earthsedge

Wow, it has been a while! But according to Google Analytics, there are still quite a few people stopping by the old blog, which makes me feel bad for how infrequently I post.  Thanks to all our faithful readers and hello to all our friends and family in far corners of the earth…

Here’s some news/pics from the last few months.

First (and most importantly ) I am now the proud owner of a bass boat:

My brother-in law and I went in on this beauty. Lets just say it is worth what we paid for it, and we didn’t pay very much! But it’s a great little boat and we’ve had fun taking it out on various fishing excursions. So far I think we’ve had the best luck with catfish, but there’s also been lots of  bass, stripers, bluegill, and crappie. By far the most interesting thing I’ve caught was this spiny softshell turtle:

We took it out this morning and had some luck:

Striper

Flathead catfish

Double header (two fish at the same time)

Of course, it was very kind of Becka to let me buy this, especially since we don’t even own a car yet. And it is also very kind of my parents to let me use their Jeep to pull this baby around.  I was thinking today about the ironies of owning a boat before owning a car. What can I say? Priorities, Priorities. Random history: Becka owned an S-10 before we were married, but we sold it right after our honeymoon as we were preparing to leave for Australia. The only other car we’ve owned was an old Toyota Corona (yes, Corona, not Corolla) that some friends in Adelaide gave us. It was probably worth about a case of Corona, but it was a fun little car that got the job done. I somehow managed to lose the only picture we had of it, but this is a pretty good likeness, except ours was faded yellow with rust highlights.

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I’m still looking for a job, which is about as fun as you would expect it to be. I was feeling pretty good about my resume, but there’s just not a whole lot out there right now, especially if you limit your search to one geographic location. After a few months of  spending hours every day looking at various internet postings, I can confidently say that truck drivers, RNs, and not a whole lot else are in high demand. But it has been an interesting process, thinking about what I would enjoy doing out of what is available, and what the criteria should be (money? geographic location? future advancement? vocation? grad school compatibility?) Is it unreasonable to expect to find something that pays well,  I enjoy doing, is close to family, and would allow me to study? Probably. I would have to get extremely lucky. And as the weeks pass, it seems like I will likely have to take whatever I can get if I limit my search to one area. Of course, the irony in all this is that I could walk down to McDonald’s and take the lowest paying job and still make twice what we were making before. No exaggeration. I would probably be miserable and slip into a coma of existential despair, but still.  It’s a good reminder that I would much rather be making this transition now, rather than five or ten years down the road. We’ve been through enough changes over the years that I know that it’s the in-between stages, the transitions, that are always the hardest. And I also know that this progression (which hopefully has meaning and is leading somewhere), at least for us, would be impossible without the help and support of family. I’m always aware that our lives would be very different if we didn’t have their love and support, and it’s been nice to be home without a ‘departure date’ to some distant land looming in the near future…

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Aidan is enjoying all the possibilities that summer has brought his way. Riding his trike, swimming, building marble towers, and playing with his cousins seem to be his top priorities these days. A few pics:

Giving cousin V. a lift:

Falling asleep reading his favorite fire engine book:

Helping mom in the garden:

Summer boy:

Aidan had quite a traumatic moment the other day when the ‘Touch a Tractor’ event at a local park was canceled due to rain. He had been looking forward to it for a long time, and he took it pretty hard. Now one of the first things he asks when he wakes up is, “Mommy, will we touch a tractor today?”

Becka has been busy with various projects, and has been dutifully going to all the local garage sales to find things we need to set up house. (Our Dutch friends would be interested to know that the street sales that happen on Queen’s Day in Amsterdam happen all summer long…but on a garage-sized scale.) All in all a great summer is underway!

