Miracles in our midst

I read this line recently in an article about TCKs (third culture kids). “I love that they go deep quickly.  They understand so well the value of right now.  It doesn’t take them years to make friends because they may not have years.” http://www.thecultureblend.com/?p=2035  Having been around TCKs for the last 20+ years as I’ve been involved in cross cultural ministry outside of the US, I am fascinated by how TCKs work and think, and how they mature and embrace life and language and diversity in ways that I’ve never experienced before in my years of living.

But I find myself reflecting that these same words apply to the people who are a part of my immigrant and refugee world here in Belgium.  Case in point:  last Sunday we hosted a home group of new believers here in our home. People from different countries who speak a common language; people who are also now speaking a new common language, that of following Jesus Christ.  I literally watched miracles in our midst, as a pot of chili that was cooked to feed 10-12 made it all the way around the table for 17 of us!  It’s as though Jesus was there in my living room, feeding the 5,000 that had arrived on our doorstep.  We didn’t even have to say FHB to each other: (“family hold back”, a lovely phrase that I learned from my missionary colleague Karen Benson, which translated in this particular setting meant that Steve and I weren’t going to get a bowl of chili).  In the end, there was enough to go around.  We didn’t have any baskets left over, but then we weren’t feeding the crowd fish either! (Read from the New Testament in the Bible, Matthew 14:13-21, Mark 6:30-44, Luke 9:10-17, John 6:1-14 if you don’t know the story!)

Cleaning up the chili pot!

Jehovah, Jirah, our provider

Then I watched this group of new believers, most of whom have just met each other in the last several months since learning the truth about Jesus, come together and go deep very quickly as tears began to surface.  Tears of joy for some as they shared the good news (and cream filled éclairs to celebrate!) that they had received permission to stay and begin a new life.  Tears of great sorrow and sadness and fear for others, as they shared the sobering news of upcoming appointments and needs for documentation.  And that’s when the second miracle of the day happened.  Our friends needed a very important paper for their appointment which was scheduled for the next day.  But it’s Sunday afternoon in my home here in Belgium.  There is no way possible for us to get that paper in time for them to bring it to their appointment.  So we all decided to go deep quickly, because we didn’t have time on our side.  We needed the paper now!  But we had God on our side, and it was such a teachable moment as we prayed together and asked God to release the document.  Thirty minutes later, my husband Steve walked in the door to announce that they had gone to the office, there was such a nice lady working at the front desk (the only person there on a Sunday afternoon) and she was able to print the document.  Happy friends went home and slept well that night and God had provided another opportunity to prove Himself as Jehovah, Jirah, our provider to these babes in Christ.

Celebrating miracles in our midst.

Make sure that you keep your eyes open.

God is at work!

Indispensable part of happiness at Christmastime

“To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness."

I want to be home for Christmas.  And it’s not even in response to that familiar song that lands on the radio station at this time of the year “I’ll be home for Christmas, if only in my dreams”.  I want to be with family, with traditions that are familiar, in a language that is familiar.  And yet, as I wake up this morning in my Belgium world, a mere two days before Christmas, I realize that I’m already home for Christmas.  I’m with family: my church family, many of whom are new believers who are celebrating Christmas for the very first time in their life with an understanding of the true meaning of Christmas, Christ’s coming to earth. How cool is that!  We’ve celebrated these last weeks of Advent with traditions that are familiar: Advent calendars, lighting the Advent candles each Sunday as we wait in anticipation of Christ’s coming, heading over the border into Germany with friends to enjoy a Christmas market, making Christmas cookies with my women friends for their children’s celebration of Sinterklaas on December 6^th, celebrating the festival of lights with remembering the Swedish tradition of Santa Lucia on December 13^th.  And I’m celebrating in a language, actually in languages (English and Dutch/Flemish) that are familiar, or are becoming more familiar with each day/week/month/year that I live in this land.  

My Chicago/Indiana family that I'm missing... The Boca girls ~ Sonia, Char and Barb

Making Christmas market memories

My new family here in Belgium

My Minnesota family

Go back to the quote at the beginning of this blog post, please….

