Kaleb is 3

Yesterday was Kaleb's birthday. It's hard to believe that he's been a part of our lives for that long. We had a bit of a party here with his grandma (Renata's mom) and us. He also got a new bike from his great-grandmother. It was waiting for him when he came down the stairs. He's been working hard on riding it.
We are having some of his cousins over on Saturday for a bit more of a kids' party. But I think he had a good time yesterday all the same. He doesn't get to blow out candles that much, so he really enjoyed doing that...multiple times.

Arrived

So we are all now in Warsaw safe and sound. Renata and the kids arrived early Wednesday afternoon. I left on Wednesday morning and arrived on Thursday afternoon. We are working hard to get things out of boxes and into the right place. We're making progress. It's the biggest move we've ever done.
We are enjoying being back in our own apartment as well as seeing familiar places. Today we'll be back at ICF (International Christian Fellowship) as regular attenders for the first time in 2 years. Much has changed during this time and we are eager to see how we can best serve this community. ICF is one of the churches we'll be connecting with as we look ahead and try to determine what is next in this wonderful city. I'll fill you in more later as far as what our time here is going to look like.
In the meantime, I'll eat some kielbasa for you.

Here We Go Now!!

I am sitting with boxes all around me; some full, some empty soon to be full. The movers arrive for part two of the shipment tomorrow likely some time between 1 and 2pm. Slowly but surely we will be ready for them. We hand over the keys to our apartment on Tuesday, I start the drive to Warsaw immediately afterwards. Renata and the kids will fly on Wednesday morning after they spend the night at some friends of ours. I am hoping to be in Warsaw by the time they arrive. The movers will deliver our stuff on Wednesday afternoon and we start the process of settling back into Warsaw.
Today was our last Sunday at Crossroads. It was a good time. For me it's good to know that people valued my contribution to the community while we've been here. I must be doing something right.
There is an amazing amount of stuff ahead of us that we will start to navigate almost within hours of arriving in Warsaw. The very first thing is to renew my passport which expires on February 10. This is important for my application for a temporary residency permit. And that's just the start. I'll tell more of what we will be working on later. After we get to Warsaw.
I have to eat something now and then continue packing. Please pray for safe travels. Pray for Renata too as she will be taking the two kids on the plane by herself. It may well be a very tough 2 hours.
stay tuned...

Warsaw or Bust

It's official. We are ready to make our move back to Warsaw. We are still playing with the exact date, but we will leave during the first week of December. I will likely drive with Kaleb and make it a two-day trip, while Renata will fly with Maja the next day.
Needless to say we are incredibly excited to be going "home" yet we are quite anxious about all the things that need to happen before we leave here. Not to mention all the things that come after we make the move in terms of settling back into the city and the spiritual community there and seeking how best we fit in and how we can serve the Church.

We took a little time the other day to enjoy the beach and the lovely crisp North Sea. We will definitely miss the lovely fish & chips of The Hague. This was Maja's first time on the beach itself. So i'm including a picture of her enjoying her surroundings.

Lessons in Democracy

I know, I know. Two posts in one day. But there was an election yesterday in Poland and as that's where we intend to live and serve, it's good to keep you all in the loop on things related to that country.
Polish voters overcame apathy yesterday and learned that their vote does, in fact, make a difference. In 2005 when the last election was held, low voter turnout eliminated the chances of the Centre-Right party Civic Platform. Most of their supporters just didn't go vote because they figured that one vote didn't matter. So they got the government they deserve, as the adage goes. So for the last 2 years they have been increasingly embarrassed abroad by a ultra-Catholic nationalist/populist party who allied themselves with parties even more conservative-Catholic nationalist/populist than they were. The end of that coalition is what triggered this election. In the last election 2 million plus turned out and voted. The winner received about 27% of the vote. This time, 7million plus voters turned out sweeping Civic Platform to power with nearly a majority of seats--unheard of in multi-multi-party continental European nations. There were line-ups of Polish expats voting abroad. In Paris alone, it was a 2 hour wait. Not since the first free election in 1989 was voter turnout so high. This time, the winner received more than 41% of the vote.
On a more humorous side of things: As the party that was in power (Law and Justice) is largely supported by the more aged eligible voters, there was a campaign organized to "hide granny's ID card". Not sure whether it worked or not as the number of voters jumped from 2million to 7million. But funny all the same.

legend: PO - Platformy Obywatelstwa - Civic Platform
PiS - Prawo i Sprawiedliwosc - Law and Justice
LiD - Lewicy i Demokracji - Left and Democracy
PSL - Polish Peasants Party
S - Samoobrona - Self-Defense
LPR - Liga Polskich Rodzica - League of Polish Families
*interesting party names, i know.

