A wedding in Belgium

Hello there!

I'm back :)
Back from not writing for a long time.

And back from an enjoyable weekend in Belgium!
Karolien, one of my ex-household-mates got married on Saturday.
It was a very nice time, a beautiful wedding and fantastic to see so many friends. Great to hear about all the changes the new school year brought.
Karolien en Gillis, I wish you all the best in your marriage!

I got the chance to see my parents and siblings for some time. So good to be able to come home for a weekend, having a nice time, going out for dinner, update each other about little things in life that have or haven't changed,...
It quickly felt as if I had never been gone.
Even though I really enjoyed being home, I am glad the GAP-year is not over yet. Being home, showed me that I still have a lot of things that I want to learn and master before going back for good.

In the midst of travelling from home to Lebbeke to Leuven, back home and back to London, I was able to meet a friend from university for a few hours. It's such a blessing that she was able to free some time.
I really enjoyed walking around in Leuven and chatting about the placements next year and so much more!

For everyone who is planning a trip Belgium-London or London-Belgium:
When I was booking my travels, I found out about cityjet.com. At that point it was cheaper than the train and way easier than the Ryanair. So I took this option & it was amazing!
The plane leaves inside London and not an endless train-ride away. And it arrives in Antwerp. (Very close to where I live.)
Both the airports are very small and you are only supposed to be there 15mins in advance. Everyone is extremely nice to you (HUGE difference with Ryanair flights and airports) and you get free (!) food and drinks on the plane. Also, they let me bring a big suitcase and hand-luggage included in the price. So I was able to bring all my winter clothes from home to London. Thank God!
So it's really worth checking the prices when you come over!

During the same weekend people were coming to London for a SWOT-weekend. My roommate last year was one of them. I got to see her on Thursday.
Loads of blessings for me this weekend! Thank you everyone!

Gapper in London

I made this for a friend, but seeing the result, I thought I could as well share it here...

October update

Hey World !

Here is the longer update about life here. I decided to do one for each month, so this is for November.

In this message I will cover a few parts of life as a London Gapper.

Household

At the moment we are 4 girls in the house. It’s very multicultural and none of us is from here. We have 2 Americans, 1 Lebanese and me (1 Belgian). Very challenging, but it brings a lot of beauty too. Although the house is very small, we have a lovely little garden to escape too when needed. J Up till last weekend we had another Lebanese girl in our house, but she moved out to live closer to her university.

One of my jobs is to lead this household. Being new to London too does not make that any easier. The biggest challenge is to try to find a way of living where every culture is comfortable.  But, we are all very motivated to do the best we can and serve one another in this way, and I can see the progress during the last few weeks.

It is a blessing being able to share my life with other Christians who really want to live a life for God’s greater glory.

‘Work’

With ‘work’ I mean everything we do that is planned between 10.30AM and 5.30PM. I work full time for Koinonia, which is the university student outreach in London. It is a very diverse job! In the mornings we have a training-slot. This covers topics like time-management, discussion groups, discussing cultures …

Afternoons are filled with meeting up with people, coffee stalls and other services outside of Koinonia.

I really enjoy it. Meeting new people and having good conversations are a big blessing here in this inpersonal city and the trainings are thought-provoking and informative. (My fellow Gapper Camille told me I could use these descriptive words. I would just have said ‘Interesting’ being interessant like in French or Flamish or in any other normal language, but for some odd reason ‘interesting’ does not work in modern English any more… Bummer!)

Community

I have been in community all my life. Up till September that has been the Belgian community (called Jerusalem). It is very interesting (I think I’m using it right this time) to be part of another community. Things are very similar in a lot of ways, but still very different in other ways. People in Antioch (the London community) all live very close to each other and you can feel a very lively way of life here that I hadn’t found as such in Belgium. Although I admit that Leuven is getting there…

Another big difference is the amount of youth running around. It is crazy how silent and small Antioch becomes when the kids aren’t there J

One of my services this year is to have a little youth-group with some of the girls. Last weekend we did a sleepover. Very nice, very loud and very active J

So that is mostly the official part of my gap-year this month.

I’ll add the non-official things like last month whenever it comes up.

Have a nice month!