Belgian forget-me-nots

It has been exactly one year (and half a day) since I arrived in Belgium.

That seems completely impossible.

In two weeks I will have taught for an entire year (school year, that is).

I think I’ve grown more in this last year than I have in my whole adulthood over the course of several years, which is saying a lot, because there was much growing to do during itineration.

It was largely thanks to my itineration speaking experiences that when I stood up to teach on my very first day on September 19, 2016, I felt almost completely comfortable and fairly confident. I was astonished at how natural it felt. I talked a lot during itineration about how teaching theology was something God had given me to do that suited who I am intimately, but experiencing exactly that very thing was still incredible and delightful. But I’ve also learned so very much.

I’ve learned how to be authoritative and assertive without feeling uncomfortable about it and also without shutting down the inquisitive nature of many of my students. I’ve learned (am learning) how to keep control of a classroom, how to balance friendliness and firmness without harshness, how to decide when to follow tangents and when not to. I’ve learned to be comfortable with ambiguity and with not knowing things. I’ve learned (sort of) to be fine with dealing with controversial theological topics. In short, I am learning how to be comfortable with leadership in ways I’ve never been before.

Both my students and I are getting quite a lot out of my classes. One of the students, whom I’ve had in two different classes, told me yesterday that it seemed he’d gotten more out of my classes than a single year seemed to warrant. The same is true for me. Both in preparing my lectures and giving them, I’ve been learning new things, old things in new ways, deeper backgrounds and wider perspectives on all my subjects than I’ve had before. Teaching is amazing.

Buttercup field

Up until now I’ve often wondered why I had to wait until I was in my 30s before I could finally get into missions. Now I know that it’s because I needed the time to develop my theological and psychological depth. I have much more depth to give my students now than I would have in my 20s. Long years spent in preparation are not wasted.

All of the above I attribute to God’s wisdom, providence, and kindness. People don’t go into missions to please themselves but to please God and to use what they have to grow His Kingdom, but of course God, being the kind and wise and intelligent Person that He is, uses missions to grow the very people doing it. That’s part of being the Body of Christ. Not only do you contribute to the growth of others, but your growth is also contributed to. I like the way God works.

Yes, the cross is an exceedingly strange religious symbol.

Embarrassing, even. An instrument of humiliation and torture, after all. We celebrate a guy getting tortured two thousand years ago. Yay for us.

Seriously, have you ever stopped to consider how truly bizarre that must be for someone who hasn’t grown up with it?

We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Greeks.

Think about that. For Jews in the first century and for many other nations conquered by the Romans, a cross was a symbol of cruelty and subjugation. It must have been exceedingly offensive to have Christians celebrating it. For others, it must have been just plain dumb, like this woman who commented on this article. People are in the same place now, of considering Christian symbols offensive or of simply not having any basis of understanding about them.

I taught Christology and Soteriology, the study of Christ and the study of salvation, last semester at Continental Theological Seminary and in my preparation and teaching came to appreciate even more than ever before the bizarre and terrible and wonderful fact of the brutal murder of the Person we worship.

I was reading the Pentateuch at the time, those delightful and jolly books of Leviticus and Numbers, and I was also studying Hebrews, and in the combination of those two parts of the Bible, the concept of sacrifice and atonement in Leviticus suddenly came alive.

Leviticus is all about sin, human brokenness, human impurity, and how we who once walked freely with God in the world He created for us now have to perform all kinds of rituals of purity and atonement for sin in order even to approach the outskirts of His presence.

There is so much blood in Leviticus. Do we ever stop to think about how important blood is? The life of a living thing is in its blood. Blood carries oxygen, it carries DNA, it fights infection, it brings nutrients to a growing embryo; when it is shed, a person dies; when a donor gives her blood away, another person is given life. Shed blood is the price for sin, and it is the great and undeserved gift of God to cover sin.