Back to Normal?

Field Orientation pt. 1 is over. We will go through pt.2 in April. It was a tough time, but I think generally a good time. It's tough enough to do it while you have small children, but when one of those children gets quick sick with a nasty cold and has a fever for 4 days, that makes it much more difficult. That made it hard for Renata to attend many of the sessions during the second week.
We were challenged by much of what we talked about. Everything from cultural adjustment to how we live as the church in our communities and in the context of modern-day Europe. I'll share two quick things that we are thinking or talking about now (Renata and me): the first is the cultural adaptation. We have lived in the Polish culture for a reasonable period of time and feel we have a pretty good grasp of things there. But then it struck me during our first week of FO--I have never worked with primarily Poles in a context that would be considered their "turf". Living connected with international communities gets you around doing that sort of thing. But we are going to put ourselves in a Polish community, not an international community. So things will be interesting.
The second thing we've been talking about is the idea of blessing others around us. Particularly those we either don't know or are not part of our church-community. It's hardly an original concept, but seems to be rarely practiced when we get into the rhythm of just living life. But it's an interesting thing when we take the posture of desiring to be a blessing each day to people with whom we cross paths. Not doing this because we have a chance to tell them about Christ, but because we have been blessed with everything we have. Mind you, once we start doing it, it becomes fun to do. Especially in much of Europe where this is not expected. Laugh if you will, but I was so happy yesterday when I was able to give just 10cents to the young muslim girl in front of me in line at the grocery store. Buying about 5 cartons of juice she was going to have to leave one behind because of being short a measly 10cents. You should have heard the cashier when I put down 20cents to cover it. Just 10 stupid cents, but it was so much fun to do that. Trying to live as a habitual blesser.

off to FO

today we go north to Amsterdam where we will be until Sunday and then back her for part 2 of field orientation. could be fun because the people. could be a pain with Kaleb waking up at 5am. pray that things will go well for the next 10 days.

Pretty darn good day

So yesterday (Friday) was a pretty good day for us here (for me in particular). Although it started before 6am (thank you Kaleb) I dropped our oldest munchkin off at preschool for the morning (I always enjoy riding with him on my bike), then went to my favorite little espresso bar near one of the palaces of the Queen. I met a friend of ours there and got a chance to discuss some of the things he's been working on and with and got to pick his brain about all that (as well as having a terrific pastry and a couple of cappuccinos). From there I headed down to meet my friend and supervisor (within CAI) at his house and talk about Warsaw and how things are going with us, and to touch base after we had an industrious conversation a few weeks ago about what I'd like to focus on the remainder of our time in The Hague. It was a very encouraging meeting for me (as meeting with him usually is) and I came away greatly lifted. Heading back to the office I spent some time reconnecting with some of the staff I haven't seen a lot of in the last couple of weeks and then got to working on some videos for this weekend. So after doing that, I was affirmed by people's reaction to it and was again satisfied.
Now, one more really cool thing happened yesterday. Our good friends Rob and Sandra got married (we haven't heard anything so we assume all happened as planned). They were two friends we really thought should be with someone great yet had none. Not that one or the other was actually looking. In August 2006, while sitting in our living room in Toronto (after having thought about it for a couple of weeks) I finally suggested to Renata that I thought Rob and Sandra would really enjoy each other's company because of their personality types. Renata agreed and we set about our work of introducing them. As you now know, they did, in fact, enjoy each other's company. We are so happy for them and happy also for the fact that we will have our anniversaries one day after the other as Renata and I were married on the 4th. Pretty cool huh?!

