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, […]
April 30, 2022
Turbulent times are nothing new for the 400-year-old Temple du Marais, venue for next week’s State of Europe Forum in Paris . The storming of the Bastille Castle in 1789, triggering the French Revolution, took place just two hundred metres away. That led directly to the closure of the convent of which the domed circular […]
April 23, 2022
Even as we recoil in horror at Russia’s brutal destruction of Mariupol in the east, we watch with bated breath the contest for the French presidency in the west. Much hangs in the balance. The election outcome will shape France’s international relations. A President Le Pen would redefine Franco-German cooperation, challenge EU treaties and undermine […]
April 16, 2022
The evening Jesus was betrayed and arrested, leading directly to his trial and crucifixion, he gave a clear instruction to his disciples – and thus to disciples through the ages, including ourselves: A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love […]
April 9, 2022
Recently a young Muslim seeker named Mustapha sat in our Upper Room talking about how radical Jesus was. ‘“Love your enemy!”’ he exclaimed. ‘How radical is that?!’ These words of Jesus are perhaps too familiar for those of us raised in the Christian faith to sense how truly counter-intuitive they are. Yet when we recall […]
April 2, 2022
‘Imagine if every second person in your town would leave. In your own household: Imagine seeing half your own family leave. Kids and parents would leave, grandparents would stay. In your neighborhood: Those who are well-to-do would leave first. Those who know a foreign language, have a business, a good education. ‘Try to picture who […]
March 26, 2022
A column in de Volkskrant, a leftish Dutch newspaper, grabbed my attention this week: ‘Europe must rearm itself, especially morally.’ For the first time in two generations, the term ‘rearmament’ is reappearing in the headlines. The shock-effect of the Russian invasion of Ukraine has been to recalibrate everything over the past month, including galvanising German […]
March 19, 2022
This year’s performances of Johan Sebastian Bach’s St Matthew’s Passion by choirs and orchestras across Europe have an extra dimension of pathos as Ukraine suffers under unprovoked aggression. Considered one of the greatest musical works ever composed, the sacred oratorio depicts the false accusations, lies and unjustified suffering inflicted on Jesus, ending in his crucifixion […]
