Cruisin' Europe

Whenever I am on the road and in a car traveling throughout Europe I marvel at the great roads, fast speeds and especially the changing landswcape as you go from country to country and even while changing provinces!

Last 2 weeks, we were in Nuernberg, Rheinfelden, drove home via the German Wine Route and the Loreley, Rhine Route.

Then we visited some friends in Belgium and Brussel and believe it or not we even took a one day trip to Amsterdam by train.

Give us some time to make a selction of the pics and will upload soon.

This is also our last week as a family together in Belgium.

Orval: peace, nature, meditation ...

I did drink the "Trappist beer" in my early 20'ies and it was only now that I visited the place.

The Abbey d'Orval (Vallis Aurelis or Latin for Golden Valley) is located in the Belgian Ardennes, a serene piece of wonderfully created nature.

A mineral water well attracted 1000 years ago the first settlers; monks from the south who built nearby the church building and monastry ( for more details, see www.orval.be ).

The water of the "Mathilda" well still serves the brewery and cheese factory. 24,000 bottles of artisanally brewed Trappist beer are bottled every hour. And they do not keep much inventory!!

Enjoy the slideshow!



or click here.

Cheryl's birthday

Our family enjoyed the outdoors last Thursday, celebrating Cheryl's birthday with some special friends.

In the morning we had brunch at the Courtyard. Sharon made a lovely birthday bread ( as Cheryl like bread more than cakes, especially when they are home made with love! ), cup cakes, chocolate (yes: even Belgian choc !) and banana toasties. Zoe and Asher had great fun seeing Mummy making it all before their eyes.

In the late afternoon, we had a pic-nic at the Botanical Gardens. Mats on the grass, display the food and marvelous Andrew and Michelle brought a nice French Merlot, crackers, Boursin and blue cheese. As the saying goes in France: "Du vin, du pain et du Boursin" Basically: wine, bread and cheese. What else you need? Some good company who brought it all!
Watch the fun commerical by clicking this link. Boursin! ( I am looking forward to bringing Cheryl to the wheat field for a pic-nic ! )

Will upload some picture slide show later for you to enjoy...

Standing up for truth

No Compromise, even if it can cost you your bread and butter, fame or career opportunities or position in your organisation.

I marvel at the confidence Carrie showed at the Miss USA elections.

She was asked the question if she "opposed gay marriage" and she boldly said: YES!

I can only applaud this and especially in a perverted and morally-on-the-drift-California. It is time people stand up for what is right and not for what is perceived to be acceptable.

History has shown that communities or even countries who depart from certain clear and right principles and moral structures, they invoke major damaging issues for the society and generations to come.

Read her interview here: on BBC or FOX NEWS


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Antwerpen Centraal

In a few months time, I will most likely arrive in this train station from Paris on my way home for summer holidays in Antwerpen.

The station is an absolute historical monument and among of the few remaining grand central stations left in Europe.

Just to see a performance in an environment like this thrills me to be back home! and ... it made my day today!





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Resurrection

Easter, Pesach, Passover ... Resurrection. Not just new life, but old life turned new, eternal.

At a time as this, Easter, one thing can not be overseen: LIFE...and He who gives it.

I just saw this LIFE shocking VDO of a person who was meant to be dead but rose from it. Resurrection. Without too much of my own words....



(For more info on the speaker, click here)
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Lights Off ! Candles on ?

http://www.earthhour.org

What started in 2007 with a group of concerned people in Sydney became a world wide movement.

It reminds me of the Global Day of Prayer, which also started by the Vision of one man, a south African business man, Mr. Power who turned the whole idea in a global movement.

When I was in my teens, I wanted to change the world by becoming a man like in the film "Swordfish", in my 20'ies I thought I could do that by changing groups of people, in my 30'ies I was just figuring it out all again and now in my 40'ies .. I am just struggling to change my own heart and make it become more Christlike.

Enjoy the clip below and remember: switch off your lights and utilities at home, even your laptops or PC, sit in the dark and do some reflections, prayers and see what you can do to change the world.



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Feeding thousands.. it has been done before!

The other day we were singing this song and I was remembered again of the Biblical record of our dear friend, the passionate Jesus who blesses the poor, destitute, sick, broken hearted and feeds the poor.

Bad news: this current crisis, which may last for 7 years, will cause many of the above.

Good news: Jesus is still the same today as he will be tomorrow.

