In which God is bigger than us:

After we spent a few days in Belgium, we opted to blow paris off and head straight for Spain. We were eager to get started; find a flat, find a grocery store, find a church, find ministry, who knows...So we did. We got here on Wednesday 23 Sept. Immediately in for changed plans and missed rides and who knows what else. A few minutes deliberation and we decided upon a hotel that turned out to be a hostel with a broken lock on the terrace door.

It was a rough start on Thursday. We looked all around for neighborhoods and where we would and would not feel "safe" living. But neither of us had a clue how to go about finding a flat. But, God answered that prayer. We were picked up on Friday by an American couple that have been here as missionaries for 15 years.They showed us the ins and outs, educated us all kinds and fed us lunch.

we found a flat on Saturday, so we had sunday all free. We attended the church that the missionaries attend and afterward were invited to lunch, and to a baptism. This was the best 6 hours since we left home. The worshipping, the baptism of a new creation in Christ, the unity, goodness, kindness, and love that goes beyond all language and nationality boundaries; only God can do that. Amazing. Truly.

The food has been, surprisingly, not very exciting. A lot of potatoes, hams, breads, etc. Not much in the way of veggies or fruit. I can't wait until we move into our flat (God willing, tonight or tomorrow morning), so we can get down to the business of life.

Language is a tough thing. You can know the words to say, but negotiating a social contract of friendship or calling to arrange a meeting for a flat is fraught with social and cultural dances and agreements that we simply don't know. So, in addition to learning new vocabulary, pronounciation, verbs, tenses, articles, prepositions, etc, we are trying our best to learn the social aspects of each encounter. People have been patient, which is good, but please Lord, give us more than our own ability to learn.

I'm really excited to see what God does here.

In which long hours become shorter than you might expect.

Well, we're here. Brussels. But I'm already ahead of myself.

Welcome to my online home. I'm glad you came. Step in while I unbutton my sweater in favor of a sportier, zip-up one. Oh, right. can't forget the house shoes.

We finished up getting ready to head to Belgium and Spain at about 3:21 am, and left the house at about 3:45am. Doug, let me just tell you again what an awesome guy you are. There I said it.

The flight over was surprising, to say the least. I highly recommend Jet Airways. They treat you like royalty even though you could only afford seats in steerage.

We spent about a half hour trying to find out where our luggage went, turns out American Airlines ended up not putting it on the flight from JFK to Brussels, but no worries. God is in control, even in silly little things like where you're going to find a pair of socks since all yours are 4000 miles away on a rainy airfield. We were given 100 Euros (hereafter referred to as E, i.e., E100) to get started, and were able to turn that into pants, a sweater, lunch, coffee. Excellent.

We spent dinner in a tavern across from our hotel, we met a man there who traveled to 'Frisco' about ten years ago and wants to go back. I hope we run into him again. The people here are very sweet and patient with the idiot who didn't realize that Belgians speak french. I like them so far.

Tomorrow, to Bruges.