…piled up in our room. We leave on Thursday! It’s that time again…to say goodbye, to organize, to cull through whatever material things we’ve accumulated, to reflect on the experiences of the last three months. Although, truth be told, we haven’t had much time for reflection! So here are the facts:

-The FIS lecture phase went really well, I think. It certainly had its challenges, but I can’t imagine a more quality bunch of people to work with. I’m very interested to hear what kinds of things the students will do in the coming years. This final week is a preparation week for the ‘practicum phase’ of the school. One team will be working with an immigrant community in the UK, and the other team will be working with various ethnic communities in Amsterdam. After that, they’ll scatter to various parts of the world. Some will return to their projects at home (UK, Amsterdam, South Africa, etc.), and others will be moving on to new locations in the Middle East, Europe, etc. It was a great experience, and I’m thankful that our team here was finally able to pull it off! Many thanks to those of you who prayed for the FIS and have supported us so we could be a part of it.

-Becka had a great experience leading her TESOL practicum and loves teaching English as much as ever. I handed in my thesis, defended it, and now I am waiting for my final grade. It will probably take a few months to process everything, but from our side we are finished with this part of our education. It’s a good feeling…it’s been a long journey. For me, this process goes back nearly 10 years!

-We are going to miss Amsterdam and all our friends and colleagues here. We had pretty much decided before we came that we would only be staying for three months, but now that the three months have come and gone, it’s a bittersweet feeling. We are excited to be moving on and it has become increasingly clear that this is the right decision. But it’s still sad to say goodbye to our team and all our wonderful Dutch friends. (You guys better come and visit us!)

-We are returning to our country of origin for an undetermined amount of time. Yep, we are actually going to live in America! (At least this is the idea that is currently in our minds…although it is hard to imagine giving up traveling so I hope I don’t have to eat these words later.) The next year will no doubt be one of transition. What we are transitioning to remains to be seen. But we’ve known for a while that we want a change. More stability…physically, financially, emotionally, etc. Maybe not a ‘normal’ life (whatever that is), but something a little closer to it than we have had in the past few years. We are ready for something new. Something that still has purpose and mission, but is more consistent with the people we have become and want to be. I know that’s a little vague, but it’s vague for us too. For those of you who live on other continents, you can continue to keep up with us here on this blog.

So there you have it…back to packing now. Again, a big thanks to all of you who have prayed and supported us over the years. We’ll be sending out a final newsletter sometime in the coming weeks with a closing report on our activities in Amsterdam.

Hmm…I was hoping to do more blogging but haven’t felt very inspired lately. My days have been filled with reading and writing, and although it gets to be monotonous at times, I can’t complain. In fact, if I could figure out a way to make money doing this, well, that would be my kind of job! Being home in Illinois is always a restful time for us, and after five years, I think we finally figured out how much we need it. I’m trying to mentally prepare myself for returning to Amsterdam, where I’m sure we will once again be swept away by the speed of life.

Amsterdam. We leave January 8th, which is right around the corner. It’s both exciting and strange to imagine being back there. We arrive on a Saturday morning and the FIS starts the next Monday-just enough time to put air in our tires and hit the ground pedaling. I’m  really hoping it will get cold enough this year for the canals to freeze. Hypothetically, you could ice skate all over the city…or even the country.

We spent this weekend in Kentucky visiting some friends. I forgot to bring a camera, but when we got home it was snowing and Aidan was eager to play in it (pic below). We are all excited for his birthday…Becka is planning to make a tractor cake. And I’m looking forward to seeing his reaction when he opens his presents. Let’s just say there’s one or two things with wheels!

In the first chapter of his book Foolishness to the Greeks: The Gospel and Western Culture,  missionary statesmen Lesslie Newbigin explains the dramatic shift that Christianity has undergone in Western culture. He makes the following points:

1.) There is never a culture-free gospel or Christianity. Christianity is always embodied in a culture.

2.) During the Enlightenment, the plausibility structures of Western culture changed. Previously, religion was at the center of public life. As Western culture came into its ‘modern consciousness’ -and the scientific method rose to the forefront of the consciousness- this changed. Religious experience became privatized and individualized, and the gospel became just one of many ‘varieties of religious experience.’

3.) As a result, the exclusive claims of Christianity are by nature excluded by the plausibility structures of the Western consciousness, producing a dichotomy between ‘values’ and ‘facts, or ‘faith’ and ‘reason’.