Let God minister to your soul and heart as you listen and read following lyrics of this beautiful song..



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Global Warming - Feeding the Poor

Last week I was a bit shocked to hear that one church community in Singapore raised 19 m S$ in one day for its building fund.

Only a day before I met up with a group of business people ( NRV ) who are helping a local community of islanders in the Pacific to feed themselves by catching life fish and exporting it to affluent Hong Kong. They have been raising funds ( an investment with ROI ) for 6 months !!

Watch below clip of the beautiful Carterets Islands and consider next time you raise funds: are you feeding the poor (Jesus' command) or are you building human edifices (whose command?) such as Cathedrals, church temples, etc...

http://www.youtube.com/watch !


Where in some areas the water is raising, in others it is receding, like in the case of the 4th largest sea, the Aral Sea. Once again man screwed up. Though, it seems here the process is reversible.

The Promised Land

It has been nearly 10 years since I visited Israel for the first time. It left an everlasting impression on me.

It is really an amazing place. A land highly divided and revered by many different Faiths. Recently, I have been pondering over the idea to join a local "Kibutzim" and live my faith in an agricultural community.

But what do we really know about Israel? Why are only the jews criticized in the modern media and sympathy goes only to the Palestinians? Why do we call it "occupied land" and occupied by whom?

Have a look at the below film.

Warning: you may not agree with what you see because this may not be what people lied or falsly taught you before. So, have an open mind and educate yourself.

Truth about Israel, God's Holy Land with an ternal destiny.

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Pro life

The name of my daughter is Zoe, it means life...eternal life in Greek.

Today I was shocked to see this about life.

How life is murdered in the womb.

I somehow 'knew' that in China, India, USA and Europe...millions of babies are aborted every year.

That is more than in any other conflict, plague or world war.

Something can be done ... it starts with you and me!

See below info and VDO clip:

http://www.priestsforlife.org/images/index.aspx

Sorry for the debaters, but though I was born when I came out of my mothers womb, that was not the start of my life. That started at least 9 months earlier.

Conception = Life

Millenium Money Documentary

Usually, I do not mention any commercial issues on this blog (see Gold Bounty instead) but since many of my friends only browse at this site, I decided to blog this very important VDO you MUST watch.

Pay special attention as from minute 105 onwards. It describes the "dishonest weights and scales" as mentioned in Proverbs 11:1, detested by God, but widely practised in the world financial system and most businesses ( especially in the banking and insurance industry - Fractional Reserve Banking )

Please carefully watch: it may prevent you from loosing what you have now... and do write me with any questions you have. Answering then is part of my job!

(click here to watch Millenium Money at the Google site)

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What song did they sing for my birthday?

It is passed mid night and extactly at this time, but a few times zones away, and also many years ago, I was born.

Curious what song Zoe and Mum are going to sing for me tomorrow morning. I'd better take my camera to the bedroom to document it...

Andrew, Michelle and baby Rubin brought me to the beach. Du vin, du Boursin and du pain et le soleil, what else do you need with your family and good friends around?

The biggest birthday party

Not just the biggest but also most widely celebrated globally: Happy Birthday Jesus Christ !!

Here's a clip of Zoe singing carols..

Let every heart prepare Him room

This Sonday* is the second Advent of the season.

Advent is meant to be a time of personal preparation when we intentionally make room in our hearts for the coming of Christ into our lives, in an ever increasing kind of way!

Christmas has become a celebration of many wonderful things: the joy of families being together, the thrill of both giving and receiving gifts and the beauty of giving honor to those who should be honored and appreciated: parents, special friends and beloved ones..

All of these things are good things!

Tragically, the celebration of the birth of Christ and the desire to prepare ourselves for His coming into our lives, are more neglected than ever before! Christmas has been replaced by “Happy Holidays”, “ Season’s Greetings”, etc… either to be “politically” correct (as in some countries) or simply because people have lost the meaning or are ashamed.

Irony is that we want instant response from God more than we want intimate relationship with Him! Christ did not come to start a new religion. He came to teach us how to have a relationship with the Father in Heaven.

We are busy filling our lives with our pleasures rather than emptying our lives to make room for more of His presence!

Advent is our moment to set everything aside and re-arrange our priorities so that Christ can be our focus and the center of our Christmas celebrations!

'Let Every Heart Prepare Him Room'!!

May God help us all to do whatever needs to be done in order to make this a reality!

