a testimony

While looking for the words of Bill Drake's song "I'll obey", I stumbled upon this testimony of someone who learnt to forgive. It's impressive. I know very little about forgiveness compared to this person. Yet it is something we all need to learn.

You must do something with your anger, if it's alive in your heart. You must get rid of it to stop it from eating away at you inside. And it's necessary to do this if you are ever to grasp the concept of Grace, which the Bible tries to teach us.

We are so easily angered. Sometimes we even give ourselves the right to be angry at God. Perhaps you have more reason to be that way than I have, but whatever your reason, please don't settle comfortably into bitterness. If you are angry, remember that often it's because you just don't have all the facts!

God asks us to forgive and He asks us to trust Him. I'll obey Him because He is the God who gives me life.

I’ll obey and serve You

I’ll obey because I love You

I’ll obey, my life is in Your hands

For it’s the way to prove my love

When feelings go away

If it costs my everything

I’ll obey

another blog

Sorry, sometimes I don't blog at all and sometimes I suddenly have this urge to blog a lot in one go. The effects of a lack of routine?

But I just wanted to direct you to another blog, which I'm going to link here. That of Maxplanck, an intelligent guy who has plenty to say and who just started blogging. Only it's in Dutch...But babelfish.altavista.com is a most helpful website for all who want to read in languages not their own. :)

another chapter

The academic year started before I had a chance to return to Belgium. So I jumped back into that as soon as I could, which was three days late. Now I'm doing an internship in the delivery room of a hospital in Sint-Truiden. This is a town with no internet café. In fact, I asked some ladies in the street and they were very excited to hear of such a phenomenon!

It's fine though; I have enough fascilities at the hospital. I get to spend the night there and even my food is provided for. I've assisted three births during the week that I've been here. None of them were assisted solely in Dutch. The languages used were Russian, French, Arabic, English and Chinese. I try to speak a little of everything, which is impossible. Still, I like the variety.

I get to learn much from the midwifes and gynaecologists here. One day I hope to be in the teaching position. For now I'm happy with where I'm at.

To all the students: I wish you a great academic year!
To everybody: May you face every day with optimism, believing that you can achieve anything you truly wish for, as long as God wants it too.

ode to the Amazighian

Strange how you can feel at home in a place you've never seen in your life.

It was the week of my brother Luke's wedding. It was also my first time in North Africa, though I think Algeria is the 47th country I've been to. The first night there, I stood on the balcony of my hotel room, alone, overlooking the quiet scene of Tizi Ouzou (the city of Luke's bride). The street looked dusty and there didn't seem to be any rules about crossing it. You could hear the sound of crickets in the night. I felt oddly at home and thought: "I'm back in Africa...yeah...I like this."

Strange how you can come to love a people in less than a weeks time.

The Amazighian or Kabyllie berbers (the picture is of their flag) spent the first evening staring at us strangers, not sure what to think. And yet they welcomed us and I was amazed by their kindness. In the hotel 6 waiters were serving us, while we were only three. This made me laugh, so I tried to pretend that my parents were saying funny things all throughout the meal. That didn't help much. My mother threatened to make me wear a veil if I didn't stop. :)

Throughout that week, they all got used to us (European fools who had no clue about their language or etiquette, but who kept smiling at them) and they even began to learn English. Meanwhile I tried desperately to improve my French. Some bowed their heads as they waited while we prayed, even saying "amen" with us. Outside the hotel we kept meeting people who were helpful, respectful and who had a good sense of pride.

These are people who have been ruled by others for ages. Their dignity hasn't been destroyed by that. I admire them and can only learn from their hospitality towards strangers.

the bliss of solitude (such a mellow post!)

Daffodils
By William Wordsworth (1770–1850)

I wander'd lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretch'd in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

It had to happen one day, that this poem would make an appearance on my blog. My brother, Luke, will understand why. We were forced to memorize the entire thing at school on board Logos 2 when we were something like 13 and 11 years old. I'm glad though.

We have since made our own variations to this poem, combined with poetry from "The Scarlet Pimpernel". Our variation had little to do with daffodils, but Luke had a way of proclaiming it in a very Wordsworth-like manner (I think so anyway, even though we do not have recordings of Wordsworth reading any of his poems).

The only line I've always remembered from this poem is: "For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood". I like the pensive moods when these memories of our poetry sessions flash upon my inward eye.

The boy (my bro) is getting married soon and the time is long gone when we had the chance to hang out and write rediculous poetry. We are the same people though and it's good to know that we'll have opportunity to watch each other go through life. I'm proud of him as I watch him from a distance. I look forward to meeting up and reminiscing. It's good to know, after a great many goodbyes, that some people are yours to keep.

THAT my heart with pleasure fills...

wanted: engineers

Received the following message from a Douloid:

We have an urgent Prayer Request for the Doulos and the Ship Ministry in General. We are in urgent need of Engineers. If we don’t get engineers by the end of Sept, the Doulos won’t be able to leave Thailand. So please pray with us that God will provide qualified people. And if you know of people that might be able to help us, ask them to contact the nearest OM office.

Thought I would put this here, just in case some engineers wonders upon my blog. I recommend Doulos! You can always contact me for more information.

where is God?

The summer holidays have begun and though I'm doing some kind of summerjob at the University Hospital of Leuven, I'm celebrating those holidays. Summer is making me neglect my weblog completely...I apologize to those people who come here looking for something new to read. I don't apologize too sincerely though...I don't really know what any of us are doing surfing the internet when we could be outside enjoying the sun! (c;

I have begun reading "Where is God when it hurts?" by Philip Yancey and it's interesting. Haven't gotten very far yet and I have to admit that the book has a slower start to it then I expected. What did I expect? An answer to the question in the first chapter already? That would be a bit too easy, wouldn't it?

