Auschwitz

     My husband and I went to Auschwitz with a school group from our high school son's boarding school. We traveled by bus from Bratislava, Slovakia to the camp in Poland. It was a full day's drive, so we left very early in the morning to arrive at the camp in the afternoon for our tour. 

 When we arrived we found our tour guide and began the walking tour of the museum/facility which lasted about four hours. The first thing we did was enter in through the gate with the infamous saying - "work makes freedom" while looking down the long line of double barbed wire fencing. Many of the former barracks have been altered to contain displays. Photos were allowed outside, but were not allowed inside, so I only have a few photos. 

     There was much that was disturbing. I have seen several movies and read books before about the holocaust and Auschwitz, but that is nothing compared to being there. There is nothing that can prepare you for it. Even the trees that grow there today have the tall, emaciated appearance of concentration camp victims as if the place is still accursed. (One thing I didn't notice until I was getting these photos ready for publication was that they are very dark. These photos were taken in late afternoon on a sunny day with 400 speed film in an analog camera. All the other photos on the roll were fine, but these two were dark.)

     There were several things which especially struck me. Those things which brought home the suffering and death of individuals. It is easy to get lost in the huge numbers and the factory-like efficiency of the use, abuse and murder of so many people here. It can be heart-numbing, so that it isn't real, it is numbers and statistics and some great horror, instead of millions of small ones. Several things along the way punctured that clinical analysis and numbness.

     The first one came as I entered one of the display rooms and I was struck by a strong and strange smell, like the inside of an old chair. As I entered fully into the room I saw that along a long wall was a deep glass case full of hair. Over 4,400 pounds, more than two tons of it. Laid out in rows. It was a small amount of the hair shorn from the women who were murdered here. Much of it still braided as it was when the woman fixed her hair that last time before meeting her death. I was pierced by this. As I thought about why this particular display struck me so deeply, I realized several things. I will confess like my hair. Many women have a love/hate relationship with their hair. I don't. Maybe it is because it never gains weight like the rest of me. Sometimes I felt it was my only good feature. I allow myself a smidgen of vanity about it. I shouldn't  but I do. I do feel it is my crowning glory, long, soft, shiny. A woman's hair is a strong symbol of her femininity. This hair was sold and used to make a burlap type material. They had a bolt of it in the room. I thought of my hair lying in that dusty case or woven into this coarse fabric. It seemed such a personal affront and an attack on femininity to take such beauty and make something so ugly and utilitarian out of it.

     The second thing that struck me was a room full of shoes and next to it a small display of children's shoes. Within the children's case was a small pink cowboy boot. I noticed it because in the midst of the dull, worn, brown shoes, here was this beautiful pink boot. It looked like something a little American girl would wear today. I thought about the little girl who owned these boots, probably wealthy to own such frivolous boots in such an impractical color. Did she have to beg and fuss to bring her special boots? Each family was allowed only one suitcase. Did her parents indulge her this one last time? Perhaps she wore them on her little feet. Did she pretend to be a cowgirl when she wore them? Did she ride a pretend horse and gallop along in them? She would not have lived even hours after arriving at this camp and her shoes were thrown in the pile with all the rest to be resold to the German people as were the useful clothing and other articles the prisoners brought with them. She would have been one of the last groups of people brought here because her little boots still remain. My heart was pierced.

     The second wave hit me as we walked down a hallway with a gallery of photos of the prisoners. Originally the photos were used to ID the prisoners but after an average of three months of hard labor they would die. Worked and starved to death. In their very efficient manner, the Nazis kept meticulous records of those who arrived and died. They very quickly found that the people were so changed in appearance after months of hardship and starvation that their entry photos could not be used to ID them upon death, so they began tattooing the numbers on their bodies. The photos struck me in two ways. One was the expressions in the eyes of the people, a few were angry, one looked insane, and most were just beaten and resigned. They had dead eyes. As I looked at the photos on both sides of the hallway I thought of all these men who had died here, then I heard our guide say that those on the right-hand side were photos of women and those on the left were men. As I had looked at each face, I had no idea they were women. After only a short time here there was no vestige of beauty or femininity left in them.