Yesterday

So yesterday was Renata's and my 4th anniversary. It seems like it's been so much longer, but I mean that in a good way. It's been a pretty full 4 years.
It's difficult to do much to celebrate when you have such young children (Maja, at least) so we just had a nice evening here at home after Renata came back from meeting with her mentor in Amsterdam. It was also the first time we've had the resources to get each other gifts. Renata did good. She got me something I have wanted most of my life. An electric slot car track. Got a chance to play with it a bit last night after Kaleb was in bed. I'm going to set it up later and Renata and I will race.

lots of things goin' on

Okay, so yes it has been a long time since i wrote anything here. Sorry about that. The last couple of months have been rather occupying. Even now I don't have much time to write, but thought I'd just give a quick online update as to recent and future events. I attended the Global Leadership Summit this last Friday and Saturday. I really enjoyed that. Very challenging time and quite refreshing.
Tomorrow, a few of us from Crossroads have been invited to the U.N. Peace Palace to play "Abide With Me" at a celebration put on by the Indian Ambassador. It is the first annual international day of non-violence (i guess violence is okay on the other days of the year) and Mahatma Gandhi's favorite hymn was apparently "Abide With Me". So rather bizarre, but we'll roll with it.
We'll be in Field Orientation from the 9th until the 20th in Amsterdam and here in the Hague.
And in the meantime we are working on defining what our role will be at least for the interim once we return to Warsaw, as well as continuing in our roles here and making sure we finish well.
More to follow later.

Our First Week With Maja

It's been almost 1 week to the minute now since Maja was born. She's cuter by the day. Relatively speaking things have been pretty easy with her. Kaleb had a fever early in the week which meant we didn't sleep well with him waking up in the middle of the night, but that was gone quickly and we've had a good week since. Renata is recovering physically from the ordeal of pregnancy and is eager to feel a little more normal again. We are also still figuring Maja out in terms of what her rhythms and tendencies are for feeding and sleeping. But we're off to a pretty good start.
Kaleb loves being a big brother; helping mommy and daddy with Maja, holding her hand when she's crying, bringing her toys he thinks she might need, and even helping with her bath. And, of course, giving her lots of kisses.

I added a bunch more pictures in the last couple of days that you can take a look at in the web album (with downloads). Enjoy.

Maja Sue born this morning

Hey everyone. Our daughter was finally born this morning (okay she was only 2 days late, but still feels like long last). She arrived at 11:10am CET and weighed in at 3.82kg (8lb 6.7oz). Both Maja and mommy are healthy and resting. She's a strong little thing already pushing with her legs. Click on our photo album (downloadable)to see more pictures of Maja.
We are officially a typical nuclear family. We need 0.4 children or something now to be perfectly average.

This Week in Holland

Hey all. So first of all, I thought I'd post a couple of pictures from Kaleb's first day in Creche (pre-school). He loved it and can't wait to go back. This week, he was there just for Tuesday morning, but soon he'll start doing two mornings a week. There are a few blessings here: it gives Kaleb a more regular time for socialization and learning (music and crafts); it gives Renata a chance to get some much needed rest or come to the office for our staff meeting, etc.; it is basically on the way to the office which makes it very convenient; with many creches here there is a 2-year waiting-list which makes it difficult for those of us here temporarily. But this one is just opening, is run by a British/Dutch couple, and is much, much less expensive than your average creche. We are really happy that Kaleb had such a good time on Tuesday and that he evidently feels it is a safe place.

Second of all, I want to apologize for most of you receiving our update last week in your email inboxes anything between 25 and 47 times (as we have heard). It is a glitch in Microsoft Outlook that rears its head sometimes when you are sending an email to large numbers of people. We haven't had a problem with it in a long time and send it to small numbers of people at a time, but c'est la vie. So we apologize for that. Please don't hate us. (-:

Worship Night

This last Sunday we had an evening of worship at Crossroads. People really enjoyed and really engaged in worship. It was the end of a long weekend and a long day, so I'm glad it went well. It was also my first time leading a service since the autumn of 2005, so took a bit of time to get back in the groove. More to come.

