Paris is great, don't get me wrong, but getting away from the continual noise of cars and people, seeing some colour in the streets other than grey and more grey and sometimes a weird yellow colour, and breathing air that isn't filled with cigarette toxins is much needed. So I went to Belgium this past weekend to visit my dear, long-lost twin, Hilary, who is studying there this year.
The trip started off on an interesting foot. I thought my bus left at 5 pm when it actually left at 4 pm so I had to try and get another bus ticket, which proved to be very difficult. The bus leaving at 6 pm had one spot left, and of course there was someone else in line for it ahead of me. Then I got on the phone to ask for another one (don't know why the lady at the counter couldn't just do it for me) and I could barely hear the lady on the phone and French face to face is difficult, much less on the phone and I basically just felt stupid for not understanding her and then I get on the phone with a guy to speaks English...kinda...and it took like 15 minutes, no joke, to spell my name to him. I thought Ritskes was difficult before..... So he emailed me my new ticket. I'm in a train station. I have no way to print the stupid thing. So I hop on the metro, at this point trying to hold back tears and really just wanting to be in Canada, plug in my headphones and listen to "Still" by Hillsong to try and calm down, go to the internet cafe and print my ticket, making it back in time to catch my bus at 8 pm. So. Annoying.
BUT - I made it :) And found Hilary at the station no problem and it was a WONDERFUL weekend! We talked like non-stop and she showed me all there is to see in Leuven (where she lives, east of Brussels) and Brugge (in the north near the ocean).
There's so much to talk about! Okay, food! Upon getting to Brugge on Saturday it was lunch time so we found the cutest little restaurant you'll ever see. We sat beside the window and watched the horse-drawn carriage tours go by and felt the heat of the fireplace inside. If Brugge taught me anything it is that the Belgium people love chocolate and butter. My salmon that I ordered was swimming in an Olympic-sized pool of it! There was a blob of something on top, so I tried a little to see what it was. MORE BUTTER! Seriously, I don't know how they all aren't obese. So I didn't eat all that butter, but the food was delicious! I also tried a Belgium waffle covered in the richest chocolate ever in Brugge. They had a little van on the side of the road (like a chip truck) that was selling them. The French have crêperies; the Belgians have waffle trucks. And the Americans have McDonald's. THOUGH!! Good thing about McD's - they had speculoos McFlurries in Leuven!! So yes, I spent money on McD's in Belgium :)
We went in search of a chocolate store because that was really the only thing on my list of "Things you must do in Belgium". We found one that Hilary knew was exceptionally good and I may or may not have bought like a lot of chocolate. There's only box with all these different kinds in it and I have to exercise self-control not just to mow-down on them all at once, but to savour them. Not sure if I'll ever get real Belgium chocolate again.
We climbed all 366 stairs of the belfry and were lucky enough to be at the top in the room with all the huge bells as they sounded the hour..or the half hour.. It was loud and sounded incredible! I took a video of it, but it doesn't capture the sound very well and you can't hear all the small, harmonizing notes as well as you could up there. Definitely worth the climb up the steep, small spiral staircase, with only a rope as a handrail.
With Easter in just over a week, I was interested in a little cathedral Hilary brought me to. Neither one of us are really into cathedrals. Sure, the architecture is incredible and all and a lot of them are super old, but they just kinda creep us out. Something just not right about it. And no offense to any Catholic friends, but Jesus is not on the cross anymore. This cathedral claims to have a vial of Jesus' blood. I have heard of these things before, where you pay money to see something biblical like that (even though they can make like hundreds of crosses out of the pieces claimed to be of Jesus' cross, but I didn't think I'd be able to see one. Unfortunately, it wasn't on display the afternoon that we were there, but oh well. There were pictures of it at least.
It was so peaceful there (both Brugge and Leuven)! There were even some buds on some of the trees already! The cobblestone streets were super cute and there were little creeks surrounding certain blocks in the city, hemmed in by red-brick buildings. We walked through the botanical gardens in Leuven and even though there really weren't many flowers, it was still beautiful and green :) And there were swans swimming in the stream in Brugge! Hilary told me that apparently in Belgium, Santa Claus drives a sleigh pulled by swans. Don't ask. So now, forget about reindeer! Whenever I see a swan I'll just think of Santa.
