February 12, 2018
Valentine’s name is everywhere again this week. Cash registers are ringing up sales of greeting cards, chocolates, roses, lingerie and perfumes this week all over Europe and beyond. Not a bad business, in both senses of the word. So it is good to be reminded again who this Valentine was. A casanova or loverboy from […]
February 5, 2018
To expect marriages to last till ‘death do us part’ is simply unreasonable – or so I heard recently. Life circumstances, mutual interests, careers and other factors fluctuate and so our expectations concerning marriage should also be flexible, so the argument goes. Sounds reasonable, until you begin thinking of the long-term consequences to society, for […]
January 15, 2018
Dear WW readers, After a month of physical and mental exertion moving into new premises and adjusting to a new urban environment, I will take a break from writing ‘weekly word’ until February 5. Romkje and I are presently in New Zealand visiting with my soon-to-be-95-year-old mother and other family members and friends. We plan […]
January 10, 2018
(The photo with yesterday’s version of this ww was automatically cropped and omitted the chalked message referred to in the text.) Christmas is over for the Western world. The decorations have been put away again for another year. The New Year is now under way, for better or for worse. Life is returning to ‘normal’. […]
January 9, 2018
Christmas is over for the Western world. The decorations have been put away again for another year. The New Year is now under way, for better or for worse. Life is returning to ‘normal’. Epiphany, or Three Kings’ Day, has just been celebrated in more traditional churches. Saturday, January 6, the 12th day of Christmas, marked […]
December 18, 2017
The recent sale of Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi (ca. 1500) for $450.3 million made world news as the highest purchase ever for a painting. Who had so much money to pay such a price for a painting that in 1958 was sold for a mere £45? The latest twist in an improbable story is […]
December 11, 2017
The first snow blizzard of the season closed in on the Netherlands on Friday evening as a farewell reception began for Romkje and myself in Centrum ’s Heerenhof, the former laundry building we as YWAM purchased in 1979. At the start of the week, a large moving van had drawn up outside our old home […]
December 4, 2017
Advent signalled a new beginning for the human race. There were signs (the Bethlehem star, for example) and wonders (Mary’s conception) and those who were watching and waiting recognised the moment (like Simeon and Anna in the temple). Yet no-one really understood what God was up to. That would take another thirty-three years to unfold. […]
November 27, 2017
Moving house for the first time in nearly four decades can be a profoundly nostalgic exercise. Old letters resurface from your pre-marriage life, or around your wedding time and the birth of your children, forcing you to admit a lot of life has been lived and a lot of time has gone by. Old boxes […]
November 20, 2017
On a trip to the Arctic Circle in Finland last week, where I was invited to speak at the northernmost university in the European Union, the University of Lapland, I came across a candid response to the #metoo campaign by a young Finnish woman named Sofia. Thanks to social media, the campaign has become a […]
November 13, 2017
Europeans from north and south, east and west, need to time to listen to each other to become aware of differences and to overcome misunderstandings. My wife and I have just returned from such a time of dialogue and mutual listening in Vienna, a three-day gathering of 120 representatives of Christian movements, Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant […]
November 6, 2017
Younger women in particular are stepping up to leadership roles in churches and ministries in central and eastern Europe despite traditional attitudes still widely prevalent. At this year’s Hope For Europe Women in Leadership biennial conference, held a few days ago in Belgrade, Serbia, over eighty women from more than twenty European nations heard reports […]
