mijn blog

I had an assignment in my Dutch as a second language class to write a blog post about life in Belgium. I thought I would post it here. The clever among you can no doubt figure out what it's about.


Ik vind België een heel interessant land, doordat het is een land met veel geschiedenis. Ik heb naar plaatsen van de eerste en de tweede wereld oorloogs gegaan. Bastogne is een speciaal plaats voor mij want mijn nonkel heeft in de "Battle of the Bulge" gevechten. De "In Flanders Fields" musea in Ieper maakt mij droevig. De muziek, de beelden, en de verhalen brengen de realiteit aan de historische gebeurtenissen. Er zijn ook kastelen, meesterwerken van de kunst, kathedralen, en diverse andere interessante dingen. Maar het meest speciaal deel van België is het volk.

De mensen van België hebben een reputatie voor zijn verlegen en gesloten. Dat is niet mijn ervaring. We hebben veel vrienden in onze buurt, onze kerk, en de school van onze kindjes. We hebben vriendelijkheid en gastvrijheid gezien. We hebben ook vrienden van over de hele wereld. We hebben in onze nederlands cursussen mensen van Noord en Zuid Amerika, Europa, Azië, Afrika en Australië ontmoet. Hebben we in our English cursussen Mensen van Noord en Zuid Amerika, Europa, Azië, Afrika en Australië Ontmoet.

Waarom niet komen en zie voor jezelf?

Germans in the Woods

This summer (thanks to a conference that took us to southwest Belgium) we had the opportunity to visit Bastogne and the Battle of the Bulge memorial. I recently stumbled across this video from an interesting website called StoryCorps. I think you will find it interesting.

StoryCorps » Germans in the Woods

hiding our weakness

I often find a desire in myself to hide the fact that “ik ben Amerikan.” Mostly I want to hide my lack of proficiency with Dutch. You might say I try to hide my weakness...

for the rest of this post go to the Ichtus Blog where several Ichtus staff and I regularly post. I'm the only one who posts in English, but hopefully soon my Dutch will be good enough to change that.

the hammock

This weekend we started enjoying a hammock. There is kind of a long story that goes with it (but I'll try to keep it brief). One of the things we discovered in our shed when we moved into our house in Gent was a hammock. A friend told us he had inspected it and it would need cleaning and repair because mice had defiled it (in that special mouse way that makes you want to set fire to something and then go take a shower). Last summer was full of tiring activities like learning to ride the bus, waiting for our number to be called at the city's administrative building, and shopping for second hand furniture. We never got around to cleaning and repairing the hammock (nor did we burn it and take a shower). A few days ago my wife was apparently overcome by the need to relax. So she moved cleaning the hammock 48 positions up the to-do list, right to the top. Bleach, detergent, broom, garden hose, these were the tools of her toil. Well, we found out a couple things. 1) It wasn't mice, it was rats (as evidenced by skeletal remains...maybe we've been watching too many cop dramas lately). And 2) the damage wasn't as bad as we expected. Today was a gorgeous day in Gent. I helped Trina move the hammock into a shady spot and instead of a normal Sunday afternoon nap she upgraded to a hammock nap. When the kids came out from their conventional naps they wanted to be with their mom on the hammock (that is, they wanted to be on the hammock their mom happened to occupy). And this evening after putting the kids to bed we laid on the hammock, read a bit, and talked our way to dusk. We also decided it was time to light the giant citronella candle we also inherited in our shed. So the hammock (and to a lesser degree the candle) saved us from a mind-numbing expedition into tv land.

So here's what you learn about missionary life.
1) Missionaries should all have a story involving rats (or at least the skeletal remains of one).
2) Missionaries often need a little help to relax.
3) Missionaries usually can't just go out and buy a new _______(insert whatever item is damaged, lost, stolen, or defiled by rodents).
4) God seems to know just what missionaries need. Sometimes someone pulls into our driveway and delivers it for him, and sometimes he makes us get out the bleach.

OK. Maybe these things don't apply to all missionaries, but it's part of our story. We're thankful all the time for people who have been called to places where the rat stories and other hardships are serious. But God has called us here, to a pleasant neighborhood in a beautiful city. And if he's called you to small town South Dakota life, or if you're someone proving indeed you can go anywhere from here*, please be faithful and press on.

*the motto of South Dakota State University

photo tour of Belgium

For those of you who are curious about where we live, are considering a vacation to Europe, or are procrastinating, here's a brief video tour of Flanders.

de-baptism catching on in Flanders

To do list:

1) make a Living Will

2) get an organ donor card

3) get de-baptised from the Catholic church

Here's an excerpt from an article in Flanders Today about an interesting trend in Belgium.

“I became a member of the church when I was three days old. I had no choice in the matter. Now, 36 years later, I want them to cross my name out of the register.” Last week TV presenter and Mechelen alderwoman Kristl Strubbe informed her Facebook followers how to become “de-baptised” as a Roman Catholic.

Read the article in its entirety here.

Halftime Weekend Video

One of my colleagues put this video together. Enjoy.