“For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood by reason of the life that makes the atonement.”
Leviticus 17:11

Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.
Hebrews 9:22

Instead of sacrificing their own blood for their sins, God provided for people to sacrifice the blood of a pure animal. That in itself was undeserved grace. But those animal sacrifices and all the purification rituals of Leviticus only worked for the moment in which they took place. A person could go away from the sacrifice of an expensive animal and promptly encounter something or do something that would make him impure and unworthy again, and he’d have to do it all over again. He was never permanently cleansed, and even when he was cleansed, he still was not pure enough to approach the very presence of God. There was no single sacrifice that would be enough, no blood pure enough and powerful enough.

Humans caused the problem, the sin that separated them from God, and so needed to atone for it, but no sacrifice performed by a human could ever be good enough.

Until a Person came who was both human and God. Human to fulfill humanity’s need to atone and Deity to be the one good enough to do it.

But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.
Hebrews 9:11-12

For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.
Hebrews 9:24-26

We don’t celebrate the murder of some random guy who preached good things two thousand years ago. We celebrate the willing self-sacrifice of a hero, the life-giving donation of pure blood, the sacrifice that covers all sin once for all and brings us not only to the outskirts of God’s throne room but into the very presence of God Himself, no longer separated and soiled by sin but cleaned by the purity of that blood.

So,

We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
1 Corinthians 1:23-24

Not all the blood of beasts
On Jewish altars slain
Could give the guilty conscience peace
Or wash away the stain.

But Christ, the heavenly Lamb,
Takes all our sins away;
A sacrifice of nobler name
And richer blood than they.

My faith would lay her hand
On that dear head, of Thine
While like a penitent I stand
And there confess my sin.

My soul looks back to see
The burden Thou didst bear
When hanging on the cursed tree
And knows her guilt was there.

Believing, we rejoice
To see the curse remove;
We bless the Lamb with cheerful voice
And sing His bleeding love.

By Isaac Watts, 1674-1748

My five missions trips, taken to Mexico at age 9, Romania at age 17, Mexico again at age 18, Austria at age 21, and Croatia at age 27 completely changed my life and influenced the direction I went in in ministry. I am very excited for the students who will be going this year. Last year a newly married couple gave up their honeymoon to go to Congo, and now they are leading the trip there this year.

These trips, however, can get very expensive. The one to Japan is nearly equivalent to a year’s tuition at CTS. I was thinking how lovely it would be if people in my missions-minded network of acquaintances were to give to a scholarship fund for some of these trips. Not only would it be of financial assistance, but it would also be a blessing to the students to know that their futures and their ministries are cared for by some Americans they’ve never heard of. American brothers and sisters.

If you have any interest in giving to this, please send me an email. It needs to be quite soon because of the way donations are filtered through AGWM, banks, and two different continents.

If giving isn’t an option, please pray for the students at CTS, that those God wants to go will hear and obey Him, that they will get the finances they need, that they will do amazing work where they go, and that they will be blessed and grow themselves through these trips.

There are very few front porches. Many houses are flush with the pavement or have a couple of steps up to the door and nothing else.

Most houses are made of brick, and people still lay it by hand.

Narrow rural roads

Streets are extremely narrow. Many a normal street is barely as wide as a typical Montanan alley.

I have seen very few potholes in my frequent biking, not like the ones you get in Missoula. Cobblestones, however, are brutal to bike over.

Cars are new and well-maintained. You almost never see old clunkers, or even cars more than five or ten years old.

Cars are also extremely small. You see a few vans, station wagons, and pickup trucks, but they are very much the exception. The average car is much smaller than the average car in the U.S. I did see a Subaru Forester once and stared at it in a bit of befuddlement. It’s such a Missoula sort of car.

Horse meat. In the grocery store. I haven’t tried it yet, but I’m going to. I have eaten duck, kangaroo, quail, and various new kinds of fish here.

There are no deer! I bike past fields and along rural farm roads which, in Montana, would have deer or antelope or something bouncing across them all the time, but there are none. The closest I get are burros in fields. Yes, actual burros.

