Belgium
The early morning fog that shrouded the South East made for a taxing journey to the port but it was soon dispelled by the morning sun and we sailed across the English Channel to France on a beautiful, crisp and clear morning. Journeying to Seraing in Belgium, we took in a leisurely lunch break in Brugge, a beautiful city where we basked in the midday sun and watched the world go by. Boats shuttled tourists around the intricate, delightful canals and we drank our Belgium beer and played spot the nationality of the tourists. Americans generally loud, French and Italian classic and gorgeous, Chinese affluent and bedecked with the latest hi-tech cameras. As for the Brits; generally lacking in dress sense, bordering on being scruffy and having an unhealthier demeanour than most other nationalities; obesity among the Brits and Americans being noticeable.
Travelling south and onto Seraing, near Liege by mid-afternoon I reunited with my former school-exchange friend who I first met in 1973. We were to stay at his father’s house for the night. Seraing is a very industrial town on the outskirts of Liege and the atmosphere of the place symbolised what I felt is a country searching for its soul. It’s interesting reconnecting with someone who you haven’t seen for many years but the ease with which we shared and picked up where we had left off speaks volumes of the good friendship that we formed back in our youth. It is 14 years since we last saw each other and we leave the following morning having spent a really good 18 hours together with the sense that it will not be long before we meet again. Michel and his sister hope to come to Northumberland in the summer. Belgium is a fragmented country with the divide between the southern French speaking Walloon people and Northern Flemish speaking population. It is a country without an active government, its political system is at an impasse. With a thin overlay of liberal Catholicism, the popular mind-set is a secular existentialism which affords very little hope for its citizens to talk of church is meaningless but the interest that Michel took in asking questions about the Community, I sensed something of a heartcry. Pray God it may be so. Despite Belgium being characterised as a hard place spiritually, it was a significant setting in my own faith journey. In the years following the school exchange, I returned to the Ardennes and it was on one occasion hitchhiking that I was the recipient of an elderly couples hospitality. I had spent the night on the village green in the “bus shelter” and waking early the next morning anticipated receiving a reprimand from the old man who approached me from his house by the green. Instead, I received an invitation to join him and his wife for petit dejeuner where a pleasant hour or so was spent in stilted conversation. My French was poor, (it is now appalling!) but there was nevertheless a sharing of life at the breakfast table and a communing of hearts. The warmth of their welcome and generous hospitality including a glorious hot free standing bath was an act of grace and love which still resides in the memory banks but it was a passing remark from the old man after he insisted on taking me to Namur that was to have a lasting influence on my life. As I bade him farewell and thanked him, even though the ride in his old Renault 4 van was the most hazardous part of the whole episode, he took my hand and said “Young man, God is not far from you”. Those words spoken with compassion were to change the direction of my life. Some months later whilst training to be an Outward Bound Instructor in the Cairngorms of Scotland I came to faith. Then as now I remember those words so it is with some sense of gratitude that I journey through Belgium, thankful for an old couple whose welcome and hospitality and few words were to begin a transformation in my life. I can’t even remember their names and they will have long since died but from a seemingly spiritual wasteland, a word of life was spoken that was to change my life and by the grace of God through me to many others. Reflecting on this experience and the reconnecting with my friend Michel and his father, Leon, perhaps explains something of my love for Europe and my excitement at the prospects of the Community reaching out across this Continent as we walk again the ancient paths and carry the light of Christ on our travels. I am also reflecting on how faith is shared. Going for a walk with Michel in the woods near his house yesterday the same heart and desire to see someone come to faith beats as strong as ever but I can no longer adopt or use the language or methodology of my former evangelistic days. I have an aversion to any form of coercion, selling or manipulating people towards faith. Religious jargon, trite phraseology rings so hollow and I have an abhorrence to such. In contrast, the ‘methodology’ of the old Belgium couple, their minds exuding the love of Christ, their home and hospitality reflecting God’s grace and eight words, prophetic words were what brought life and transformation and created the space without any hint of manipulation or coercion for God to work. A way of sharing faith that carries no hint of judgement or powerplay but which reaches out and appeals to that “light of life in every human heart”. A way of being that respects humanity and shares easily the life and light of Christ. An insight perhaps to what it means to live missionally.
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