     The third time reality struck was when I went down into the gas chamber and saw this place where so many had died, then we went next door to the crematorium and saw the ceiling black with soot. We were standing there and my husband, Jon came up beside me looking at the ceiling he said something which made me realize that all that black soot and smoke stain came from human beings.  It was such a strange feeling.

     One of the last things we saw in Auschwitz was a political prisoner’s barracks. These prisoners were tortured here and often shot against a wall in a courtyard between two barracks. The barracks windows were covered so those inside couldn't witness the executions. What was especially cruel about this building was a special punishment area in the basement. Three tiny rooms were built which were completely closed in with a small door at the bottom. A prisoner would have to crawl on their belly to enter this room. Four prisoners were put in each room which was just big enough for the four of them to stand in. Literally, just big enough to stand in. It was probably two feet square. This punishment was meted out to those who lagged behind in their work or fell behind in the marching to the nearby fields and forests for work. They were considered lazy. They would be forced to spend their nights in here - propped up by the bodies of these other prisoners with no air ventilation, then expected to head to work the next morning. It wasn't bad enough that these prisoners were starved, worked, and beaten to death. The Nazis planned and built these punishment rooms as well. Anyone who believes that man is basically good should come to this place, hear the stories, not just of the SS commanders and guards, but also of the fellow prisoners and the cruelty they were capable of against other and see what mankind is capable of.

     So while much of what I saw at Auschwitz showed me what we, as people are, there was the story of one man, that showed what we can be in Christ. Though men are fallen and cruel and given over to the evil in their hearts, there are also men and women who reflect their transformed nature and the love and strength of Christ. We heard the story of one such Christian and he truly was a "little Christ", which is what the word Christian literally means. 

     In the same basement where prisoners were punished by standing up all night is a cell which is now a memorial to a Polish priest named Father Kolbe. Whenever a prisoner escaped, ten people were chosen to die in their place. After one such escape ten men were chosen to die by starvation. One man with a wife and children begged for mercy. He received none from the camp commandant, but Father Kolbe heard this man’s pleas and volunteered to take his place. Amazingly the officer in charge allowed this. Father Kolbe shepherded his last little flock as one by one they died. The guards could hear them praying and singing hymns. After two weeks the cell was needed for more victims and yet  Father Kolbe still lived, so he was given a lethal injection. He was ready to go home to Heaven. Even in the midst of the great darkness of this place, God's great light shone.

Driving in Europe

This is how it felt sometimes to be driving in Europe, especially in the cities. That is when we could actually see the traffic lights. In America we put the lights across the street on the back of the wires hanging across the street. In Holland, they hung the traffic lights on wires strung across the street right in front of you. We had a small car, but had to lean forward and crane our necks upward to see the lights. Europe, a chiropractics dream land. :-)

http://xkcd.com/1116/

Post-Op

I started this post about two years ago and it apparently never got published. Despite the delay, I think you will find this insight into socialized European medicine to be interesting.




     I am now a full three days post-op and back home recovering and doing very well. They were able to do the surgery laparoscopically and I have had no pain at all from the surgery. I am very grateful. My energy level is up and all seems to be healing well.

I must confess it was a bit scary going in for surgery in a foreign country not knowing how well the language barrier would be penetrated by those in whose hands I was to entrust my life and health. It was unnerving to not understand how the system worked or what was going to happen.

      There were many things that were the same or similar to my experience last fall in the United States when I had major surgery there and there were some significant differences.

One of the things I never get used to here is getting an injection without any skin prep. No swabbing, no cleaning, just plunge it in there. The only time I was swabbed was when they put in an IV and when they took blood to check for infection.