Back in Den Haag

We are back in Den Haag tonight. We are glad to be back in our home as it's always nice to be there...wherever your home is. We drove more than 2700km in the last week. It was a terrific trip. We got to hook up with some of our dearest friends in Warsaw, meet some people that are new there, spend time with people we hadn't had a chance to before, celebrate the wedding of the last of Renata's cousins to get married, and spend time with many members of the family besides. It was so nice to be in Warsaw again. Our main frustration is that one week is WAYYYYY too short for any visit there. Glad to have gone though.
Kaleb was really good on the whole trip. He enjoyed spending time first with Gus--the dog of the friends at whose house we stayed, and then with his cousins, in particular with Veronika (who is coming on Friday with her mother and grandmother to spend a couple of weeks with us) whom he is calling "Vivi". He's wonderful. He makes parenting seem easy a lot of the time.
I'm adding some pictures to our photo album. Videos of our little dancing fiend will follow shortly.

On The Road Again

We have a car!!!
After dealing with Dutch bureaucracy (the worst we've dealt with in the number of countries in which we've lived) in a round-about way, we are possession of a car. We are leaving tomorrow to spend a week in Poland. So, better to drive with a car than without. I won't explain "round-about" way here as it would take too many pixels. We believe we paid a very good price for the car and are happy to have a car that should serve us well for a number of years. But a million things yet to do today before we pack and head out tomorrow. So I'll leave it at that. Will add a picture later. Looking forward to the German autobahns tomorrow. Woohoo!!

My Celebrity Look-Alikes

Just did this as a joke. Friend of ours in Paris did the same. They returned 10 people. Fortunately I was able to remove Jean-Paul Aristide and Jean Chretien. Scary!

Street Party

A few days ago, mysterious signs appeared on every lamppost on our street. They said there would be no parking on Nieuwediepstraat between 10am and 6pm. At the bottom of the notice was written "nationale straatspeeldag". Not entirely sure how "nationale" it really is, but flags went up on Monday evening and our street emptied of cars through the morning. I have never experienced a "block-party" or anything like that, but I love places you can get cotton candy (suikerspin), caramel corn, and waffles with half a cup of powdered sugar on top. With the stage Kaleb is at he can enjoy such a thing quite a bit. He got to sit in a fire truck (pickup), and see an ambulance up close. His favorite thing to do is dance though. So he was literally running around the street to the rhythm of the music. He played foosball for the first time (with a little help from aunt Andrea) which makes his daddy proud. Check our videos to see a video or two of Kaleb dancing or our photos to see more photos of Kaleb at the party.
**a note to Jays fans: please excuse the Cubs hat. They're a national league team with no real chance of every winning the series, so for now let's pretend the "C" stand for Constable.

Play it again

Last Sunday we had a worship night at Crossroads. It was the first time I have played since November 2005. A long time it has been. I really enjoyed it and my hands have largely recovered since then. It is the second time we have had a "worship night" at Crossroads since Renata and I arrived here in February. We had more people this time and the feedback we are getting is very positive. In fact there is more and more of a desire to have another "service" in which we spend more time in musical worship and have a more interactive feel, i.e. we take communion at stations around the room where there are also people to pray with you if you desire. People were very responsive this last time. We focused on being hungry for God. People are. I will be leading the next one on July 8th. Talk about ratcheting things up for me. I will probably start working on that in the next week.
I will try and get some pictures from the first worship night we did added to our album. I was taking pictures that night. That way you can see where we work and some of the people we work with. Don't know that anyone was taking pictures this last time.

6 months in Europe

We can hardly believe we left Canada to come back to Europe 6 months ago yesterday. A lot has happened in those months and we've moved a great number of times. For the last 3 months we have been living in our apartment here in The Hague.
Things are coming along here. Renata is meeting with women leaders in the Crossroads community in order to mobilize women in the church that want to lead or be a part of a womens' ministry that focuses intentionally on life transformation that comes from relationship with Christ. They will likely start with a group study of Brennan Manning's book "Abba's Child". Renata has been meeting with her mentor for the last month and a half or so.
I have been helping Crossroads take their technical production and service execution to the next level as after 10 years (celebrating 10-year anniversary this fall) things have gotten pretty static. I am leading the technical teams and am looking to develop an arts group over the summer with a number of people who's gifts are not being utilized. At the same time I will be meeting with a mentor who will help me prepare for arriving in Warsaw. We'll work through the personal and theological as well as our vision for a new project in Warsaw, casting vision, and developing as a leader. I am excited about that.

Gettin' Around

I thought I'd post a picture of us with our means of transportation. This is generally how we travel the whole city. On Sundays I often spend about 2 hours on my bike. Very important to have these. Kaleb loves riding. He's still learning how to pedal his trike around the house.

