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.