“To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness”.  Now, having learned a few languages over the years as God has called me to many corners of the world where English is not the first language, I have learned to grow quite familiar with using dictionaries.  But today I consulted an English language dictionary to make sure that I could grasp the larger meaning of the word “indispensable”.  It means: not subject to being set aside; absolutely necessary.  My favorite part of that definition is the word “absolutely”, like it automatically has to be done.  And then in the list of synonyms to indispensable: all-important, critical, imperative, essential, integral, must-have, required, vital.  I think I’ll take away from this list of synonyms the words “must-have” as a personal favorite.  In our modern winter holidays world, where everyone is busy with shopping and getting those last minute sales, which have already been going on since before Thanksgiving (for real?!),  so often it is said how people are looking for happiness.  But it seems to me that we are looking in all the wrong places.  Happiness is not found in an iPad, or in a Nintendo Wii video console unit.  Happiness isn’t even found in all the busy holiday preparations, cookie baking, Christmas tree decorating, or carol singing.

It’s when we are separated from some of the things that we want, then we find that must-have, absolutely necessary part of happiness.  For when we are separated from the “things” that we think bring us happiness, it causes us to stop for a moment and realize that it’s not “things” that bring true happiness. It’s the people, the life experiences that we share together, the tough times of building community and recognizing our brokenness while asking for forgiveness that is accompanied by its’ close friend, that friend that has to be knitted together to the hip of forgiveness….forgetfulness.  When we are separated from the things that we think bring us happiness, we are forced to look elsewhere for happiness.  And perhaps, like in my case here in Belgium, happiness has already shown up all over the place:  in the smiles of new friends faces, in the questions that are asked about the Advent candle by a new follower of Jesus Christ, who is celebrating Advent and Christmas for the very first time and has so much to learn. (Here was an important question the first week of Advent:  why do we light Advent candles, and when do we blow the candles out?)

Many hands make for light work...and great Sinterklaas cookies!

Even the windows are celebrating Advent in Germany

What is Christmas without a Christmas pageant at AIPC?

Here’s my Christmas wish for us all:  that the life situations we find ourselves in would give us moments to ponder where true happiness comes from.  Especially in those moments when life keeps us away from the family, traditions, and languages that we love.

Thanksgiving and home

It’s my least favorite time of the year, which should, in fact, be my most favorite time of the year: Thanksgiving!  It’s my favorite time of the year, when I do my best to tell everyone in my world here in Belgium about what is happening in my other world back “home” in America.    But it’s my least favorite time of the year, since we live in a land that doesn’t celebrate American Thanksgiving, so when all our family and friends are talking turkey and stuffing and pumpkin pie, we are just going on about our normal routine on the last Thursday of the month of November.

Ah, the rich tradition of giving thanks.  It’s that national holiday that brings up so many fun memories of Thanksgiving celebrated, at least for me, literally around the world.  Childhood memories of extended family gatherings of 30+ people as my Mom stressed about how to make lump free gravy for a bunch of relatives who, in later years, started to bring their own canned gravy when that became available in the supermarket:  of Mom and Dad getting up early Thanksgiving morning to stuff “Tom” (affectionate name for the turkey); of Turkey bowl touch football games played in Cal Park on Chicago’s Southside with friends from the local Covenant and Evangelical Free churches.  Then, memories of celebrating Thanksgiving in Belgium (1987), then Congo and CAR and Cameroon, and my favorite Africa Thanksgiving memory:  buying enough chicken at the local market to kill later when they were a bit plumper and painting the toenails of the chickens so that we could easily identify our chickens, without any question or doubts, from the other chickens running around in the village (okay, does a chicken have toenails or is it clawnails….)

Yet no matter where you celebrate the actual day of Thanksgiving, I’ve learned over the years that it’s better to celebrate thanksgiving every day of our lives.  Practicing an attitude of gratitude will be a life long challenge, but I love what it does to my spirit.  It allows me to look beyond the situation at hand and say “thank you, God, for your goodness, for your hand of provision, for your protection, for the gift of life….” And my list goes on!

 

On a regular pursuit of making Belgium "home"

Home is with my true love Steve ~

Home is also hanging out with my sisters ~

Home is hanging out with my new family ~

And also hanging out with new friends ~

And hanging out with forever life friends ~

Each week, as I hang out with a group of women who have fled home for so many different reasons, I am mindful of our need to create a space that we call “home”.  Here is an example of a craft project that we had recently done together.