So that is Belgium in a nutshell. I could go on but I don't want to bore you. Basically what I learned from that trip: 1) don't speak to people in French on the phone;
2) God is an enormous and stable life-line and He has funny ways of drawing us back into being dependent on Him. Seriously, I could have done without the huge hassle of running around not understanding anything, trying to get on a bus to Brussels, but He showed Himself faithful again and answered my prayers and reminded me that I really can't do it all on my own and I need Him more than ever;
3) It is so incredible to have friends from the past who know the people you grew up with and the streets you grew up on and the places you grew up going to. Real sense of community and home and fellowship and wonderful times of laughter at old jokes (Aunt Agnes Whale!);
4) Belgium chocolate really is the best thing ever!!
Thursday, 21 March 2013
Sunday, 10 March 2013
Pure Religion
I LOVE receiving snail mail! Who doesn't?! We check everyday to see if there is something in the mailboxes for us. Often there isn't, but when there is - it basically makes the rest of the day super incredible. (PS - for the record, this is not a ploy to get you to send us more mail :P)
But I received a letter from one of my dear dorm mates this past week and it was incredibly encouraging and moved me to tears. At the end was the following Bible verse:
"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." ~James 1:27
Whoa.
Paris is a big city. It's dirty and extremely busy. And full of homeless people and beggars. We see them everyday and get to know the faces of those that we pass on our regular routes. It really does break my heart and I can't do anything to help them except throw a few coins in their old coffee cups from time to time. One person, especially a poor university student, cannot reach the needs of the entire world, no matter how much we wish that we could. The girls here and I have had a few conversations about how we come up with every excuse in the book not to give when we see them and how we feel so useless here.
My very dear friend once said, "Do for one what you wish you could do for all." That was ground-breaking for me when I first heard it and is honestly keeping me afloat at times here when it seems like the need is so incredibly overwhelming. Pick a few people to help and go from there. It's not the quantity that matters, but the quality.
I see the same two people on the way back from classes everyday. It's a mother and her son with a sign that says, "J'ai faim." (I'm hungry.) I wonder what that little boy thinks of the world as he sits there with the saddest expression on his face. He's not in school, he's inside of a metro station day in and day out, and he has to watch as thousands of people pass him everyday and ignore him and his mom. I put some coins in their jar on Friday as we went past them. The mother was so incredibly thankful! I wish that there wasn't the language barrier so I would feel a tad more comfortable talking with her. Legit - why do we make excuses like that?! I kick myself for it.
I walked the entire length of Champs-Elysées (a super busy street in Paris) yesterday and as I walked, I saw a small garden with benches off to the side. It looked more quiet than most of the gardens in Paris (as everything is crazy busy all the time). I wanted to get home as I had been out walking for hours already, but God told me that I wouldn't regret it. Going on a detour, I found a little patch of grass and a little cluster of bushes and trees. I sat on the bottom branch of one of the trees, just off the ground, and found myself, for the first time in 2 months, completely hidden from people's view in the middle of God's creation. Wow. Those are priceless moments.
As I began to pray, I was reminded of that mother and child. God put it in my heart that those are the few that I can help while I'm here. Can I just play a game with the son for a bit? Can I teach him to read if he doesn't have any education? Can I get them a Bible and just encourage that mother? Being in French, yea, it will be insanely difficult, but it was also insanely difficult for God to watch his only Son die on a cross for a rebellious people.
So pure religion. It's more than just "Read your Bible, pray everyday and you'll grow, grow, grow" like that old song tells us. If you're not growing into a tree with deep roots that are producing a harvest of 100, 60, 30 times as much as has been planted (Matthew 11), then what's the point? What, then, are you living for? Life's not about staying in your comfort zone. Ouch, hallelujah.
Who are the few that you can help?
