter! Christ is risen! As I write this, it is just after midnight on Easter Day here in the Netherlands and I’ve just come back from an Easter Vigil service at one of the Dutch-speaking churches here in Rotterdam. As we departed the service, each person was given a gift of a white rose as a symbol of new life. One could hear the bells of the church ringing out over the city just before the start of the service. That may not seem unusual, but it attracted a lot of attention from people gathered in nearby cafes and restaurants. The site of horde of people going into a church at 9:00pm on a Saturday night is not a common site in the Netherlands (nor is the site of them coming out again at 11:00pm carrying white roses!).
The last few days have been spent getting caught up on all kinds of stuff (I won’t bore you with the details here) just after the Covenant EuroRetreat in Iruz, a small village near the northern coast of Spain. The retreat was an opportunity for all the personnel from the Evangelical Covenant Church working in Europe to come together for a few days. We stayed in an old monastery built in the 9th century that had been modernized and converted into a facility for public use. Fortunately, much of the place still felt ancient, and on more than one occasion a few of us used the excellent accoustics in a bell tower to belt out a few ancient hymns in four-part harmony. Before we knew it we had attracted a small crowd who came to listen to our “concert.”
I was blessed to be able to re-connect with my good friend and seminary roommate who is currently working in Sweden, and another classmate who just recently arrived in Belgium (we’re practically neighbors, since she’s only 2 1/2 hours away by train). In fact, someone at the retreat told us that we were in a news article from the denomination’s news service. You can read it by clicking here. Of course, there were opportunities to connect with new colleagues as well and to hear about there work in various parts of Europe.
Before running off to Spain, however, I received a visit from the denomination’s new regional coordinator for work in Europe. As it turns out, he had lived in the Netherlands several years ago in Amsterdam and attended the English Reformed Church, the sister church of the Scots International Church. They’re a few years older than us, having been founded in 1607, while we’re simply the younger sister, having been founded in 1643.
I had hoped to have a real newsletter available by now, but other projects have been screeming for attention. But, it will come soon enough!
Blessings,
Brian
Mission: Rotterdam 2007 