Burros and/or donkeys in a field

On the other hand, the birds never stop singing. Apparently no one told Belgian birds that they’re supposed to fly south for the winter.

No two toilets flush the same way. Most have some variation on two different buttons, one to use a small amount of water and one to use a larger amount, but some of them have a Start button and a Stop button, and some have a lever thing you pull up on, and some of them have the buttons on the wall instead of on the toilet.

Speaking of toilets, there are very few automatic toilets or sinks.

Speaking of toilets, you have to pay to use them in public. Usually 35-50 cents.

Nearly every set of stairs I have encountered is some variation on a spiral.

You often have to bring or buy your own kitchen appliances like stovetops and things when you move into a new place you’ve rented. All I had to buy was a refrigerator.

Speaking of refrigerators, they’re tiny.

There are still plants growing in the fields. Until November or even the beginning of December there were still flowers blooming. So weird.

Everywhere you look, there’s a marvelous castle or old church. Belgium has more castles per square kilometer than any other country in Europe.

Buildings crammed together in Brussels.

Belgium has more everything per square foot than anywhere in Montana. By this I mean that everything is extremely close together. Villages are only a mile or two from each other. There’s a farmhouse on every hill. Houses are often tall and narrow and squished up against each other (even in villages). Major towns and cities are ten or fifteen miles from each other. There are no wide open spaces.

Most buildings are made out of brick, especially houses and apartments. People still lay brick by hand, with a trowel.

People kiss each other. All. The. Time. You haven’t seen somebody since yesterday? You kiss him on the cheek. You just met a new acquaintance? You kiss her on the cheek. Actually you kiss the air near their cheek. Once, in my first month here, I was at a French friend’s house for dinner, and someone I was unacquainted with was coming late from work. He came in and, since I was sitting closest to the door, came straight to me and stuck his face out at me. I had a momentary recoil of horror (What are you doing?), and he had a momentary recoil of rejection (What a rude person!), and everyone at the table burst out laughing and kindly explained to me that he was French and expected a greeting kiss on/near the cheek, the way an American would shake hands, and explained to him that I was American and new and wasn’t used to strange men sticking their faces in my personal space. We also ended up laughing at each other/ourselves.

One of my excursions, to see the Flower Carpet Brussels creates for three days once every two years. Click on the photo to see more pictures.

One thing I never thought about before was how much lecture preparation is necessary. Since this is my first time teaching these classes (Introduction to Theology and Christology/Soteriology), I have to start from the beginning and write lectures for 12 weeks of 3-hour classes. After reading textbooks for most of June and July and writing lectures for most of August and September, I have about 8 weeks of each class prepared—and I’m already done teaching the second week! And as soon as I’m done writing those, I have to start on next semester’s lectures. As I knew it would, my being a tourist has reduced quite a bit in favor of my being a teacher.

I have to say, it’s a rather magnificent job to have, getting to read and analyze theology books and write a couple hundred pages on theological subjects, with the goal of teaching them to people who may be complete neophytes to theology. But sometimes I have to force myself to do it and to focus on doing it. I could use your prayers for focus specifically.

My desk, where I do most of my studying and lecture-writing

The best part, after my two whole weeks of experience, is definitely the teaching. I rather adore it. When I was itinerating, I loved the part where I got to get up and tell people all about what God was doing in my life and calling and European missions. That love has transferred to the process of teaching, which is really quite similar. I stand in front of people and tell them wonderful things about God.

After my second day, as I was biking home from school, I realized to myself that the act of teaching doesn’t feel like a job, even a job that I enjoy (I loved library cataloging, but it was still a job). It feels like doing something I love. It causes the same emotional sensations in me that doing things I do just because I love them does, such as reading or bicycling or taking interesting photographs. It might perhaps be almost like the feeling I get when I write fiction (though nothing is quite like that in the world). And to think that once upon a time I declared to myself my intention of never becoming a teacher (that was a very long time ago).

My 7:30am bike commute to CTS.