4.) Newbigin argues that the Church’s response to the challenge of the Enlightenment was,

to accept the dichotomy and withdraw into the private sector. Having lost the battle to control education, and having been badly battered in its encounter with the modern science, Christianity in its Protestant form has largely accepted relegation to the private sector, where it can influence the choice of values by those who take this option.

5.) The consequence of this withdrawal, according to Newbigin, is that Christianity has,

secured for itself a continuing place, at the cost of surrendering the crucial field. As an option for the private field, Christianity can enjoy considerable success. People can be encouraged to… join the church of your own choice. And the claim, the awesome and winsome claim of Jesus Christ to be alone the Lord of all the world, the light that alone shows the whole reality as it really is, the life that alone endures forever-this claim is effectively silenced. It remains, for our culture, just one of the varieties of religious experience.”

I think Newbigin nails it. For better or for worse, this is what has happened to Christianity in Western culture. This shift is the reason why Christianity is thriving everywhere-everywhere except the Western world, where it’s suffocating. (It’s also the reason why ‘missionary’ is a dirty word in pluralist Western culture, which is one of my essay topics). And this, in essence, is why I find working in Western Europe to be so compelling.

Some of you might remember that when we first started out in missions, we talked a lot about frontier missions: taking the gospel to places it has never been. But back then, I mostly thought of frontier missions in terms of geographic locations, or the places and peoples that haven’t been ‘reached’ (although ‘reached’ and ‘Christian’ are far from easy concepts to define and measure, in my opinion). Much of our first few years in missions was focused on getting ourselves or others to these ‘unreached’ locations. And that is still our passion; to see the love of Christ proclaimed in places where it has not been, whether or not we go ourselves or continue to be involved in training others. But my understanding of frontier missions has grown, and it now includes ideological frontiers.

And Western Europe-Amsterdam in particular- is one of these ideological frontiers.

It is true that Christianity has been present in Western Europe for over a thousand years, although it is now in rapid decline. Western Europe is predominantly secular, and has become increasingly so since the Enlightenment. Still, you can hardly say that Europe is ‘unreached’. You can attend a church on Sunday if you want, and you can buy a Bible translated into any of the major European languages.  It is also true that it is very expensive to live there, and to support missionaries who live there is more expensive than it would be in other places in the world. Furthermore, the likelihood of seeing lots of the usual ‘fruit’ that churches like to hear about-decisions for Christ and churches planted-is very low.

Despite all of this, I absolutely think it is worthwhile to invest in Western Europe. It is an ideological frontier; a place where the gospel needs to go where it has never gone before: into the worldview, structures, and systems of postmodern Western culture.

This week, among other things, we’re trying to put together our trip out west (we leave early next week). We’ve made this trip more times than I can remember, but I never get tired of it. I love driving across the country. With the possible exception of Australia, just about every place we’ve lived has started to feel crowded after a while (which probably says more about me than the places). After a while I start missing the sheer vastness of America. Plains, mountains, wilderness…America has got it all. And the best way to see it, in my opinion, is still by car. (Not that we have one, but thanks to my folks for letting us borrow theirs…and it’s a little nicer than the one pictured above!)

This time around we’re trying to plan our trip a little better. Before Aidan was born we used to drive straight through, camp (the preferred option), or sleep for a few hours here or there. Now that Aidan is a very active almost-two-year-old, the driving straight through is probably not an option. We would camp, but all of our camping gear is in California, so we’ll save that for the return trip (if its not too cold). Hotels are sometimes fun, but they are usually sterile and outside of our budget.

So we’re going to try something new. It’s called Mennonite Your Way, which is a hospitality network through the Mennonite church (and others who volunteer to participate). You can stay with local families all over the world for a small donation, the idea being it’s a way of building relationships with new people and encouraging hospitality across cultures.  Some Dutch friends recommended it to us; they raved about it so much that we decided to give it a try. If it turns out to be worthwhile, we’ll share our experiences in another post.

Once we’re in California we’ll be moving around. We would love to catch up with as many friends and family out that way as we can. So drop us a line!