family visit

Mid May my parents and Michaël came to visit.
It was lovely having them over, catching up, showing them around in London, having them meet everyone here, ...

Next to the obvious, we went to a few more interesting places :)

pentecost 2012
Once a year 3 big London churches (Hillsong, HTB and Jesus House) organise a week long Pentecost festival that is opened by a huge prayerevent.
Tim Hughes, Nicky Gumbel and other great leaders included.
It is very encouraging to see so many young christians in such a secular city as London!
If you're ever in London around that time, it's worth keeping that evening free...



Virginia waters
Joe drove us up to Virginia water. A beautiful park and lake south-west of London.
If you are in London for a longer period of time, this is a must.
http://www.theroyallandscape.co.uk/landscape/valleygardens/

Antioch Lordsday
Lucky for us, there was an Antioch event that weekend, so they met a lot of people in the community here.
Thank you, Antioch-people for being so welcoming.
And a special thanks to the Stobarts for making this visit possible.

London and her quirks

a few funny things about London:

mass
I have to stifle a laugh every time at the end of the mass where they say:
Go forth, the mass is ended... THANKS BE TO GOD

am-pm
please explain to me the logic of:
1AM - 2AM - 3AM - 4AM - 5AM - 6AM - 7AM - 8AM - 9AM - 10AM - 11AM - 12PM - 1PM - 2PM - 3PM - 4PM - 5PM - 6PM - 7PM - 8PM - 9PM - 10PM - 11PM - 12AM
makes absolutely no sense to me...

ginger
there is ginger everywhere...
gingerbread
gingertea
gingershampoo
gingerbeer - which by the way is not even beer and does not contain any alcohol (or at least most of the time)
ginger roots in peoples kitchens
ginger lippgloss
dried ginger fruit
and there is much, much more...
I hardly knew what the flamish word for ginger was. First time I heard about it was maybe 4 years ago. Really weird to see it everywhere here.

hamster snacks
During christmas we babysat Humphrey, the hamster of one of the community families.
When I looked in the box where they kept all the food, I saw this:

choc drops - yummy treats for all small animals.

CHOCOLATE DROPS as a treat for your hamster??? Humphrey is one hell of a lucky hamster. I hope he knows...

interested? --> http://www.pegasuspets.co.uk/rotastak-small-animal-treat-chocolate-drops-50g.ir?cName=furries-small-animal-treats

light switches

At the start of the year we had a search expedition for all the light switches in our house. Most of them are outside of the actual room, so have fun reading a book at night. Yep, you have to get all the way out of your bed, open that door, get out of your room, turn off the light, close the door and good luck finding your bed again ... 

But then some other switches are very strategically placed somewhere behind the door. My lightswitch is outside of the room next to all the ones for the hallway. Guess how many times I've been woken up in the middle of the night with my light turned on and a silent 'oh, sorry' whispered in the hallway.

plugs in bathroom

You can search your whole life for a plug in a bathroom here in England. 

Security reasons they say. 

I'm sure those millions of electrocuted people in Belgium and everywhere else in the world are very jealous of this rule here... 

red lights

The traffic lights here make absolutely no sense. If you are waiting for the light to turn green, it takes ages (!), really it feels a lot longer than at home. So no one waits and people are crossing everywhere, with or without a red light. Very efficient!

One of the first nights in London, we decided to go to the pub in Acton. When we came back, we had to cross a rather large and somewhat complicated crossing. Of course the light was red. At the other side a group of 6 or 7 policemen were waiting for the light to turn green. (I guess they had more police around because of the riots at the start of the year.)

Anyway, our hosts just start crossing without even looking at the light. You can't believe my amazement when we crossed those policemen at the other side, who did not say a word about it. 

Weird!

Porridge

Since early winter we have a mouse in our house. We tried everything and it never got caught. 

I called him Porridge. 

Every now and again we spot him wandering around, but with the winter gone, we don't see him that often anymore...