I have two classes of a dozen students each (large class sizes, for CTS), and each one has a couple of Americans, a couple of Nigerians, a couple of Belgians, a couple of Dutch, and one English student (each), with the odd Italian and Pakistani and Ghanian thrown in for good measure. Most are college age, but a couple are a little older and have already been in full-time ministry. Some of them have amazingly good brains. Some of them know absolutely nothing and ask the most interesting (and difficult) questions (“Is God still faithful to Israel?” “If God is King of Kings, how is Jesus King of Kings?” “If there is natural revelation, what about people who see the existence of God through nature but never hear the gospel?”).

One of the classes told me they would never have imagined I hadn’t already been teaching for ages. I think this is because, for one, I’ve spent my whole life contemplating the topics I am teaching on (when I was about 9 years old, for instance, I would probably have told you that Christ’s incarnation, death, and resurrection for our benefit were only logical, given the nature of God—though not necessarily in those words); and for another, I’ve just spent two years doing public speaking almost every single week, which has helped me feel comfortable and natural being in front of people and speaking to them. Thank you, two years of itineration!

And, yes, I have cried in three out of four class periods. Once was when I was talking about the importance of John the Baptist to the life of Christ and read Isaiah 40, where Matthew and Mark get their prophecies which John fulfilled. (Go read it. Go, right now. And think about John the Baptist declaring this about Jesus before His baptism.) The second time was when I was talking about Jesus’ servanthood as revealed in the Last Supper and read Isaiah 53. (Go….you get the point.) The third time was today, in my Intro to Theology class, where I’ve been talking about the attributes of God (holiness, love, justice, and so forth), and in my section about faithfulness I told them about my own experience of God’s faithfulness. I don’t think I could not cry while discussing such wonderful subjects. But I warned them all ahead of time that it was entirely likely I would. And who knows, maybe now whenever they read the beginning of Mark and read about John the Baptist, they will remember about Isaiah 40 and remember that it is so lovely that their theology teacher cried about it in class. (I don’t think I’ve ever had a theology teacher cry in class, which makes me wonder what’s wrong with them.)

Most of my students have been mostly paying attention, which is perhaps as much as a teacher can ask for. (And of course those who don’t seem like they’re paying attention very well might be.) There’s often discussion and questions asked, and a couple of times students have kept talking about things we talked about in class as they put their things together and leave, which means they’re interested. Quite delicious, I must say.

I can’t wait to teach again on Monday.

Footnotes:
*I also got to watch the building next to my new apartment get completely torn down, observe a crane pull the demolition backhoe out of a hole it fell into (almost falling into my kitchen as it did so), and usher men through my apartment to look at the hole they accidentally drilled into my guest bedroom. That’s enough for a whole blog post itself.

My new friend Sigmund, chomping away at the building next door. This picture is taken from my bathroom window.

When I get overwhelmed, I retreat, ignore, and bury myself in a book. I feel helpless and harassed and only want to get away from what is causing it. Not the most helpful or proactive response, but part of feeling helpless is feeling helpless to do anything to stop feeling helpless.

This morning I was listening to some old favorite music. I grew up on Christian music greats of the 1980s and 1990s, and I get a great wave of nostalgia when I listen to certain songs I grew up on. A couple of them suddenly became an antidote to helplessness. They didn’t give me tips for going out and dealing with issues. They reminded me of the exquisite, brilliant, Good News, which is sweeter and stronger and more prevailing.

There is a Savior
What joys express.
His eyes are mercy,
His word is rest.
For each tomorrow,
For yesterday,
There is a Savior
Who lights our way.

(“There Is A Savior,” by Sandi Patty.)

And in His eyes, they glimpse the power
That sees the heart of all men.
And He knows His Father’s mind,
He speaks His Father’s words,
For He comes in the name of the Lord

There is strength in the name of the Lord.
There is power in the name of the Lord.
There is hope in the name of the Lord.
Blessed is He, who comes in the name of the Lord.