Pictures

We just got a new camera today. First time I've purchased a digital camera. The stores here are really pushing them this week and the one that I wanted was selling at a good price. So I took a few pictures that you can see a little of life here.

Ultrasound

So I finally uploaded a couple of clips from our ultrasound done about a month ago. Part 1 is a large part of the ultrasound (even then it's only about 1/3 of the whole thing). On part 2 you can hear the heart beat. Just thought you might want to see it.

Part 1
Part 2

p.s. We are in week 28 right now, due August 8th.

Easter Weekend and Big Bird is blue

Hey all. Yes, it's been a while since I posted anything here. We are settling in more and more to regular life here in The Hague, and in the meantime it has been quite a busy time here with Good Friday, Easter, and other things here at Crossroads. To top it off, my computer has been somewhat incapacitated.
Easter weekend was a good weekend for Crossroads. We had a Good Friday service Friday evening (which works better for lighting in a room with windows--no daylight). There were about 200 people in attendance. It was an evening of lament, meditation, and worship. It was the best service at Crossroads since we have been here.
On Easter Sunday we also saw very good attendance totalling about 325. This is very high given how many people leave town on holidays like Easter.

On a side note, the Dutch version of Sesame Street is called "Sesamstraat." The theme song is loosely based on the version we North Americans all know so well. The rest of the show has a very Dutch/European feel to it. The most interesting thing to me, however, is that Big Bird--that gigantic perpetually 6-year old yellow flightless bird--is BLUE in the Netherlands.
Just thought i'd share.

Day in Leiden

One of the projects that Crossroads is working on is a churchplant in Leiden, a little north of The Hague. So yesterday I headed north 20 minutes by train. This is a university town of 100,000+. Quite a nice town it is. Very stereotypically Dutch with lots of canals and bridges. I went up there with my colleague Remko and a group of 7 people from Spokane, WA. Most of them are in the process of exploring what God would have them do in the area of mission. 3 of them are actually in the pipeline of becoming staff with Christian Associates. So we went into the center of the town and surveyed a number of people as to their perception of spirituality, Christ, the Church, and their town. After a debriefing session for that, we walked the town praying for the city, the people, and what God might have us do in that city. It was my first experience doing this sort of thing. It's not the most natural thing for me to simply approach someone on the street and ask them questions. At the same time, this is an area in which I am growing--as Renata can attest. I only got to two surveys, but once we got going, it was a good experience. The Dutch tend to have opinions and are quite willing to talk to you if you ask. They do tend to have a rather brusque exterior that can put friendly North Americans off. Get passed that, and they are quite friendly. There was nothing extraordinary or revolutionary in the responses gleaned yesterday, but they were the first surveys done and were helpful nonetheless.
It was a good day and a good introduction for me to the initial stages of church planting in European cities. We will continue to do this sort of thing in Leiden in the months to come as well as when we return to Warsaw.
Leiden is a place you could be praying for especially over the next year as the process continues of putting a project in place. Being a university town it is very oriented towards knowledge and the esoteric. Towards spiritual things it tends to be highly ambivalent or, at the most, oriented towards a buffet-style spirituality where you simply take and do what suits you.

So needy, but relative wealth and comfort obscures their awareness.

Role Call

We are finalizing what shape our ministry here in The Hague will look like over the next year. In a few meetings with the Kevin Johnson, the lead pastor at Crossroads, we sculpted our roles based on our individual giftings and experience and areas in which we really want to develop ourselves in the months to come. So…

Together, we will be putting together a 20-something’s leadership team in order to establish a real sense of community and connection with others at Crossroads.
We will be starting and leading a small group (hopefully in our home here) together.

Renata will be networking with women at Crossroads to plan 2 or 3 events directed toward initiating an ongoing ministry among women. She will prepare and develop a women’s Bible study on the book of Esther with another experienced woman. She will also be an active leader on the Crossroads Communications team as they raise the level of awareness of the Crossroads in the community and the level of excellence in its communication materials and venues.

I (Tim) will be working directly with Kevin and the associate pastor Scott Curley in developing services and improving artistic expression within (along with developing myself artistically personally).