* I take the Liberty to call it the Lord's Day after the Son, not the sun

Respond to the Financial Crisis? Come out of Babylon!

A German Church has been directly affected by the credit crunch. In recent years, its income (German's law offers churches income directly through the tax payer's "Kirchensteuer") has been hit by a drop in membership fees. But its expenses remained the same.

So, to boost the coffers, the local church put its faith (faith in what??) in financial markets and made an investment in Lehman Brothers. As a result, the church is set to lose its 4.3m-euro investment. Lehman Brothers securities were considered a good, safe investment, the church official said. (read the whole story in BBC)

Recently, I had to hear these stories very often how believers have lost vast sums of their portfolios. Even this week, during a teaching on how to respond to the financial crisis by a reknowed teacher, he himself admitted he lost in the 6 digits! ... what a testimony!

Where
has
the
commandmend

"feed my sheep" gone?

John 21:15




Where do we find in Scriptures we have to invest our hard worked money into financial markets (read: dishonest scales and weights, Proverbs 11:1) over which we have; 1/ no control, 2/ no wisdom how it works and 3/ most of the time, statistically lose money anyhow... ?

I think this is again a hard learned lesson on how we have to spend our money. At least the pastor ended his teaching wise, saying we have to go back to basics, take care of the poor people ( believe me there are enough of them and if you can't find them, just ask me...) and use our money for 2 things that will last: 1/ the Word of God and our Faith in Him (not in financial instruments where moth and rust will destroy) and 2/ in souls!! (the latter the most important!)

Make friends with your money (Luke 16:9) : feed a poor needy soul, help your neighbour, a colleague who got retrenched, a sick person with no medical treatement, a child or orphan in Africa, India, etc...

Jesus says in in Matthew 25:37 to 46 to feed the poor" 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me."...

So, please do not let me know you also have lost money on the stock exchange, funds, or any other financial debt instruments. It will break my heart, definitely God's and frustrates the poor child, still wondering why his prayers for his 'daily bread' are not answered...

As one commercial in the metro sytem warned. "If you do not know what the book is about, put it down." Likewise for investments: ... put it down: you have no idea how it works... If you want to know, read the book of J M Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peace, Chapter 6, Europe after the Treaty...then you will know...

"An anxious soul is a soul who constantly wonders how his investment is doing.
A soul at rest is a soul who knows he has helped a needy soul."
, JT Clierinck

Atheist UK Bus Campaign

The UK Guardian reports that initial fundraising for an atheist advertising campaign on the buses of London raised nearly nine times the amount needed in less than 24 hours.

The bendy buses will display posters saying "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life" on 30 buses for four weeks.

According to the BBC (read more: click on this link), British Churches have actually encouraged the campaign, thanking Dawkins for "continued interest" in God and encouraging people to think about the issue.

A spokesman for the Church of England said it supports the promotion of any religious position through appropriate channels. A spokesman added: "Christian belief is not about worrying or not enjoying life. Quite the opposite: our faith liberates us to put this life into a proper perspective"

Atheist do not claim there is no God, actually they say "probably" and that may be true for many other people too. It is a bit like Paul addressing the Greek philosophers in Athens (much the equivalent of today's atheists) in the book Acts (17:22-27), introducing them the "unknown" God...

The Kingdom of God is not about a religion, but more about a relationship with a "known" God, a personal, living God.

Who is the lesser evil of the 2? Obama or Cain?

Though I am not a Roman Catholic (*disclaimer) this clip makes a lot of sense, and lucky (blessed ?) I am not an American who needs to vote and make a choice out of these 2 clowns. I watched the presidential debates and none has a solution (secret maybe?) on any of the serious issues. Their words are carefully measured in such a way nothing is absolute and true.



One thing I know is that whoever becomes the next President, he is only a puppet and an extension of those who write his paycheck to fulfill the agenda of the same. Nothing more, nothing less, so let us not be deceived by nice words but discern the times.
I also notice that there are a lot of political systems being shaken right now. In Europe there is a political vacuum, pop star Sarkozy in France, the Belgian joke (without PM for a long time..), Berlusconi maffia, etc... and the "Lisbon Treaty" allowing a European President to be SELECTED, not voted... will create a powershift in this vacuum. One world government coming up you think?