(“In The Name Of The Lord,” by Sandi Patty.)

A mighty Fortress is our God,
A Bulwark never failing;
Our Helper He amid the flood
Of mortal ills prevailing:
For still our ancient foe
Doth seek to work us woe;
His craft and power are great,
And, armed with cruel hate,
On earth is not his equal.

Did we in our own strength confide,
Our striving would be losing;
Were not the right Man on our side,
The Man of God’s own choosing:
Dost ask who that may be?
Christ Jesus, it is He;
Lord Sabaoth His Name,
From age to age the same,
And He must win the battle.

And though this world, with devils filled,
Should threaten to undo us,
We will not fear, for God hath willed
His truth to triumph through us:
The Prince of Darkness grim,
We tremble not for him;
His rage we can endure,
For lo! his doom is sure,
One little word shall fell him.

That word above all earthly powers,
No thanks to them, abideth;
The Spirit and the gifts are ours,
Thru him who with us sideth.
Let goods and kindred go,
This mortal life also;
The body they may kill;
God’s truth abideth still;
His kingdom is forever.

(“A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” by Martin Luther.)

If you own a domain name, please be aware (and beware) of this scam.

Click to view larger

I received this in the mail today. It’s very official-looking and appears at first glance (or second or third) to be a legitimate request that I renew my domain name. I did not recognize the name of the company, iDNS, but at first I thought perhaps my domain registrar had sold to another company or changed their name or something. I might very easily have filled out the information and sent it in.

Upon closer reading, I realized that this is actually an authorization to transfer my domain name from my own registrar to this other company. I consulted my personal domain professional (i.e. my mom Nora McDougall), and she told me that this is actually something of a scam to steal your business from your own registrar. It won’t necessarily steal your domain name from you–it might be a perfectly legitimate domain registrar–but it is using a very clever, very legitimate-looking tactic to steal your business from the company you chose.

If you have a business or a church or any kind of ministry, don’t let your secretary or accountant just blindly pay internet/website/etc. bills. Investigate everything that isn’t coming directly from the companies you have chosen to do business with. If you don’t recognize a business name, find out if your companies have had a name change; if the bill looks different than normal, contact the company and find out if they sent it. If someone purporting to be from a company calls you up or emails you and asks for credit card or bank information or account passwords or payments for something, contact the company yourself and find out if it’s real. Do a tiny bit of googling and find reviews and complaints. Check with the Better Business Bureau. Don’t just do stuff blindly. It’s not good business, and it’s not wise.

New Testament Greek is particularly vivid, I find. This is going to be a bit weird, but I’m going to put my exact, word-for-word translation here, not smoothed out into reasonable English. Your brain may stumble on it, because Greek word order is very different from English. The way the writer organized things in the sentences puts emphasis on different things. It may make you see something you hadn’t seen before, or be reminded of something you hadn’t thought of in a long time. It might just make you go, “Huh?” (Bear in mind that this is by no means a definitive translation. It’s just me wallowing in Greek.)

“For that very reason [what very reason? read the end of chapter 11] therefore also we, so great having surrounding us a cloud of witnesses, every weight/hindrance putting off/getting rid of and the easily entangling sin, by/with endurance we should run the set/lying before us race/athletic contest, looking with undivided attention at the one [who is] of the faith a founder/originator and perfecter Jesus, who against/for the sake of the set/lying before him joy endured a cross of shame/disgrace despising/disregarding [either endured a cross of shame, despising it, or endured a cross, despising the shame], and on the right hand of the throne of God he has sat down. For consider attentively the one [who] so much having endured from the sinners against himself denial/hostility, so that not you may be weary/discouraged in your souls, being exhausted/giving up/losing heart.”

The end of this especially stood out to me. We *do* become weary and discouraged in our souls. But rather than giving up, we should look attentively at Jesus [that word indicates turning your eyes away from all else, thus fixing them on something in particular], who is the founder, the originator, the forerunner, the one who went through everything first, who endured the hostility [this word indicates the verbal attacks] of sinners and the utterly degrading shame of the cross. He was there first. He has already suffered what we suffer when we grow weary and discouraged. And He won out and took His rightful place of honor, where He is always interceding for us, His brothers, His fellow-heirs.