Camille left...

Two days ago the first of the 3 musketeers left... the end is getting closer.



Camille, it was an honour fighting alongside you!
Keep up the good work,
We miss you here. 

face2Faith

Over the last ten years a number of Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox movements, groups and communities have begun to cooperate in Europe in order to build deeper friendships and to present a more unified witness. Under the name of "Together for Europe" (http://www.together4europe.org/en/ ) these movements have organised local and international events, amongst them two conferences in Stuttgart in 2004 and 2007.

This year "Together for Europe" made a political statement by meeting in Brussels together with politicians from the EU. On 12th of May we gathered in the heart of Brussels for that purpose. In parallel there were hundreds of similar gatherings around Europe, all aimed at engaging local and national politicians and expressing to them the desire of Christians to be active in shaping the future of our continent. All these sites were linked by internet and video, and part of the Brussels event was televised to all those locations.

or you can watch the televised part here.

The face2Faith project was to bring together the next generation of Together for Europe. 30 young people from Germany, England, Ireland, Hungary, Italy and Belgium gathered in Leuven on a Wednesday night: movements as varied as YMCA, Focolare, Charismatic Renewal, Offensive Junger Christen and Christus Bruderschaft were represented. During the next 4 days we spent time getting to know each other, praying together, but also exploring questions like "Wat is friendship on Facebook and in the Bible?", "How can we as young Christians impact society through our professional lives?" and "What is the cultural context we find ourselves in?". Ice-breakers, team building games in the forest an football matches alternated with ecumenical prayer services and intense theological discussions over strong Belgian beer :)
And we worked on a stage presentation for the big Brussels event on Saturday.

I really enjoyed being there and I would love to continue being part of this.
Europe needs people to stand up for certain values like family, solidarity, just economy, unity and others.

Some pictures:

April - home and SWOT

So in April I had the chance to go home for a few days.
We had a SWOT weekend in Belgium (Similar to the weekend we had in Glasgow in september) and some time off, so my fantastic boss suggested I go a little earlier and spend some time with my family.
And in my great obedience, I did :)

Remember how in November I wrote this:
'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 A wedding in Belgium)

Well, after leaving home in April, I did feel things had changed. For the good. I think.
Anyway...it is going to be interesting going back to Belgium in a month with people expecting me to be the same, act the same and think the same as a year ago. Because I won't...
And I am curious to see how you all have changed too :)

April - Easter

Easter was crazy... good crazy...

Noémie Tilmanne (some of you might know her) was here during eastertime. Noémie is studying in England and heard about me living in London, so she came down to visit.
It was great to see her again after so many years and to chat about when we were younger.

So back to Easter.
The day before Easter, some Christians celebrate a Seder meal.
It goes back to the Jewish passover meal, with her traditions.
Wikipedia says:
The main Christian view is that the Passover, as observed by ancient Israel as well as Jews today, was a type of the true Passover Sacrifice of God that was to be made by Jesus. The Israelites' Passover observance was the commemoration of their physical deliverance from bondage in Egypt, whereas Passover represents for most Christians a spiritual deliverance from the slavery of sin (John 8:34) and, since Jesus' death, a memorial of the sacrifice that Jesus has made for mankind.

So we went to one of the young families here and had a great time. It was nice to prepare Easter in this way.

After the meal we left for the Easter vigil that would last all night. 

It was done in the neocatechumenal tradition. 

A very deep and beautiful service with 7 baptisms in a pool built in the church. 

see the cross-shaped blue thing? That's the pool.

It's amazing how quickly time passed, because before we realised it, it was 6AM.

Back in Acton we had breakfast at Bob Bell's. Went home to get some sleep (which was very much needed!) And came back to Bob's where an amazing dinner was waiting for us.
24 crazy but beautiful hours. It was a great opportunity to live Easter in different traditions.
I am very grateful for this time.