(*) disclaimer: because the Pope is not my boss, Mary is not my intermediary and the saints not my idols. Simply because Jesus Christ is my only Lord and head of the Church, of whom I - according to the Scriptures - am a part of and saint myself. I pray to my Heavenly Father directly in the name of Jesus Christ and I am encouraged not to have any idols at all! Wow .. I hope I do not upset anybody, but that is what my Bible teaches me... Having said that I know many reformed Catholics who have become Biblical Christians or born again sons and daughters of the most high living God.

2 angel candles for Zoe

Zoe’s birthday weekend (16-18 Aug) was very nice, with Heather visiting from Thailand, meeting Evelyn for a special steamboat dinner on Saturday, celebrating with a yummy mud pie from Island Creamery with her aunty Coco and friends from the church on Sunday, and a small balloon party with home-made berry crisp for dessert on Monday. She also received lots of beautiful gifts.

Zoe was most enthusiastic in singing the birthday song and blowing her birthday candles. In fact, we also celebrated Zoe’s Oma’s birthday 3 days before Zoe’s birthday with a small cake and made a video of greetings for her. So, Zoe had a lot of practice singing the birthday song…

Developing Her Own Personality

Zoe has become very chatty now… She utters a few words of Chinese but she talks mainly in English. Weiting, one of the students who helped to shortlist possible Chinese names for Zoe, also taught Zoe how to say “Xin Yi ke ai,” which means “Xin Yi is cute” and Zoe loves to say this. She remembered it after just one lesson! Zoe is also learning a few words of Flemish and French. We hope that she will be multi-lingual and feel comfortable in all kinds of cultures.

This month, she achieved a few milestones:

- Pronouncing her name clearly (Zo-ay and Xin Yi)
- Giving kisses properly
- Able to count to two
- Celebrating her 2nd birthday
- Able to go out without a diaper
- Climbing on a chair herself to reach a high shelf
- Getting her first real haircut - surprisingly with no fuss
- Choosing her own pair of sandals in her current favourite colour: purple

Zoe enjoys playing with other children, reading, colouring, stickers, play-doh, playing with her doll, puzzles, art and craft, pretending to slide down overturned chairs, lining up things to form a “train”, playing with bath foam, looking at pictures and videos, singing and dancing, swimming, playing outdoors, going for outings, and eating.

Though she is slim, she enjoys eating a lot, especially strawberries, kiwis, fish, chicken, biscuits, raisins, bread, chocolate, beans, barley, soup, chapati with dhal, oranges, mangoes, nuts, cake and ice-cream.

Thank God that up to now, Zoe has not yet tried sweets and lollipops and most salty snacks—though she likes potato chips, keropok and pappadams whenever she gets the rare chance to eat them... Hopefully, she will be able to stay away from unhealthy snacks as far as possible… and be happy eating vegetables, nuts, seeds, fruits and home-made delights…

We pray that in the year ahead, Zoe will be able to grow healthily and be free of illnesses, learn more about God her creator and understand all that we try to teach her so she can be a kind, loving and joyful girl who will light up the lives of everyone around her! ( by Cheryl )

Zoe Has A Chinese Name!

In early August, after consulting some Chinese students, I finally decided on a Chinese name for Zoe: Xin Yi. Jan has a Chinese name (Zi Lin – Clierinck) given to him in Hong Kong, so Zoe will be known as

子霖馨熠
Zi Lin Xin Yi

This name was inspired by the character 馨 “xin” that appears in two bible verses:

Ephesians 5:1-2
5:1

所 以 你 们 该 效 法 神 ， 好 像 蒙 慈 爱 的 儿 女 一 样 。
5:2

也 要 凭 爱 心 行 事 ， 正 如 基 督 爱 我 们 ， 为 我 们 舍 了 自 己 ， 当 作 馨 香 的 供 物 ， 和 祭 物 ， 献 与 神 。

Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

2 Corinthians 2:15
2:15

因 为 我 们 在 神 面 前 ， 无 论 在 得 救 的 人 身 上 ， 或 灭 亡 的 人 身 上 ， 都 有 基 督 馨 香 之 气 。
For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing;
The character 馨“xin” means “fragrance that resonates like hollowed stones” and is often used to describe “fragrance” or “comfortable, gentle, warmth.”

The character 熠“yi” is used to refer to “radiance,” “glow,” “sparkling” and “light”.

Therefore, we hope that 馨熠 will be able to resonate the fragrance of Christ and radiate the light of Christ wherever she goes!