I adore Hebrews so much.

Here’s the Greek, if you’re interested:

Τοιγαροῦν καὶ ἡμεῖς, τοσοῦτον ἔχοντες περικείμενον ἡμῖν νέφος μαρτύρων, ὄγκον ἀποθέμενοι πάντα καὶ τὴν εὐπερίστατον ἁμαρτίαν, δι’ ὑπομονῆς τρέχωμεν τὸν προκείμενον ἡμῖν ἀγῶνα, 2 ἀφορῶντες εἰς τὸν τῆς πίστεως ἀρχηγὸν καὶ τελειωτὴν Ἰησοῦν, ὃς ἀντὶ τῆς προκειμένης αὐτῷ χαρᾶς ὑπέμεινεν σταυρὸν αἰσχύνης καταφρονήσας, ἐν δεξιᾷ τε τοῦ θρόνου τοῦ θεοῦ κεκάθικεν.

3 Ἀναλογίσασθε γὰρ τὸν τοιαύτην ὑπομεμενηκότα ὑπὸ τῶν ἁμαρτωλῶν εἰς ἑαυτοὺς ἀντιλογίαν, ἵνα μὴ κάμητε ταῖς ψυχαῖς ὑμῶν ἐκλυόμενοι.

And what people mean by “something better” is something spectacular, something amazing, something miraculous, something that will burst over you all of a sudden with fireworks and magnificence and joyousness. A miraculous provision of funds. A perfect, European, missions-oriented spouse. A place in missions which will be all the better for the long delay.  God’s better must always be something that will make our hearts cry out in joy, right?

But then, what if it doesn’t happen? What if you prayed desperately for a spouse, or a baby, or a healing, or a miraculous provision of funds, or supernatural favor, and either it didn’t happen, or it didn’t work out the way you planned and dreamed it would? Does this mean God has failed, or didn’t care, or has been too busy to take notice of you? Does it mean “God has something better” is a lie? Should we just stop hoping?

By “God has something better,” people never mean, “You are just going to keep slogging on and on and on in the face of a stony silence in regards to miraculous outpourings.” They never mean, “Actually what you dreamed when you were 9 is never, ever going to happen.” They never mean, “You won’t get to the mission field until you’re 35, and then only by sidling in sideways.”

This is a gratuitous photo of the weather conditions on my last big itineration trip.

But what if that’s what “God has something better” actually means? What if God’s better is actually the thing that feels so much worse while it’s happening? What if the very thing that is undesired and feels harder and more painful and unfair and even traumatizing is actually God’s better, better for you than miracles and short cuts and open doors and being given what you want so badly?

Over my two years of itineration, I filled 12 journals with reflections on my journey. I was reading over them this week and realizing how many times I made plans that I was certain were what I needed. I was going to raise my budget and be in Europe by January 2015. I was going to raise my budget and be in Europe by May 2015. And when those plans fell through, how many times I wrote confidently that God was sure to do something miraculous just around the corner to cover for it. And He never did. Nothing miraculous and extraordinary happened to make up for the dashing of my plans.

This is a gratuitous picture of a mushroom in the rain.

I’m making more plans right now, because I am a natural planner and plotter and dreamer. I plan on getting my visa application into the mail by next week, and I plan for God to expedite the process through the Belgian bureaucracy, and I plan to have it approved in time for me to be in Europe before a big missionary conference that is happening on my birthday. It’s a brilliant plan. So reasonable. So logical. It could happen.

It also could not happen. Maybe I’ll spend my 35th birthday pouting to myself in my apartment in Missoula. Maybe nothing remarkable or joyous or delicious will happen in exchange for my lovely plans not coming to fruition.