 

Here’s a great quote to go along with that craft project:

“There are two ways of getting home; and one of them is to stay there.  The other is to walk round the whole world till we come back to the same place.” (G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man). 

One of my joys in visiting my newfound friends in their new homes is seeing how they decorate their “home”.   Some of the decorations are familiar ones to them, from their homeland, colors and language scripts that I struggle to recognize.  Some of the decorations are things that they have been able to find locally here in Europe.   And you can imagine the joy I felt in my heart as I walked into a friend’s home this past weekend, to be greeted by her “home” banner that we had made together.  Her joy in her “home”, her place to care for her family and her place to welcome her new family, the one that God has provided when she’s so far away from her biological family. 

Going back to the quote for a moment, in the context of this Thanksgiving celebration, I love the central idea of this quote: that home is the place that you stay put in, but also the place where you can travel around the world to find “home” and eventually you just get back to the same place where you started.  I find myself being so thankful for a place to call home, a place with tons of home memories that is just bursting with the possibility of making new home memories.

Thankful. For. Home.

That’s all ~

What a day!

One of the most popular questions that anyone ever asks me during these years of cross cultural ministry service is “what is it that you do as a missionary?”  Now, I have to admit that this question was always easier to answer when I was working as a missionary nurse in Congo (ex-Zaire) and the Central African Republic (CAR).  “I teach courses on pediatrics in our nursing school”.  I help train the African nursing students in the hospital wards.  I help run the nutrition center with my African colleague.  I drive the truck when our community health team goes out to local villages and does health and nutrition assessments of kids ages 0-5 years old.  I help preserve the cold chain for the vaccines for our village health clinics.  I teach classes on hygiene and nutrition, and always about Jesus, in local villages among nomadic cattle herders.

But the question became somewhat more difficult to answer in the past 10 years since I’ve been living in Belgium.  I am the wife of the pastor of a local international Protestant congregation.  I help run a women’s club for refugees.  I design craft projects for women who are trying to build a new home in a country that is very different from their homeland.  I work with our youth band at church. 

So, maybe it would be interesting to hear what a Saturday looked like just recently in my world…..

It started with just breakfast and a grocery store run this morning.  Every other week, our Saturdays begin with a group of guys hanging out at our dining room table for breakfast, Bible study and prayer.  But today it was just Steve and I at the breakfast table.  Off to the grocery store by 8.10am before it gets crazy busy with everyone who has to work during the week who have to now buy groceries for a 4 day weekend, since November 11 is a holiday (Armistice Day, Remembrance Day, Veteran’s Day, depending on what part of the world you are from), which means that November 10 (Monday) becomes a bridge day and many shops and businesses will be closed.  Groceries are unpacked by 9.15am, and it’s time for my first piano student.  She’s a beginner piano student, but already knows a lot about music.  Today we’re working on timing and practicing “I want to walk as a child of the light”, a familiar song in both her Catholic and my Protestant traditions.  When she’s done, in walks my younger student who is preparing for her first piano recital which is scheduled for Monday, November 10 (bridge day, so it’s a school holiday for the kids and the evening before a day off for the parents ~ nice!)  Putting the finishing touches on her practice schedule, making sure we have all the names of the songs she’ll be playing and her full official name which will appear on the program, complete with her choice of which favorite color paper to print the programs on (pink was the color of choice….can you tell I’m working with a girl?!)

  

Put piano things away, time to clean the house because the group of 10-12 young followers of Jesus who are being discipled in their mother language (hint:  it isn’t English or Dutch!) are coming after church tomorrow!  We just have to provide space and internet access so that they can sing their praise songs and worship in their mother language.  Though we won’t be participating in their meetings, other than welcoming them into our home, I am so excited about welcoming these new friends into our space.  May they find it a place of welcome ~ and a clean bathroom!

While I’m cleaning house in preparation for tomorrow, there are other preparations going on in the office.  Steve is meeting with the AIPC intern, while Felix is running the bulletin and announcements for tomorrow’s worship.  There is music to get ready for the worship team, and children’s church lessons and photocopies to make. Add to that the sign up lists and gift bags have to be coordinated as the church enters into that magical time of the year when we prepare gift bags for “Sinterklaas”, that all important holiday that is celebrated here in Belgium on 6 December, when kids receive gifts for being good boys and girls (no gifts are given on Christmas Day, since all is taken care of by Sinterklaas in early December).  It’s beginning to look a lot like Sinterklaas is what we sing in our world here!

