A Lesson in Belgian Weather

Today I learned a lot about Belgium weather. Mainly that it is unpredictable and prone to wild mood swings. We got up this morning to drizzling wet, cold weather, so we dressed in layers and headed out to the church. When we reached the church it had stopped raining.

Hugh took us through a devotional on Matthew 5:13-16, being salt and light. It was good to spend some time discussing and praying about our need as the church to be a Christ-like influence on a land oppressed by spiritual darkness. We should stand out because we have Christ, we should offer something preserving and useful – and if we aren’t we need to ask ourselves why we don’t and do something about it.

After the devotional Milt, Don, Jim, Hugh and Erin stayed with Eddy at the church and did some serious painting, bricklaying, and they cleaned out a large brick shed and tore the rotted, leaky roof off. The times I saw them Erin was at the top of a ladder 2 stories high painting away, Jim, Milt and Erin were paint covered, Eddy had a trowel in hand, and Don and Hugh had pieces of roof all over them. It was truly impressive:

Eddy, the brains behind the work. We're all proud to be his grunt labor.

A little backward, but my tech support is asleep... this is the finished product.

Before


Erin's high wire act

Don's literally through the roof. They were ripping it off in armfuls.

Hugh was literally shoveling out the shed

Val, Sheri, Scott and I went out once again with Martin to put flyers in mailboxes. I’ll ask Martin tomorrow how many we have done, but it’s a lot, in the thousands. Scott and I have decided that if we continue to walk a solid 5 hours a day after returning home, we could continue eating all this wonderful food, too.

This is a 'road' connecting to some houses I was assigned to give flyers to

Martin, the man with the plan for flyers

But back to the weather. All of us out walking started peeling off layers once the sun started working, and were down to t-shirts and feeling very sticky by lunch. After lunch we headed back to our respective duties, but we left some layers of clothes behind. Mistake. It started getting grey, then drizzling with a cold wind starting up.

But it’s ok, it passed quickly… just enough time for the painting crew to pack things up and get inside… and the sun came back out and it warmed up a bit again… and they unpacked everything and got started painting again. It rained after dinner, then the sun came back out afterward for our walk. We asked Eddy and Gaby, ‘How can we know how to dress for this weather??” They just laughed at us.

We also had two encouraging encounters today! Val was walking down the street and a man was walking toward her. They were doing that “You look familiar, but I don’t know if I should say anything” look back and forth when he said, “American?” She said yes, and he said he was at the BBQ last night. He went on to say how much he enjoyed it and thank her for all of us putting it together.

Then Val and Sheri were sitting in a bus stop waiting for Martin and I to come pick them up, and a police car pulls up and opens the door asking them if the bus forgot them. The policeman was at the BBQ last night also, and recognized them. He also was saying he really enjoyed the BBQ, it was a lot of fun. He just wanted to make sure they were ok and not lost or anything. We had no idea last night that he was a policeman. He was just a neighborhood man who came and had his daughter’s hands painted.

It was very encouraging to know some people on the street and have them be smiling and happy to see us.

On a more serious note…

This evening Scott and I had a wonderful talk with Eddy and Gaby and got some sobering insight into the Christian church in Belgium. Apparently there was a strong Christian church in Belgium up until the 1600s, but then Christians were persecuted and martyred and fled the country. Many went to the Netherlands and the ‘New World’. After that, the first Evangelical church started again in this district in 1973 (roughly). Eddy and Gaby became believers a few years after that. They were telling us how dear Milt and Val are to them, and also our church for coming to smile, laugh, paint, pray and just share with them. They said, “We have the words on the page about how to live the Christian life, but we don’t see it from anyone so we can know how to really do it.”

I’ve begun to feel spoiled for my attitude at times in America. Sometimes I feel we Christians who truly want to be more Christlike are so outnumbered and dismissed by our American culture. But being here has shown me how rich we are by comparison. The teaching that is at our fingertips daily and in our church every week, the choices of Christian groups to attend… Do I want to do women’s Thursday morning Bible study or Wednesday morning Community Bible Study? Should we join Awana with the kids, or Pioneer Girls? You know, what I really wish is that our Children’s Sunday School (which meets two services for my convenience, has excellent curriculum and wonderful teachers both my girls and I love) would change [insert nit-picky thing here]… the list goes on. Please understand, I am not pointing fingers at anyone but myself in this!

But here our new, dear friends are part of only a few dozen of believers in their whole area. Nele and Chinanja, engaged university students, are part of the only Evangelical church in their city. It is eight people large… and seven of those people are their own family. Sobering isn’t it?
I am thankful for and humbled by these wonderful, generous brothers and sisters who continue to quietly and persistently serve the Lord, even if they spend their days as the only one. My heart hurts for some of their struggles, and yet I am so encouraged by their faith and perseverance.

Time for me to join tech support (a.k.a. Scott) and crash for the night. Good night all.