This is not a cynical, hopeless blog post. It’s actually a joyous one. Because God’s better is better, no matter how it feels at the moment.

What’s better than instantaneous, miraculous provision that makes people glorify God? How could struggle and pain and lots and lots of crying and pouting and disappointed hopes and slogging and finally having to take the undesired route be better than miracles?

Because of this:

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. James 1:2-4

Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. Romans 5:3-5

I actually never understood these verses before. I didn’t even like them.

But the hope for favorable events, the hope for our own (perfectly good and God-honoring) plans to come about, the hope even for miracles to get us out of our situations is a hope in circumstances. Such hope is easily dashed. Whereas the hope that comes from perseverance in the face of difficulty and pain, and the character and maturity God desires for us that come from such dodged, white-knuckled perseverance…that is a hope in God. A trust in His authority, His sovereignty, His wisdom, His superior plans. That hope does not disappoint us.

That is the better that God has planned for us: not necessarily (but not necessarily not) better external circumstances but rather better internal development into who He created us to be. Better maturity, better faith in His never-changing goodness, better submission to His will. It may be wretched getting there (or it may be brilliantly delightful—it may be both at the same time), but it is better. Better than having what we ask for and never getting there.

God did not give me financial and timeline miracles while I itinerated (well, maybe one or two little ones…), and He paid absolutely no attention to my brilliant and reasonable plans, and He did not expedite my process, except at the end, when He did it in a way I absolutely didn’t want. But He’s made me into a person who understands perseverance a whole lot better than I did two years ago and who is willing to say, “I want this awesome thing…but if You don’t give it to me, I trust You.” It took a great deal of whining and “Whaaaii aren’t You helping meeeee?” and no doubt I have more opportunities for whining and pity parties to look forward to in the future. But I have greater hope in God’s eternal character than I did when I started out itinerating with all my optimistic plans for Him to follow. I suppose that’s better.

This is a gratuitous picture of the sunset over the Pacific Ocean in Washington.

The Belgian Synod Attestation is a statement from a religious body in Belgium attesting to the fact that you are a religious worker in official standing with a religious body in your home country which has official affiliation with the Belgian Synod. The application for it requires these documents:

• The application, which is longer and more complicated than the visa application.
• A notarized affidavit from the Assemblies of God that it is what it is and you are what you are in relation to it.
• A notarized letter from the Assemblies of God that it endorses your visa application and guarantees your salary.
• A notarized letter from your insurance company affirming that you have insurance that is effective worldwide.
• A list of your educational credentials.
• A photocopy of the official agreements between the Assemblies of God and the Belgian government or the Belgian Synod, or something Belgian.
• A photocopy of your passport.

6. All of this must be scanned and emailed to the nice person with AGWM who will pass it on to the Belgian Synod. It can take up to three months to get the attestation.
7. Select the FBI background check request as the second thing to do. Really it should have been the first thing. Tsk tsk.
8. Rush madly about all the tiny towns in the area of western Washington where you still are until you find a police station that is doing fingerprinting. Find out they require cash payments and run to the nearest ATM to get some. Get fingerprinted, which is a most interesting procedure.
9. Go to a Rite-Aid to buy a money order to send with the FBI background check request, and stand in line for ages only to find out they, too, require cash. Spend more money at an ATM to get more cash and stand in line for ages again. Get the money order.
10. Send in your fingerprints and request to the FBI. This can take up to 15 weeks to get back.
11. Finally go home to Montana and start packing your house.
12. Pack a lot.
13. Receive the original documents from AGWM that were sent in digital form to the Belgian Synod. Don’t lose them. I almost did.
13. Pack some more.
14. Find out from another missionary also going to Belgium all the absurd things you have to do for the medical form required for the visa. Realize you’re going to have to go to Billings (5 hours away) to get it apostilled (a governmental certification).
15. Suddenly receive the Belgian Synod Attestation in the mail with a lovely cover letter, only a month after you sent in the application.
16. Pack some more.
17. Find out from another missionary that if you send in your background check request to an FBI-approved channeler, you might get it way faster than you will from the FBI.
18. Rush madly about Missoula to find a place to get re-fingerprinted (electronically, which is also a very interesting procedure).
19. Send off your second background check request with an even larger fee.
20. Make a doctor’s appointment for the medical form. Make sure they know you have to have a notary present. Make sure they make sure the notary knows he or she has to have his or her notarial certification present.
21. Pack some more.
22. Study a lot of Dutch. Ik leren Nederlands graag.
23. Find out you actually have to go to Helena (3 hours away) instead of Billings for the apostilling of the medical form. You have to make an appointment and pay another fee.
24. Pack some more.
25. Sell a lot of stuff.