Also, where possible, we will be assisting in Leiden, town 15 minutes north of The Hague, in a church-planting project taking shape there.

So there you have it. That’s the gist of what we’ll be up to for the next little while. Thought you’d like to know.

Cows and Beaches

Today, Kaleb and I gave Renata a chance to get some much needed rest. Being an absolutely beautiful and sunny day (take 'em when you can get 'em in this part of the world) we went to one of the many children's farms the city has to offer. Kaleb was very happy to see cows, goats, chickens, ducks, and sheep. For the rest of the day whenever I mentioned that we got to see animals, he starts "moo-ing". Once we were done with the animals, we headed northwest to the dunes and the beaches. The only part that Kaleb actually walked was over the dunes--both directions. When I suggested that he put the sea shell, that he had chosen for his mommy, in his pocket, he had to pick up a second shell as he realized he had two pockets.

Just a funny thing

We saw this the other day while riding to church on the bus. So here you go.

In The House!!

We are in our new apartment now. We are settling in and getting all the little things that we need to make our home here (mop, bucket, dishwasher detergent, etc.). Our sofa was delivered from the second-hand store yesterday and that was the final major piece of the puzzle, although we would love some more chairs for the dining room table. I am even getting more used to the bike ride to and from the office (25 min.). Today was the worst ride i ever had as there was very strong wind and rain on the way home (lowest gear on the bike all the way). I was soaked by the time i finally arrived. Will be finding rain gear within a couple of days.
I mentioned Kaleb's race car bed in an earlier post. So i am including a couple of pictures i took yesterday with my phone. We had just assembled it (Kaleb was so excited he wanted to get in it almost before we had the pieces together). He's not sleeping in it yet, but he thinks it's incredibly cool. Pictures of the house (exterior) and what we did this last weekend to come in a later post.

Tomorrow

So tomorrow is the day we move into our new apartment. We have moved a fair bit of stuff in already (mainly kitchen stuff and a couple of chairs and lamps), but tomorrow we move matresses, some short cabinets, and Kaleb's new (for him) race car bed. On Monday our sofa arrives (we bought it today at a wonderful second hand store). So, exciting stuff. I even got a pretty retro rotisserie and a gourmet set for free yesterday. All i need is a fondue set. Also still looking for my "lazy-boy" chair. Kaleb is also very pleased with the stuffed toy poodle that he snagged yesterday.

After moving in,i'll be pretty busy Saturday and Sunday as a music instructor from the U.S. is coming to work with the worship bands at the church here. Should be a good time.

Kaleb has a cold now and has been getting up very early the last few mornings. So that's taking it's toll on us, especially Renata.

That's the latest. Sorry now pictures yet. Soon they shall come.

Establishing Ourselves

We continue to take steps towards being established here in The Hague for the next year. On Friday, we signed the contract for our new apartment, of which we take possession this Tuesday. We are blessed to have many people offering furniture and other household items to help us make a home. Kaleb will even have a race care bed. We went this last week to meet a lady selling some maternity clothes. She had a couple of boxes full of kitchenware that she said we could have. And Kaleb will be going back there for playdates with her 2 1/2 year old son.
We'll start moving into our new place on Wednesday and Thursday of this week.
I bought transportation for myself yesterday also. Seeing that we are in the Netherlands, I purchased a good second-hand Dutch bike. So now I'm getting used to riding in the bike lanes and on the roads here. We've been fitting Kaleb for a helmet as he's going to be doing a fair bit of bike riding this year. We'll see how he likes it.
We are also getting a much better idea of what our roles will be with Crossroads Church here for the next year. After we move into our apartment this week, we'll be able to focus on our ministry functions.
We'll try and add some pictures in the next few days.

Touching Down in Den Haag (The Hague)

We have now been in The Hague for two weeks. In every way we feel as though we are finally getting our feet on the ground; literally, when our plane landed in Amsterdam; and figuratively, now that we are all more-or-less healthy (after several days of stomach flu for some of us) and are close to settling into an apartment of our own. We are also working out the details of what our internship here in The Hague will look like for the next year, but we are happy with the progress there. As we will be staying in the country for a whole year we must file for residency and get plugged into the system here for health care and what all.
We'll add pictures as soon as we can. Anyone want to contribute to our camera fund?