On any Sunday morning at the Antwerp International Protestant Church, you will find the congregation coming together to worship and share God's love. For years, we have always sung the tune "Give thanks with a grateful heart". In keeping with a very helpful image that a pastor from Kansas shared with Steve and I before our return to Belgium this past June ("You are going to establish new relationships with people and a place that you have history with"), we have done a few things at home and in our places of ministry to help us remember the "new" in relationships as we settle in to life again in Belgium. For example, at home, we've moved the furniture around and put the wall hangings in new places. At AIPC, we now sing a new song of thanks as a part of our worship. It goes like this:
Today I'm especially rejoicing in the words of this new song. We sensed it on the Sunday back in August, as we brought the team of VBS volunteers forward in worship to be dedicated to service and prayed over as we began our week with the kids "These are the plans, O Lord, we've made". In the course of this past week, there have been a lot of planning meetings, and some meetings yet to come this weekend: planning the outreach ministry at the local center for asylum seekers/refugees, planning the fall season of children's church, planning the youth and family ministries at AIPC. Without a full time youth work (for now!), we are depending on the talents and gifts of the local church to meet the needs that are staring us in the face just now. What a sense of peace in my heart today - amidst all the plans already made, and those yet to be made - that these are the plans we get to offer to God. Whether they are His plans or not, that remains to be seen!
Stay tuned.......