Next week is the first Christmas market of the season, and it's time to check in with my artist in residence (a friend who has been trained as an artist in her homeland and we are trying to support her artwork here).  A short phone call confirms that she's having a great week, has got a lot of her glass work already painted and ready to go for next week's market.  We talked prices and where we will meet together so that I can help her get to the venue where the market happens.  And she checks up on the progress of our other "project" that we're working on:  a typing project.  She had translated her bachelor of arts degree from her homeland into English, and needed help with typing it into a format acceptable to present for translation into the Dutch language so that it can be recognized here in Belgium.  She doesn't have time to try to type in English, as she is taking full time Dutch classes and preparing for mid term exams. Since I know how exhausting it is to type an important document in a foreign language (trust me, typing in French always challenges me and my ability to remember which accents and special squiggly lines are located where on my French keyboard which is really my English keyboard!), I've offered to type up her translation.  English is, after all, not only my mother/first language but also, at the moment, it happens to be my favorite language!  Typing is completed this afternoon, and a quick hit of the "send" button as an attached file makes for one happy camper in my friend's home in a neighboring town.

At the end of the day, we often crawl into bed exhausted but thankful for God’s abundant grace and provision throughout the day.   And then it will begin all over again tomorrow….

And that’s what I do!  I hope that I have been faithful to God's call on my life to serve my brother and sister, to love all with the love of Christ, and to acknowledge His abundant care and provision in our life and ministries.  What do you do?

 

All of this happening in this amazing place called Antwerp, Belgium ~ life is good!

Blurred lines...when is it work and when does it become play?

“The supreme accomplishment is to blur the line between work and play”.  Arnold Toynbee

What a great quote to start this blog post.  It used to be, back during my days in the Central African Republic working among the Fulani cattle herders of that land, that my colleague Karen and I would be having so much fun with the women and children in the remote nomadic places that the Fulani would temporarily set up as their home.  We often had to find them between seasons and in places that were off the beaten track.  For example, in the dry season, only the older women and young moms who were nursing their babies, along with the young children, would be left in the village while the men and older boys would be out in the bush looking for more grassy pastureland for their cattle.  Anyway, many a moment happened in life and ministry when Karen and I would look at each other and say “and there are people back home who are praying for us, loving us through their financial support and we’re out here having so much fun!”  Okay, now granted, not all days were fun….rainy days when you’re living in a grass thatched roof hut with no windows can be a challenge, and some days we just wanted a cold beverage and a flush toilet!  Yet I love this thought about blurring the line between work and play.

The early years of blurred lines....

How much fun is this??!!!

Worked hard with this boy and his mom to get him on his feet again ~

It was always work and play with our language helpers!
This is where I really learned to laugh at myself when speaking another language.

You really need to see the size of the "stool" that they gave me to sit on ~
it worked for her little 8 year old self but for me....it was quite a different story!

Perhaps one of my all time favorite Fulani village photos ~
make sure you appreciate the wings on Steve's tee-shirt.

Loved hanging out with this dear Fulani soul and to hear how God
had protected her during a fire that brought much pain to her body.

What a team ~ the laughter that we shared with this woman
will only be shared again in heaven!

And this blurred line is being revisited in my ministry setting here in Belgium in recent weeks.  There are so many days when I say “God, I love this land.  I love her people.  I can even sometimes love this language!”  That was my quote in church last Sunday when we were singing the song “There is power, power, wonder working power in the blood of the Lamb”.  We had sung the same song just recently during our kids’ Vacation Bible School in August, but it went like this:  “er is kracht, kracht, wonderbaar kracht in het bloed van het Lamb, in het kostbaar bloed van het Lamb”.  I felt a little foolish, singing that last line by myself in Flemish as the worship team finished the song on Sunday.  And then I blurted out “oh how I love this language”.  It’s only taken 10 years to get to this point!

God is accomplishing a good work in my heart, as I continue to make this land my “home” land, this language my “home” language, this people my “home” people.  The line is blurring between work and play ~ and I’m loving it!

