Merry Christmas!

December 25, 2018

Merry Christmas to you! 

I don't usually write a note on Christmas day, but this post will constitute the Klazinga Christmas greetings to family and friends (as long as they follow the link on facebook to read it).  We want to wish you a joyful and blessed Christmas season and a Happy New Year.

Our family has changed in so many ways this past year but most of the changes have been on the inside, growing, maturing, learning new things, and experiencing life in new ways. 

Rather than recount all the ways we have lived this year, I will simply share a photo of our family and extend our love and thankfulness for our family, friends, and brothers and sisters in Christ who have walked alongside us and encouraged and prayed for us this year.  Our hearts are full when we see how God has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.  We pray you will also know that blessing this coming year and every year until Jesus comes in the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.  (Ephesians 1:3-10)

Lead the Way

When I first heard about the trip to England I started dreaming.  We were attending regularly what would become our new church and had heard snippets of testimonies from almost a dozen missionaries or mission fields over a period of a few months. It is amazing to hear what God is doing in His church globally.  When our church started talking about sending a team of people to England for the purpose of encouraging a small, fledgling congregation I thought, "Wow. if only I could be a part of something like that. "  At the time, we weren't members of the church.  And that was the least of the obstacles preventing us from pursuing this area of service.  We both wanted to go and we didn't think we could afford for both of us to go.  So, I put to rest my quickened heart and told myself I wasn't going to think about it because it would have to wait for a better time in our life.

About a month later, the prayer requests for sending a team centered on having some women consider serving the church in this way.  Bryan and I talked about it again.  Although our financial ability to pay for the trip hadn't changed, we asked more questions and prayed about whether it would be possible.  We were both experiencing a desire, a calling, to serve the Lord by helping a congregation in another land not too terribly different than our own (they speak English, after all, so we already knew the language).

We told one of the planners that we were prayerfully considering the possibility of going and he let us know what the cost would most likely be for each of us.  He was excited that we were seriously considering being a part of the team.  This conversation happened after a Sunday evening worship service.  The next day, Bryan had a call from a company he has never heard of to answer questions as a consultant for an hour and they would pay him generously for his time.  That same day (still Monday)  the financial aid package for our college student was finalized and gave us a little more 'wiggle' room with our budget for what we needed to save before the next semester of classes began.  That evening we talked about how God seemed to be opening the door for us to trust Him to provide the financial means to commit to the mission trip.

Since then, we have received a few gifts from family and business associates to help us on our way.  We are trusting that God is providing the way for us to not worry about what it will cost monetarily. He knows what our concerns are about being fiscally responsible when we have college tuition to pay, but He also asks us to trust Him to work out all the details.  And He is doing abundantly more than that: He is equipping us to serve Him in England.

We are excited about how the Lord will use us.  We are also excited to visit a country that we have always wanted to see.  We are looking forward to meeting fellow believers who share a common faith and hope.  We hope we can also talk to people who are searching for the truth that will set them free. We are preparing our hearts through prayer, reading some books, and discussing what we may face as we minister to the Solihull congregation.   We trust that God will use us how He sees fit and that we will grow and learn more about His faithful caring for us through our experience.  Where He leads, we will follow.

More on England

I love all things England; I guess that makes me an Anglophile.  I have wanted to travel, maybe even live, in England for a good portion of my life.  As child books transported me to different locations in the world and different times in history.  England was my favorite location and English authors have always held a special place in my repertoire of reading materials.  I am a fan of mystery stories, so Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers are like old friends of mine who I visit through their writing when I need some light reading.  Churchill and Chesterton, Lewis, Tolkien, Orwell, Potter, Dickens, Doyle, Kipling, and Shakespeare have their places on my bookshelves in our school room library.  And more.

  In high school, my fascination with the Kings and Queens of England morphed into becoming a student of history in college.  When I researched what kind of education I wanted to provide for my children as we homeschooled, my sister told me about a British educator named Charlotte Mason who taught students, parents, and teachers in her lifetime.  It was an easy fit for me to use Charlotte Mason’s methods in my school and to base our curriculum on Western Civilization beginning with the Birth of Britain. 

I have dreamed about visiting England for a long time.  Whenever Bryan and I would talk about which country we want to visit for our first trip overseas, I voted for England (his vote was for the Netherlands since both his parents were born there).  

The idea that an island has birthed a civilization (or at least perpetuated it) that expanded to all the ‘corners’ of the globe makes me want to see the land and its historical landmarks.  I want to feel the history of the place and to experience the people who live there.   I want to absorb the culture, the history, the air, the sea.   

I have a running list of British idioms that I am practicing as a fun way to prepare for the journey (that’s ‘trip’ in American English).  Bryan is looking forward to a fry up; I know how to ask directions for the loo (or bog?). We look forward to a lovely time as we stay a fortnight in the country.

Visiting England this Summer

Bryan and I are embarking on a new adventure in our life.  We are part of a short-term mission team that will travel to Solihull, England to encourage and interact with Christians and their neighbors.  We will be with a small congregation for 10 days and then do a few days of sightseeing before returning home.  This is one of a series of adventures of late that have marked our life together.

The biggest change for us in the last 6 months is joining a different church family.  One of the benefits of joining a new church is that we are very accustomed to meeting new people and learning about them.  So going to a different country to meet new people is not as intimidating as it may have seemed in the past.

We are stepping out (maybe I should say walking out) in faith as we plan our trip.  We can't really afford it on paper, but God is providing the means for us to go.  And we are trusting that He will be leading us as we meet and encourage fellow believers.  We will also be inviting neighbors of the church to a few events.  It will be interesting to see how we are received by the English.  And how much we can connect with the Christians we meet at the church in the short time we are there.

It is exciting to think about doing 'work' like this in the church in the future.  We both have wondered if we could be used as encouragers to new believers (discipling) or as supporters of a new church just starting out.  We look forward to what we can learn from this trip about ourselves and about how to care for strangers to whom we are connected through our faith in the Lord Jesus.