Friday, May 17, 2013

January/February 2013

The first two months of 2013 were incredibly busy months for me here in Belgium!  I'm sorry January and February got away from me without an update, but here it is now.  After I return from our church retreat this weekend, I'll work on a report for March and April.

January started out with wonderful things going on every weekend.  The first weekend we celebrated the wedding of two of our young adult Christians here in Ghent!  Many of us in the Ghent church helped out to make Shareya and Jonasdi's day extra special.

The next weekend there was an Anker activity (young adult activity) in Eindhoven, Netherlands.  I had planned on being there, but unfortunately, I ended up being sick that weekend.  I heard that there was a great time had by all, though!

The next weekend we celebrated with another young couple who had recently married.  Stephan Raab grew up in Belgium (son of missionaries, Scott and Shirley Raab).  He married Natalie in December in Ohio, and on the 19th, they had a reception in Belgium.  Both Stephan and Shareya were young teens when I lived in the Netherlands, so it was great getting to celebrate their weddings with them in January!

The final weekend in January found me in Liege, Belgium visiting with good friends.  It's always a blessing getting to worship with the church in Liege.  I don't understand everything that goes on since Liege is in the French speaking part of Belgium, but they always do their best to help me understand!

At the beginning of the month, several of my weekdays were busy with getting my paperwork in order for my visa renewal.  Some of it came right down to the wire, but I'm happy to say that my visa was renewed for another year!

My weekdays were also busy with a number of English lessons.  Here in Ghent, we've been involved with the Let's Start Talking program since the church began.  During January, I had four different LST readers plus an extra special English lesson.  Last summer, I had a few LST lessons with a woman named Lieve.  She wanted to brush up on her English before she made a trip to the States in September.  Several months after I had had lessons with Lieve, her daughter called me to see if I would be willing to teach her children English.  I told her I had never done that before, but I would take up the challenge.  It has been great getting to know this family better and  spending more time with them while being able to share the love of God with them.

My weekdays were also filled with things like a dinner for our Korean LST readers before they returned to Korea, planning for weekend events, and some childcare.

My weekends in February were just as busy as my weekends in January.  The first weekend, we had a "pillow party" at Holly's house.  The ladies of our church have taken on a project to make heart shaped pillows for breast cancer patients to use under their arm after they have had surgery.

The second weekend, I was in Antwerp helping to host the Girls Youth Weekend.  My teammate, Amanda, and I were in charge of the girls weekend this year.  It was great getting to work with Amanda on this project!  The theme was "Beauty from the Inside Out".  We used several skits to teach the lessons then discussed them with the girls afterwards.  The girls really seemed to enjoy this format!  We also had great helpers for the weekend.  Several of our young adult ladies helped out with translation work before the weekend as well as some great ideas.  They were also at the weekend and were a tremendous help!  And all of this with two of them being pregnant as well as my teammate, Amanda!

The third weekend was another Anker activity.  This one was here in Ghent and was organized by a couple from our church.  It was a great day of fellowship, and thankfully, this time I was able to be in attendance!  (Thank God for health!)

The last weekend, and the week before it, I was in Germany for the Advanced Bible Study Series.  I've attended these lessons every year I've been in Belgium as well as the years I was in the Netherlands.  It's a great week to see people I haven't seen since the previous year, listen to wonderful and challenging lessons given by teachers from the US and around Europe, and just get away for a bit.  It's an intense week, but we manage to enjoy ourselves a lot as well!  This year, the speaker brought over from the US was Monte Cox.  I've always enjoyed hearing Monte speak at various missions events, and it was a pleasure getting to hear him the entire week as well as just getting to "hang out" with him.  During the week, it was my grandmother's 99th birthday, so I took advantage of having so many people around me from so many different countries.  I recorded people saying and singing Happy Birthday to her in multiple different languages.  She was thrilled with this gift!  It was nice to know I could give her this unique gift since I wasn't able to be with her in person.

The weekdays in February were similiar to those in January.  I had all the same English lessons plus an additional one.  The young lady who married at the beginning of January, Shareya, had asked me last year if I would consider giving her English lessons as well.  I wasn't sure what I would be able to teach her since her English is already very good, but she wants to speak English to her kids when she has them and feels like her English needs to be better in order to do that.  I told her I would accept this challenge, and we've been using one of her Old Testament textbooks from her time at Harding as our text for the lessons.  We had taken a break during January (as she was just a bit busy!), but in February, we started up again.  It's wonderful getting to spend more time with her!

There was also another appointment at the immigration office to take in money and new pictures for my new I.D. card, lots of planning for the girls weekend, kid's class at church and another childcare opportunity in February.

Two busy months, but two really great months!

Again, I'm sorry for the delay in getting this report out!  I can't thank you all enough for your love and support!  Without all of you, I wouldn't be able to be here serving God.  I praise and thank Him for all the ways He takes care of me, and one of the biggest ways He does that is through all of you!  Thank you!!

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