Mrs. Europe

Recently our European missionary staff had its annual meeting and staff retreat.  This gathering serves 2 goals:  the first being to do mission business, sharing updates, challenges, joys and frustrations and gathering the many stories of how we see God at work across Europe.  The second goal is a time of training, and this year we met Mrs. Europe.  Our speaker, a European, personified Europe as Mrs. Europe, which made this vast continent come alive for me in ways that I had never considered.  She has a home, and invites us to come and stay with her. We need to take time to hear her story, a story characterized by war/conflict/tension.  Mrs. Europe is the mother of a family, but it's a family divide by divorce and one in which reconciliation still hasn't happened today.  There is a small surviving Christian family in Europe, and we have to connect with that family.  He taught on how the church is the uniting force when all other things are falling apart.  We talked about the role of the international Christian community in Europe (obviously a subject close to our hearts as our local congregation represents 30+ nationalities). 

In looking to the future, we learned of how the future of mission in Europe is spelled m-i-g-r-a-t-i-o-n. We have to be mindful, as we teach, challenge and mentor the future generation in our churches, that we are preparing a new generation for intentional international Christian communities.  We also looked at Acts 13 from the New Testament, how no one was from Antioch in this the earliest Christian community.  Already in the time just after the life and death of Jesus Christ, Jesus followers were an international group!           

Art projects from our family fun night

I just had to include this cute cat~

The view from the window

When we got back home to Belgium, to our community at AIPC, our hearts were filled with gratitude as we look at this internationally international community of Jesus followers working out their faith as each one tries their best to navigate the path for growth in their journey with God here in Europe.  Last Sunday, as we celebrated giving thanks (of course, for us Americans, giving thanks has to happen in November, right??!), as I watched one little girl dancing in the school cafeteria as we waited for the dessert table, I realized this child was such a great reflection of who we are.  Already at age 4, she's speaking 2 languages at home with her parents, fighting in Flemish with her older siblings (that's the language that they're learning at school, so it often becomes the language for play and sibling rivalry!), she's also being exposed to English in her children's church classes at AIPC.  And she's dancing in the joy of the Lord!

De Arch van Noach (commonly known in English as Noah's Ark)

For all of you who have ever read about Noah’s Ark in Genesis (the first book of the Bible),  you probably have wondered what was the real size of such an ark….what did it look like….how did people live in it…..how did you go to the bathroom in an ark? (some of the questions being asked by our 7-9 year old kids in Children’s Church at AIPC). 

Well, wonder no more.  You can visit a replica of Noah’s Ark, if you happen to be anywhere near to Dordrecht, The Netherlands.  Since we’re just about an hour away here in Antwerp, Belgium, a group of us from church (we were 20+, old and young alike), decided to climb up into the ark and have a look around.  Whether you were young and fascinated by the elephants and zebras and many little birds, (and trying to figure out which ones were real and which were fake animals!), or you were older and tried to figure out how did this thing actually work in Noah’s time, it was an amazing experience.

Think about it:

~God told Noah to build an ark.  And Noah did it.

~God protected all of his creation by commanding Noah to bring 2 of each variety of animal into the ark with him.

~It rained and poured for 40 days (anyone remember the Sunday School song “it rained and poured for 40 day-se, day-se, nearly drove those animals crazy, crazy”?!)

~So many of the details of the flood are mysterious, i.e. only God could pull off a wonder like that….yet the fact remains:  God saved his creation.  He had a purpose in it all.

~And just in case you wondered what Noah's first view of earth might have been after the flood.....