Under His Wings: Amougies

Today was my first day at work after vacation. The weekend retreat with my local church was a wonderful experience. The place we stayed at is about one hour from Brussels, and it's in the middle of nowhere - as far as this is possible in this densely populated country.

It was such a blessing, although it wasn't very well organized. The African sister who used to be in charge stepped back, and the others just didn't manage without her coordinating everything. Plus our pastor has been busy packing his container for Canada, so he couldn't really take care of things. But I took it with humour. On Sabbath, the weather was absolutely perfect. I enjoyed every minute in the sunshine. Indeed, this was a compensation for all these cool and rainy days in the last few weeks. It was a true gift of God, because today, it's cool and rainy again.

There were two special young ladies attending our retreat. Galina from Bulgaria, who only recently started working in Brussels. She is very sincere. Also one of our African young men brought a fellow student from university. Her name is Andrea and she is from Germany. She just got acquainted with the church there, and through the invitation of our brother, she first visited our church service while I was at camp meeting. I was glad that she spontaneously decided to come to the retreat, as it was a great opportunity to get to know her. She is like a sponge - in fact, I've never seen this. Being catholic by origin, she feels very comfortable with our beliefs and wants to learn as quickly as possible. I already gave her an internet link where she can order the Sabbath school quarterly, and she can't wait to read the Desire of Ages. What a blessing to finally have somebody from Germany in my church!

We will really miss Pastor Kyala, but I'm happy for him that he can begin something new in Quebec. There is a lot work to be done there as well, after all. As for the Belgian leadership, there is still no leader in sight, so maybe they will have to import somebody from somewhere!

This coming Wednesday through Sunday, I'll be off to the next adventure. I still have some annual leave, and given the fact that it's still very quiet at my work place, I decided to take advantage and visit a short-time medical missionary school, which is being held about one hour from the city of Cologne. I learned about it on our camp meeting and was intrigued by this concept. Not everybody can take a whole year off after all, and this offers an opportunity for an intense training in medical-missionary work, agriculture, True Education, etc. for those who can come during the summer school holidays. There are different speakers on various topics, and now they are also having a few health guests, so I may be even able to help out with treatments. I really look forward to it.