July 23, 2022
After years of waiting, Albania and North Macedonia were given the green light this week to start accession talks concerning full EU membership. Television news showed officials in Brussels toasting the ‘breakthrough’. So why are the Macedonians not excited? This news was only days old as Romkje and I landed at Alexander the Great airport […]
July 16, 2022
Life in an ‘open-air museum’ like the city of Amsterdam is full of unexpected discoveries. This week I learnt about a Dutch Reformed preacher and theologian who died exactly 400 years ago after facilitating the remarkable era of world exploration and trade which launched the fledgling Dutch Republic into its so-called ‘Golden Age’. He […]
July 9, 2022
The long-anticipated fall of Boris Johnson this week confronts us all with the question: am I a truth-twister or a truth-seeker? Am I shaping truth to my own desires or my desires to truth? Truth matters at every level of life and society – in our bedrooms, homes, schools and offices as well as in […]
July 2, 2022
Two weeks ago in weekly word, I described a broad gathering of Dutch church leaders I attended united under the creed: ‘Jesus Christ is Lord’. However, I suspect that if we had asked ‘Lord of what?’, our unity may have been stretched. Some no doubt would have answered, ‘Lord of my life’, or ‘Lord of […]
June 25, 2022
This weekend finishes Refugee Week, arousing awareness of the vast numbers of those displaced globally through war, climate change, famine, poverty, persecution, terrorism or religious strife. Activities of this growing world movement celebrate the contributions, creativity and resilience of refugees and asylum seekers. As we are witnessing in Ukraine, the causes of displacement are interrelated. […]
June 18, 2022
To my surprise, the name of a Russian Orthodox archpriest was on the speakers list of an annual retreat for Dutch national church leaders this week. In these days of anti-Russian sentiment, how he would be received? What had he come to say? Little did I expect that many participants would view the archpriest’s talk […]
June 11, 2022
If in these grave days we believe that prayer for Ukraine is a responsibility and a necessity, then clearly so must we also pray for her aggressor, Russia. Parallels in the Bible and in history help us to know how we should pray. The story of Daniel, Nebuchadnezzar and Cyrus remind us that rulers are […]
June 4, 2022
The happy sounds of care-free children ring around the playground in the heart of Amsterdam where granddad duty has brought me once more. While my two grandsons join friends playing football, digging in the sand pit or racing skelters, I catch up on the latest news updates from Ukraine sent faithfully for over eighty days […]
May 28, 2022
To the average European today, Ascension Day remains on our western calendars as a left-over from some obscure religious past, another welcome spring holiday along with Easter and Pentecost. Few care or even think about its origin. As believers, however, we can see its significance as the occasion when Christ commissioned his followers to ‘go […]
May 21, 2022
Daily reports sent from YWAM’s Slavic Ministries office over the past ten weeks have shown churches and mission organisations cooperating together across Europe to supply basic needs for hungry villagers and townspeople in the war-torn land. Photos and stories of YWAMers who chose to stay in Ukraine after the Russian invasion describe crowds waiting not […]
May 14, 2022
The triple-whammy of Brexit, Covid and Russian invasion has delivered the severest shock to the seven decades of peace in Europe since the post-war start of European integration. It has shattered the comfortable orthodoxy that democracy, liberalism and capitalism could guarantee peace, prosperity and freedom. We are forced to re-think the foundations of the contemporary […]
May 6, 2022
When your war is not quite going as you had planned, your annual military parade to show the might and power of your armed forces to the world has to be scaled down a little. That is President Putin’s dilemma this coming Monday, Victory Day, when Red Square is filled with dignitaries, public, military personnel, […]
