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| Can you guess the story behind this silly picture? |
| My birthday is March 3rd, and having married into a family that celebrates the tradition of breakfast in bed for the birthday girl, I was already feeling quite spoiled that I was treated with a Swedish oven pancake on a Sunday morning. You need to understand the Sunday morning routine in our home: Steve is often up by 6am and working and praying in the office as he prepares for Sunday morning worship at AIPC. So I wasn't expecting breakfast in bed, since I figured he was already quite busy. Then there was another surprise: yummy chocolate cake, complete with yummy chocolate frosting (did I mention that the cake was yummy!) at church, complete with the entire congregation singing to me. What a great feeling to be so celebrated. And then there was International Women's Day, which is always celebrated around the world on March 8th.....celebrated around the world but not in the US, go figure! We started our celebration on Thursday, as we made beautiful jewelry with the women who would be celebrating together on the next day. On Friday, the group of volunteers who works with refugees locally began cooking and spreading the appetizers on the crackers, setting the tables beautifully with table linens, flowers and spring colors to chase away the winter grays. There was a song to welcome each country that was represented by the women who came to the celebration. What fun to see their joy and pride as their country's flag was flown around the room. Lots of photo ops this day, as we were all dressed so beautifully in honor of Women's Day. |
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| Some of the beauty that showed up on the beauties!
And in case you were thinking that the celebrations were over and done with all in one day, the party kept going on! At our local church that Sunday after International Women's Day, we, the women of the Antwerp International Protestant Church, took over. We were responsible for the singing, the ushering, the greeting, bringing the flowers, leading worship, and preaching. And all of this in the midst of the drama stage set-up at the school where we meet for worship! If you've ever been to AIPC, you won't recognize this next picture which shows you where the pulpit was for the morning. I love that "we are the church", that "the church" for us has little to do with a building but rather it's a body of Christ followers who are meeting to lift praises to God and to make what is a common theater arts building during the week a place of holy ground on a Sunday morning.
And for those inquiring minds....the silly picture at the beginning of this post was taken at the international women's day party. It's a silly cheeks mask that I'm wearing ~ not sure why that mask showed up at the party, but it was totally worth all the laughing and great smiles that made for a fun day of celebration.
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