But I received a letter from one of my dear dorm mates this past week and it was incredibly encouraging and moved me to tears. At the end was the following Bible verse:
"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." ~James 1:27
Whoa.
Paris is a big city. It's dirty and extremely busy. And full of homeless people and beggars. We see them everyday and get to know the faces of those that we pass on our regular routes. It really does break my heart and I can't do anything to help them except throw a few coins in their old coffee cups from time to time. One person, especially a poor university student, cannot reach the needs of the entire world, no matter how much we wish that we could. The girls here and I have had a few conversations about how we come up with every excuse in the book not to give when we see them and how we feel so useless here.
My very dear friend once said, "Do for one what you wish you could do for all." That was ground-breaking for me when I first heard it and is honestly keeping me afloat at times here when it seems like the need is so incredibly overwhelming. Pick a few people to help and go from there. It's not the quantity that matters, but the quality.
I see the same two people on the way back from classes everyday. It's a mother and her son with a sign that says, "J'ai faim." (I'm hungry.) I wonder what that little boy thinks of the world as he sits there with the saddest expression on his face. He's not in school, he's inside of a metro station day in and day out, and he has to watch as thousands of people pass him everyday and ignore him and his mom. I put some coins in their jar on Friday as we went past them. The mother was so incredibly thankful! I wish that there wasn't the language barrier so I would feel a tad more comfortable talking with her. Legit - why do we make excuses like that?! I kick myself for it.
I walked the entire length of Champs-Elysées (a super busy street in Paris) yesterday and as I walked, I saw a small garden with benches off to the side. It looked more quiet than most of the gardens in Paris (as everything is crazy busy all the time). I wanted to get home as I had been out walking for hours already, but God told me that I wouldn't regret it. Going on a detour, I found a little patch of grass and a little cluster of bushes and trees. I sat on the bottom branch of one of the trees, just off the ground, and found myself, for the first time in 2 months, completely hidden from people's view in the middle of God's creation. Wow. Those are priceless moments.
As I began to pray, I was reminded of that mother and child. God put it in my heart that those are the few that I can help while I'm here. Can I just play a game with the son for a bit? Can I teach him to read if he doesn't have any education? Can I get them a Bible and just encourage that mother? Being in French, yea, it will be insanely difficult, but it was also insanely difficult for God to watch his only Son die on a cross for a rebellious people.
So pure religion. It's more than just "Read your Bible, pray everyday and you'll grow, grow, grow" like that old song tells us. If you're not growing into a tree with deep roots that are producing a harvest of 100, 60, 30 times as much as has been planted (Matthew 11), then what's the point? What, then, are you living for? Life's not about staying in your comfort zone. Ouch, hallelujah.
Who are the few that you can help?
Sunday, 3 March 2013
The Vine and the branches
Things in Paris are getting pretty monotonous. Save for the 8 am classes...I don't know if I will get used to those. Civilization classes started last week so in addition to grammar classes in the mornings and phonetics classes in the late afternoons every other week, I'm also taking History of French Art, Poetry and Song, and Paris. It's like impossible to take notes in the first two and the latter is actually quite interesting and yet repetitive (at this point) of French history courses I've taken previously.
So school's boring. Who wants to talk about school...?
Last Sunday I went to the regular French service at the church we've been attending. The community there is pretty welcoming of us and they have a picnic together after the service every week, which I'd say is pretty legit. However, one of the things that I have written on my list of "What I've learned in Europe" is that my pick-me-up, my calming action, the thing that puts my soul at ease, is singing worship songs to God at the top of my lungs. When you're told that you're supposed to stay in French as much as you can, that can get difficult. I don't know the majority of the songs that we sing at church cuz they are 1) hymns that I've never heard before and 2) they're in French. Harder to focus on the God we're singing to when you're conscious of trying to understand what the words you're struggling to pronounce are.
So I went to the American church after for their contemporary service. (They have 3 services in the morning!) The place looks like any other in Paris. It's practically a cathedral with tall ceilings and stained glass windows and a nifty little platform for the pastor. Then the full band gets up there and the powerpoint comes on the screen with words you've been saying all your life and the music starts up full and strong and suddenly, you're singing "Better is One Day" and your heart soars as high as your hands are lifted and as far as your voice is carried.
