Saturday was our first day off, and both Hillary and I were ridiculously excited to sleep in and not worry about setting an alarm. This was the morning that we both realized that we were still jetlagged… considering that we both slept through the morning and were woken by a phone call that came from Carol. She gave us the name and number of a man that found a flyer and was interested in our English lessons. After all of this Hillary and I got up, dismayed by the fact that we slept in far too late.
We both got some coffee and food inside of us, and then called Annemie, she told us that she wanted to do something else with us and to call her with ideas. Although, we are not Belgian, so we didn’t exactly have any ideas for Annemie. I called her anyway and told her that, and she just said, “Okay, it takes me 20-30 minutes to get to the church, I will think of something on the way.”
She arrived about 30 minutes later and told Hillary and I that we would be going to Lier, a town about 30 kilometers from Antwerp. This town is known for two things in Belgium: The Zimmer tower and the St. Gummarus church community. What was fun about this stop was that this is a Belgian tourist area. There were a ton of tourists there, but they were all Dutch-speaking tourists. Hillary and Annemie talked about how this city was very similar to Brugge because of the cobblestone streets and there is a river running through the city. I wouldn’t know, but I trust both of them. We walked through the city, and then we stopped in a café to get some coffee and listen to some big band music in the square. It reminded me of home, which felt really nice. I’m in Belgium though, so all is well.
After this, Annemie asked if there was anything that we needed, and we had been looking for a plug converter, so she took us to the mall. We ran through looking, and we also went to the Belgian Costco, but no luck. Paul and Carol let us borrow a converter, and we were just hoping for another one, but it was alright. Annemie was going to the theatre at 7 that night, so she rushed us back to the church and got ready for her play here. We sliced up some cheese and cut up some bread, made tea, got some cookies out, and had a baby meal with Annemie until she left.
After this we made a real meal: leftovers. It was a good day, and a good night. Later, the Ghanaians came in and had a men’s meeting, during this Hillary and I sat around and wrote, we couldn’t watch our movies or anything because my computer was so close to dying… but then, we thought that maybe we could make the adapter usable. Hillary had woken up from a nap earlier that week and said, “Why don’t we cut it(the adapter, our plugs didn’t fit it)?!”… She was a little disoriented, so I brushed this comment off… but cutting the adapter became more and more attractive. Now… I’m not going to tell you how we did it, but I will say that we succeeded. We felt extremely accomplished! This also meant that we could watch movies! Our luxury! Haha.
The next morning was church with the Ghanaians. Hillary and I were both extremely excited about this because neither of us had ever attended an African service. This was a bi-lingual service, and it was so great. Hillary and I loved it, and we loved the community we felt in this church. We talked to a few people, but we stuck around with a twenty-one year old named Ernestina. She’s lived in Belgium for nine years. She was fun, and she said that she might come hang out with us in the church building! Yay! Friends!
From there, Hillary had two readers still coming, so I just napped upstairs and chilled out. Then Hillary and I sat around for a little bit, made dinner, the usual. At 6 we were expecting Paul and Carol, because that is when the Flemish church meets. The Flemish church is much smaller than the Ghanaian church, but it still has a strong community. It consists of just a few families and a few kids, but it was a good service. Afterwards, Hillary and I talked to Richard and Jona, a father and son who are fluent in English. Richard was telling us that Jona is being sponsored to attend Harding University next fall, which is exciting. I also thought that it was kind of funny, but in a good way.
We also talked with Annemie, her best friend Nicole, and Nicole’s husband Rudy. They were a fun group, although neither Rudy nor Nicole are able to speak much English. Hillary and I still enjoying meeting them and talking with them, even just a little bit. After everyone had left Hillary and I watched some more Pushing Daisies and went to bed.
Monday was a pretty typical day, we got up, did a devo, prayed, ate, and met with readers. However, we also had to do some shopping for our party that we will be having on Wednesday night. It’s going to be Island themed, we’re pretty excited about it. We found all the decorations we needed in the church building, which was awesome because that meant that we didn’t have to spend much of our budget! Score! Anyway, Paul and Carol came over to show us how to get certain places, such as the post office and other grocery stores in the area. They also asked us to go out to see if we could distribute more flyers in the neighborhood.
This turned out to be more of an adventure than we both had anticipated. We made our first stop at Aldi, and we got some food and drinks for the party. It’s a little funny, Aldi in Europe is exactly like Aldi in the States… a little dirty, a little sketchy, and SUPER cheap. We spent less than 5 Euros in total… Hillary thought the checker woman was wrong, bahaha. Not at Aldi, she’s not. We then walked, what seemed to be aimlessly, until we found the post office. From there, we bought some stamps to send letters to America… because we love yallz… and then, it started raining. We stayed in the post office for as long as we could, but they were closing for lunch about 10 minutes after we’d gotten there… so we braved the storm. We then put flyers in mailboxes, and from there we miraculously got back to the main road and made it back to the church building. I still have no idea how we managed that.
After we dropped our groceries off at the house, we went to the corner of our block and got our first frieten of our trip. We had about an hour until I had a reader coming, so we started up an episode of Pushing Daisies. Paul and Carol then came over to set up their new sound system, so Hillary and I joined them downstairs until Palden came for his lesson. This lesson was slower, but Palden seemed really tired. He’s been getting better with his English though, which is really good! He’s also been teaching me some Dutch, annnd he wrote my name in Tibetan. Best. Ever. Haha.
I had one more lesson on Monday, it was Andrea, a Belgian woman who has done LST before, and she has very good English. I tried to get her to use the Luke book, but she wouldn’t really have any of it, so we just talked. She brought me some of her homework from adult school to look over, correct, and discuss… it was almost a little too formal, but I’m sure that will change for the better. From there, Hillary and I made some dinner, and finished up the first season of Pushing Daisies. Then, we just talked, and it was a good talk. One of those friendship-building talks. We were both super excited about Tuesday morning though, because that is when Maureen comes! We’re so excited to include her in our English-teaching-triad.
Peace, Love, and Jesus,
Dana, Hillary, and soon to be Maureen
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