Yancey starts off by explaining the function of pain in our lives. The way pain was meant to protect us and it's fascinating to look into how pain does protect us. He illustrates by describing people with leprosy. Leprosy itself doesn't cause people to loose limbs in the sense of causing their flesh to deteriorate. It simply makes them insensitive to pain and because of this, leprosy patients do the most horrible things to themselves. They don't notice they're destroying themselves, because they don't feel the pain. They step into glass, ignore infected fingers, and do all sorts of things that are simply destructive to your flesh just because they don't feel it. They notice when it's already too late.

So God gave us pain receptor cells, so that we would not suffer the way these people suffer for lack of pain. I've gotten to the point in the book where Yancey decides that the question needs to be rephrased to something like: "Where is God in all the world's suffering?" Pain is something that was created with a good purpose. Where did it go wrong? Where did it get out of hand?

This is only the beginning of the book. Worth reading, that's for sure...I guess I'll be coming back to this topic when I've read more.

I mentioned my summerjob at the hospital. Let me tell you a bit about that. I'm doing logistics on the fourth floor, at geriatrics. The patients there are elderly people, many of them quite confused about why they are there and needing quite a bit of help. My respect for the people working there has grown, but my respect for the elderly is also growing.

Sometimes I help feed the patients and some of them aren't able to speak their minds anymore. That makes it hard to guess how much of reality is still getting through to them. With one man it took me two days to find out that he actually spoke French instead of Flemish. I had been talking to him, but he hadn't said anything himself. When he began to speak I was having a hard time making out what he was trying to say. It helped a lot when I started to listen in French! But one of the things he asked me was: "Please give me back my freedom." I was kind of sad when I tried to explain that he was in a hospital and not in a prison.

It must be real tough when you're finding yourself in such a helpless position, where you're not even able to eat by yourself, let alone get up out of bed! I try to find the most respectable way to help people with this, but it's not always easy. At the end of the day I go home free, but I've been confronted with the fact that some people I love will be facing similar problems in the nearer future.

I guess the best thing to do is to make the most of what we have, love intensely and look forward to heaven.

why the tree?

A question has turned up on several blogs that I visit and it sounds like this: "Why did God put that tree there?"

Why was there a tree that gave man a chance to choose to disobey God? Why did God not choose to avoid the fall of man?

I have a suspicion that part of the reason is that He wanted us to know the side of Him that is called Grace. Would we ever have known without that tree?

I'm planning to read Philip Yancey's book "What's so amazing about grace?" after "Where is God when it hurts?". I've had both books for a long, long time and I hope I won't get an overdose if I read them one after the other. An overdose of good stuff to ponder, that is. I'll let you know...

In the mean time, if anyone has an idea of why that tree had to be in the garden, do let me know!

soccer and soap

Sunday evening on my way home with a detour, I met some Brazilians who invited me to watch Brazil-Croatia in the World Cup, the match that was on last night. I ended up going there and taking GJ along and we had the time of our lives. Those Brazilians know how to celebrate soccer! They came with drums and dancing girls dressed in their flag. I’ll support them solely because their fans are that cool! So today we’re going to get ourselves some Brazilian shirts, so that next time we won’t feel like the odd ones out.

We went to my place afterwards and got into a slightly philosophic mood. My housemate had left her soap bubble gear in my room and so GJ was blowing through the plastic circle creating beautiful things and being captivated.

As we watched the soap bubbles he started pointing out how perfect they are: Perfectly round, because they take up the most convenient shape (ever seen a soap bubble turn out triangular or star-shaped?), thin and fragile, but floating, because they are that light.

We watched two of them interfere with each other and bounce off harmoniously, without breaking. “People should be like soap bubbles,” GJ concluded. “When they meet they don’t need to hurt each other.”

I reckon you could build sermons on this. Does anyone here want to have a go? I'm still thinking about the way they reflect the light that shines on them.

For further study on the phenomena of soap bubbles, I would direct you to the website “Floating Soap Bubbles”.

Moishe, Mouskovitz and heaven

Well, I wasn’t sure what to call him...I thought either one of those names would do. Turns out I can use both, since there’s been two of them instead of one. Perhaps this was an effort to “name my fear”. It’s bad. I think MK’s should be relatively fearless when it comes to little critters, but I am much afraid of mice. Quite terrified even.

I tell you this so that you take it seriously and don’t ever tease me about it, because if you do my faith in humanity will be severely damaged. Forgiveness yes, but my forgiveness as a person only reaches to a certain extend and I think putting a mouse near me is really crossing the boundary there.

Some guys have been very good to me by making it their expedition to catch Moishe and Mouskovitz. They’re gone now…heaven…I’m sure my friends are also grateful, because I haven’t talked about much else recently. (c;

Anyway, I’ve been making a fool of myself in a number of ways lately. Wolter mentioned the “hitchhike to heaven”. I went with a guy called Job to ask people at the train station whether they could show us the way. This led to some interesting conversations. One man even thought he didn’t need heaven because in his life-time scientists are bound to invent something to stop the ageing process and allow us to live forever!

It’s cool to go out and talk to people randomly about what they believe. It’s amazing how they take time to think about something that really isn’t very much on their minds (or maybe it is somehow, but it doesn’t show). Although I do find it frustrating that heaven isn’t real for them as it is for me. It helps to know where you’re going, if you want to get there.

Check out www.Breeze.be/hemel
(in Dutch)