I went there again after the French church this morning. The message was on how Jesus is the Vine and we are the branches and we can be severed from the vine if we do not bear fruit. That passage always kicks me into gear and really reminds me of what my place is and why I'm on this earth. It also tied in very nicely to what I've been learning recently..
I legit can do nothing. I have absolutely no strength. If I even think of doing something for the Kingdom of God, all of my strength suddenly gets sapped out of me and all I want to do is sleep. 2 Corinthians 12:9, "My grace is sufficient for you, and my power is made perfect in weakness." That verse has allowed me to keep my head up in the past half year and now so much of what I've learned while in God's classroom is now being put into action while I'm out in God's "co-op", if you will. As I was reminded of this morning, I am not alive if I am not connected to the Vine. There's a reason I can't do anything when I don't have God's strength flowing through me.
I'm an introvert, for those of you who don't know me that well, and for the most part I enjoy spending time by myself, or at least not talking a whole lot when I'm with people. These past few semester especially in Hamilton have opened me up a bit more, I think, and I have realized how many people there are who love and care for me and that honestly makes me feel so incredibly blessed! And now that I'm on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean from all of you, I've realized how much I've come to depend on those communities. It's back to how it used to always be: just me and God. It's good to be connected to other people, but if we're not connected to the Vine, there's really no point. It's reshuffling my focus and reminding me again of what it is to be in an intimate relationship with God 24/7.
So school's boring. Who wants to talk about school...?
Last Sunday I went to the regular French service at the church we've been attending. The community there is pretty welcoming of us and they have a picnic together after the service every week, which I'd say is pretty legit. However, one of the things that I have written on my list of "What I've learned in Europe" is that my pick-me-up, my calming action, the thing that puts my soul at ease, is singing worship songs to God at the top of my lungs. When you're told that you're supposed to stay in French as much as you can, that can get difficult. I don't know the majority of the songs that we sing at church cuz they are 1) hymns that I've never heard before and 2) they're in French. Harder to focus on the God we're singing to when you're conscious of trying to understand what the words you're struggling to pronounce are.
So I went to the American church after for their contemporary service. (They have 3 services in the morning!) The place looks like any other in Paris. It's practically a cathedral with tall ceilings and stained glass windows and a nifty little platform for the pastor. Then the full band gets up there and the powerpoint comes on the screen with words you've been saying all your life and the music starts up full and strong and suddenly, you're singing "Better is One Day" and your heart soars as high as your hands are lifted and as far as your voice is carried.
I went there again after the French church this morning. The message was on how Jesus is the Vine and we are the branches and we can be severed from the vine if we do not bear fruit. That passage always kicks me into gear and really reminds me of what my place is and why I'm on this earth. It also tied in very nicely to what I've been learning recently..
I legit can do nothing. I have absolutely no strength. If I even think of doing something for the Kingdom of God, all of my strength suddenly gets sapped out of me and all I want to do is sleep. 2 Corinthians 12:9, "My grace is sufficient for you, and my power is made perfect in weakness." That verse has allowed me to keep my head up in the past half year and now so much of what I've learned while in God's classroom is now being put into action while I'm out in God's "co-op", if you will. As I was reminded of this morning, I am not alive if I am not connected to the Vine. There's a reason I can't do anything when I don't have God's strength flowing through me.
I'm an introvert, for those of you who don't know me that well, and for the most part I enjoy spending time by myself, or at least not talking a whole lot when I'm with people. These past few semester especially in Hamilton have opened me up a bit more, I think, and I have realized how many people there are who love and care for me and that honestly makes me feel so incredibly blessed! And now that I'm on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean from all of you, I've realized how much I've come to depend on those communities. It's back to how it used to always be: just me and God. It's good to be connected to other people, but if we're not connected to the Vine, there's really no point. It's reshuffling my focus and reminding me again of what it is to be in an intimate relationship with God 24/7.
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