This is where I am presently. Here are the additional steps I know about but have not yet taken:

26. Go to your doctor’s appointment and have a lot of bloodwork done to certify the following:

And has found him/her free of one of the following illnesses as mentioned in the annex of the law of 15/12/1980 and representing a danger for public health :
1 Illnesses requiring quarantine as stated by the international health regulation n°2 dated 25 May 1951, of the World Health Organization;
2 Pulmonary tuberculosis, active or progressive ;
3 Other contagious or transmittable diseases by infection or parasites if they are subject in the host country to provisions of protection of the nationals

Who knows what these are?

27. Wait for the bloodwork to come back, possibly several days.
28. Pack some more.
20. Go back to the doctor’s and have the paperwork signed and notarized.
30. See if the notary will also notarize your signature on the visa application.
31. If not, find some other notary to do it.
32. Make an appointment in Helena for the apostilling. Send them a scan of the medical certificate first to make sure it’s been notarized properly.
33. Drive to Helena and get the medical certificate apostilled.
34. Hope desperately the FBI-channeler background check has come.
35. Make sure you have all the pertinent forms from AGWM. Make lots of copies of them.
36. Get a certified check in dollars from your bank made out extreeeemly carefully to the Consulate General of Belgium.
37. Place 2 copies of your visa application (which took about 3 minutes to fill out) tenderly and graciously into a large envelope with the following:

• Your passport
• A language form completely in Dutch explaining that you want all your paperwork in Dutch because you will be living in a Dutch-speaking section of Belgium. The other options are French and German.
• 3 passport photographs
• The originals and two copies of all the documents you already sent to the Belgian Synod
• The Belgian Synod Attestation
• The FBI background check
• The signed, notarized, apostilled, and bathed in camel’s milk (not really) medical certificate with two copies of the same.
• Yet another fee, the certified check.
• A self-addressed, self-stamped address so you can get back your passport and all the other documents, which you need to have in hand to get into Belgium.
•  Your firstborn child who can spin straw into gold (not really).

38. Take said envelope to the post office and give them a lot of money to send it very quickly to the Belgian Consulate in Los Angeles, which has jurisdiction over Montana.
39. Have your bank wire yet another fee, in Euros, to the Consulate.
40. Gnaw on your fingernails and pray it doesn’t take the possible two months that it could take, because by this point you want to be in Europe much sooner than that.
41. Pack some more.
42. Have a goodbye party.
42. Find out, oh frabjous day, that you have been issued a visa.
43. Make an appointment to receive it.
44. Fly to Los Angeles. Yes. Fly to Los Angeles to pick it up. You have never had any desire to go to Los Angeles—in fact you have sometimes in the past said to yourself that while San Diego is perfectly lovely, you never ever want to go to Los Angeles. Nevertheless, fly to Los Angeles.
45. Figure out how to get to the Belgian Consulate from the airport.
46. Do whatever you have to do at the Consulate to get the visa.
47. Go see the La Brea Tar Pits, because they’re like 3 blocks away.
48. Fly home again.
49. Buy a plane ticket.
50. Go to Belgium, taking care to bring all the reams of paperwork with you to bemuse the poor immigration agents.

This has taken you five months. But if all goes to plan, you will be celebrating your 35th birthday at a missionary convention in Croatia.