Something complete and great ~ VBS 2014 reflections

“That is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great."
- Willa Cather

I love this quote!  It totally reflects who we were, the local body of Christ, as we worked hard together to follow Moses after he parted the Red Sea.  We even had to be careful to avoid getting wet or overwhelmed by the “flying fish” (sweet and sour candy….trust me, some kids weren’t trying so hard not to get hit by the fish, once they figured out it was candy!)  We wandered through the desert, carrying our life belongings with us from station to station in our tribes, which were named Judah, Esther, Boaz and Miriam….care to guess the name of the preschooler’s tribe?  And then when the Israelites deviated from what God had already instructed them about worshipping other gods, we all agreed that we would never bow down to a …..?

Moses got quite excited making little quail.
It's amazing what you can do with marshmallows and tortilla chips and a drop of food coloring!

The Red Sea, complete with a sandy floor ~ it really worked, and no one drowned in the water!

Real quail eggs anyone?  Actually, they were quite yummy,
 though some kids thought it was a bit weird!

Favorite moment of each day:  when the parents would drop off the kids a bit early, and we had the music video projecting in the room and the preschoolers were singing “I will, I will, I will trust You ‘cuz I know, I know, I know You’re gonna come through, Every step of the way, No matter what I face I’m gonna say I will trust You!”

When all was said and done, as we pulled apart our set (complete with a camel and several palm trees for that oasis that has to be a part of any wilderness experience), when you looked around the room, there was just so much joy.  We were tired, we were weary, but we were happy.  We had just been part of something that was completely great!  Cool, eh?!

False images.....Antwerp, Belgium style ~

My other favorite part of the day, when the tribe leaders
were given the opportunity to leave the kids who were singing
to pray for them and what we would all learn together ~ powerful!!

When we started our planning for this year’s program, we talked about how VBS gives us a chance to reach out to the community and how we are able to teach kids important lessons about God and his faithfulness. Yet I’m reminded again that most of ministry isn’t done for what it does for others.  The bigger change actually happens within myself.  I am blessed by our teenagers, our amazing snack crew, the craft leaders who gave sacrificially and made crafts work with only spending about $50 for a weeks worth of crafts for 20+ kids, and our kids and their families who together offered up more than 330euros to send to our missionary, Dr. Renee Valach, in Gabon Africa, to buy school supplies for the children that she works with in their local church ministry. 

I’m sure you’re all curious about why there were mousetraps in church….and they had nothing to do with mice!  Send me an email and I’ll let you in on the secret!  It was a scary experience, but God was faithful in protecting! Barb.swanson@covchurch.org

Oh yeah, and our preschoolers:  they were the tribe of Benjamin!

Get ready.....get set.......VBS!!

Just in case you’re wondering what we’ve been doing while so many of our friends have been fasting for a long summer month….

You'll have to wait and see where this large animal shows up
at the Wilderness Escape ~ a most welcome gift from the school
where we meet for worship on Sunday mornings 

It’s a journey to the Wilderness Escape that we will take with Moses and the Israelites through the desert.  The desert will magically come into existence in Brasschaat, at the local Dutch speaking church, for a week of fun in the sun August 18-22  (and yes, we will have fun in the sun, even if the sun doesn’t shine that week here in Belgium, which is well within the realm of possibility!)

The boxes that are the throw away/recycle remnants of many large televisions being purchased here in Belgium (thank you Van Dyck electronics store in our local village shopping street and to all those living nearby who have purchased major TVs in recent weeks!), have quickly and easily become the back drop materials for our desert scene….complete with camel!

They were surprised at how much I could pack
into our Opel Corsa ~ I am a determined woman!

Some of the finished set backgrounds...
it will be super fun to see it all come together at
The Olive Branch church in Brasschaat

And needing to clean out the craft closet just coincides so nicely with our decision to use what we could get here in Belgium for craft projects for the kids (rather than importing projects from the US).  So, the wooden spoons that have been sitting in the closet for years will become the bodies of the Israelites….the left over pieces of felt will be transformed into bookmarkers for back to school reading…..and the “Scooby doo” plastic strings will be braided into key chain holders to hang from the kids’ school backpacks with those all important Bible memory cards that help keep the Bible verses fresh in our kids’ minds and hearts.

