Irony of a stop sign

It was an amazing week in Germany for an annual conference with a network of people who care about refugees across Europe.  We worshipped together, prayed together, took tours of a homeless shelter and apartments for refugees who were waiting for permission to stay in Germany, and participated in a silent prayer vigil outside a detention center where refugees were being held.  It was a powerful week.

It was also an exhausting trip coming back to Belgium, which included an early departure (04.30am ~ what were we thinking?!) from the mission guesthouse.  A train ride to the airport, plane ride back to Belgium, bus trip back to Antwerp, tram ride (which was 20 minutes delayed, minor inconvenience!) and finally a bus ride got us to the corner of our block.  "Yeah, we’re almost home”, was my thought as I was crossing the street to our side and admiring the sunshine and beautiful blue sky.  In fact, I was just thanking God for blue skies in Belgium and for the chance to be home again, since all we had seen in Germany was grey and cold and snow (don’t get me wrong, I love snow, but it was really slippery and I don’t handle slippery very well as my years advance). 

Your average, ordinary stop sign...

And it was in that moment, as I’m enjoying that blue sky, that I had a close encounter of a very personal kind with a stop sign.  As in, I hit my head.  Then was confused.  Then fell down.  A quick detour via ambulance to the local ER revealed just a superficial cut (no stitches required, though I did learn the Flemish word for stitches, which is “draadjes”, or you can also say “het moet genaald worden”, meaning it needs to be stitched!).

Today (I’m 12 days past my close personal encounter), I told my husband that I sure hadn’t been much of a helpmate this week, to which he promptly replied that my job this past week was just to rest and recover from a head injury.  I then told him that I should get paid overtime, since I had rested and napped every day and was recovering quite well, thank you.   And on those days when I did too much, my body really reacted ~ thus another time out for me.  We have dear Chinese friends in our congregation who keep saying to me “listen to your body”.  Maybe I should have had my hearing checked in the ER as well!

 I was in the crosswalk ~ but check out the sun!

Re-enacting the angle where I hit...

Though 12 days later, I still have a pained look on my face :-(

But the most important lesson I’ve learned this week has centered around this comment in an email from another dear friend who has herself recently suffered a major head injury:  “the irony of a stop sign.  There really is a lot of irony in you hitting a "Stop" sign.  The message is loud and clear on that one! Don't you think?” were her gentle comments among her words of encouragement this week.  Another friend put it like this in a text message:  “you are so busy and you give so much to everything and everyone this was obviously God’s message to you.  She doesn’t get it any other way so I’ll hit her over the head with it!”…..literally!!!

So I’ve stopped.

Am stopping.

Will stop.

How do I know when to start again?

There is a God who loves you

Team decision:  we would give out Christmas gifts to the ladies at our Christmas party/last meeting of 2013.  Though we haven’t necessarily given gifts in previous years, there was plenty enough in the cupboard that could be shared with our new friends.  So, carefully we made gift packages which included:  a reusable foldable shopping sack (very popular in Belgium), Clinique cosmetics (thanks to all those friends and family in US who shared extras when I was home in August), a couple of colorful red and gold Christmas ornaments, and a tea light (battery operated variety in order to comply with safety regulations for living in a refugee center).  There was one more sweet addition to the gift pack:  a metallic bookmark that said in Dutch: “there is a God who loves you” or “my peace I give to you” or “I will carry you through”.

As I worked on wrapping the packages, I got to thinking “that’s silly, Barb, to give them a bookmark.  Many of these women don’t own a book, and several don’t even know how to read”.  For a moment, I hesitated and even began to think that I should take the bookmarks out.  But then I had this thought:  they could use the bookmark as a large paper clip to hold their important papers together (i.e. immigrant application papers, birth records, other important documents).  Bottom line:  the bookmarks made it into the gift packs.

As we gathered with the ladies, and you can see through the pictures some of the food and decorations that showed up at the party, we realized once again how much fun can be had when you put out the word “feestje” (Dutch for party!)  We played a round of Christmas bingo, where the goal was to get the gals to work on their Dutch vocabulary (ster, kerstboom, engel, Kerstmis which in English translates: star, Christmas tree, angel, Christmas).  My favorite memory of this moment in the afternoon:  explaining the importance of the star in the Christmas story.

Colorful table with treats from around the world

The table was also laden with color

Christmas colors in our food

Not only Christmas colorful, but healthy too!

The gift packs were a huge success, no surprise there.  Most of our ladies are the moms of the kids who look forward to getting a Sinterklaas gift on December 6^th, (an important Belgian holiday for children), and now it was their turn to be gifted and celebrated.  And besides, who doesn’t like a gift?!  But more important than the gifts themselves, my prayer was that the women would sense the love that celebrates Jesus as the reason for Christmas by our sharing of a few small items to encourage them on their journey.  Imagine what the words of those bookmarks mean to someone who had to flee their homeland because of war, or are so discouraged in the waiting process that they begin to wonder if anyone even cares.

So now, it’s just time to wait and see where the conversations go as we continue to journey with these women and with the opportunities that lie ahead of us to tell them that “there is a God who loves you!”