Thankful for the gift of artists in our midst :-)

Craft queen extraordinaire ~ note the mega Smart TV
boxes in the background that are quickly becoming our
Wilderness Escape background

Sound like fun to you?  We’re excited.  And make sure that you check back here in another month or so for some real live stories that remind us of how God shows up in our midst….in the middle of the wilderness….at any time….to all generations.

BTW....sand will be an important feature of our wilderness experience, for sure!  Plus, there will be photos to prove how we parted the Red Sea in Belgium in a future blog post.

No substitute for comfort and relationship

This is a quote that a friend shared with me recently. "There is no substitute for the comfort supplied by the utterly taken for granted relationship." (Iris Murdoch, A Severed Head).  Let’s dissect this phrase a bit: 

1.  There is no substitute for the comfort.  When cooking, there are some things that can be substituted when you don’t have a particular ingredient.  We learned this lesson very well when working in Africa, where often times the ingredient required for an American recipe just wasn’t quite available at the local village market.  For goodness sake, the back inside cover of my Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook has an entire list of “emergency substitutions”, divided into two columns:  “if you don’t have…substitute with”.  My favorite emergency substitution that we always used in Africa was for brown sugar, which you can make with 1-cup regular sugar plus 2 tablespoons molasses.  That does require that you have some molasses available, which in Congo was a staple in my shipment of food from the US but in the Central African Republic, all it took to get as much molasses as you wanted was to take a quick trip down to the town where the sugar factory was pumping out sugar cubes, granulated sugar and sugar “syrup”, which worked quite well for any recipe that needed molasses.

But enough about cooking and food substitutions. There is no substitute for the comfort.  I like the word “comfort” here, and the fact that it’s preceded by the definite article “the”.  There is something to be said about comfort.  We humans are always seeking it.  We want to live a comfortable life.  We want to sleep in a comfortable bed.  I like to ride on a bike seat that is comfortable!  Comfort is a good thing.

Now taking a glimpse at the second part of the phrase “the utterly taken for granted relationship”.  Which are the relationships in life that are “utterly taken for granted”??  Perhaps the teacher-student relationship.  Or a parent-child relationship.  Those relationships that you just take for granted, you don’t even think about them, and perhaps most hurting of all, you don’t appreciate how important they are or how easy it is to just go on living without acknowledging how important a relationship can be in your life.

We, the local church here in my world, took the opportunity to provide not money nor gifts, we just decided that hey, there is no substituting the comfort that we can share and offer to those who we take for granted in our local community.  We spent an afternoon being the church, not doing church.  We played with kids.  We painted with our fingers.  We had good fun running outside and eventually tossing abandon to the wind and throwing water balloons all over the playground.  I mean, a girl does have to “profiteren” as they say in the local Flemish language!  (Profiteren:  to take advantage of).  So, when the weather offers 80+ degrees and sunshine, bring on the water balloons!  And make sure there is plenty of water and plastic cups for drinking to assure that everyone stays hydrated (now, that’s the nurse in me that’s talking).  We shared stories about Zach, the short guy that owns the mobile phone shop in the city who kept ripping people off by charging them lots of money for cheap phones.  We shared about Jesse, an important man who came to town to talk to people and many who came in contact with Jesse changed their hearts when they heard him speak.  And how, when Jesse identifies Zach as someone important, someone that Jesse wanted to hang out with, wow, how quickly Zach came down from that tree he had climbed so that he could see this important guy.  Zach threw open the door to his home, hung out with Jesse and then decided to give back 4x the money that he had taken from people.  And that was a truly fun moment in the story, as Pastor Steve, a.k.a. Zach, went around the room and gave chocolate euro coins to all the kids in the room with the warning “eat your chocolate quickly, it’s warm today”.

We call our program “the friendship club”, because we’re building bridges of trust in the local community that can bear the truth about Jesus (or Jesse, as he showed up in our story).  It’s not rocket science.  It’s all about no substitutions.  Sharing comfort.  Being in relationship.  It’s that easy.  In any culture.

Setting the stage ~

Zach meets Jesse while people look on and point fingers ~

Everyone is important!

We are so happy in the sunshine :-)