      Jon and I arrived at the hospital and since we didnt know where to go we went to information and asked. They directed us to the second floor. We took the elevators and there was no one around. We wandered the halls and found no one. We called out "Hallo" and got no response. I read the signs and nothing said anything about operations, so thinking that there was a language issue, we got back into the elevator and went up another floor. Here it said operations, but again no one around. We wander and call. We go back down to the second floor and wander some more. We find a nurse and she says yes this is the floor and that we just have to wander around until we find someone. We wander and call but never do. We go back to the third floor. We have now missed our arrival time and wonder if I will lose my spot on the operating schedule as a "no show". The Dutch are after all a punctual people. We go back to the third floor. We do finally find some people in a cardiac unit and a nurse there calls for us and directs us downstairs and, bless him, he actually took us down there and found out where we needed to be.

     I am taken to my room, given a gown to put on and told to get changed. A few questions about medications and food intake and I am fairly quickly wheeled into the big room that is the pre-op area. The Lord provides for me an anesthesia nurse who has spent six months bicycling across America and his English is very good. He chats with me and I get an IV, etc. I wait around, by myself, because Jon was not allowed to come with me. The surgeon shows up. It is not the surgeon I saw in my first appointment and it is not the second one who looked at my ultrasound and scheduled the operation. I have never met him before, but he jokes with me and seems old enough to be well experienced and young enough to have good steady hands.

After a short bit I am wheeled into the operating room and I switch beds. They hook up saline to my port and then fiddle here and there getting my arms situated so they dont fall off the table and my nurse tells me all that he is doing, which I appreciate. Finally the anesthesiologist comes and I get oxygen and something in my IV to knock me out. In a minute or so I am out.

I wake up, kind of, to someone calling me. "Mevrouw (Mrs. or madame) Fiet, breathe." " Mevrouw Fiet, take a deep breath." So I do. My hand goes to my stomach and I can feel several bandages so I know they were able to do it laparoscopically and I was relieved. Seconds go by and I get the command to breathe again. So I do. Then I lay there aware that seconds are going by but I have no need to breathe again. I am too drugged to open my eyes, but alert enough to be aware of my little experiment. Strange to not feel the need to breathe. I know I need to so I inhale and have to make the effort to do. Exhaling is easy, but inhaling is a bit of work. So I lie there actively breathing.

     I lie there for a while in a sort of fog. I don't know how long I have been asleep and have no awareness of the passage of time. It will turn out to be about a half an hour operation and I slept another two hours or so, then drifted in the fog for a half hour or so until being taken to my room. When I get there, Jon appears and my good friend and coworker, Carol, who has ridden her bike to the hospital to keep Jon company while he waited.

I talk with Jon and emerge slowly from the fog. I am given medicine for pain, though I have none. I try to tell them I dont need it. Stomach says its too soon to have something in it and rebels. I try to sleep. It isnt until later that I realize they never brought me lunch. I never missed it. They do bring dinner, but I have homemade rolls from home, so I eat part of one of those. I am not hungry, but feel I need to eat something. Jon tastes my dinner. Sausage, potatoes and beets and chocolate pudding. He likes it, but feels funny eating my food. I'm not going to eat it, seems a shame to let it go to waste.

      All day and night and the next morning I am still trying to sleep off my drug haze, but find this hospital to be unbelievably noisy. The lights are on in the hall all night and I have to lie on the side that faces the door. It is uncomfortable to lie the other way. People are talking loudly in the hall and in my room which I find I am sharing with an elderly man. That is really strange. Jon walks up and down the hallway and finds most rooms are co-ed. We wonder about that, wondering if there is some reason for it or if it is just a random selection of roommates. My roommate seems ill from the coughing he does and just the thought of being in a room with sick person while recovering makes me feel a bit nervous. Normally I wouldnt give it a thought, but recovering post-op and getting exposed to something isn't an experience I want to have.

All the nurses are kind and most can speak at least enough English that I can understand them and simple instructions. One gal does give up on me and gets someone else to help me. They are, however, incredibly loud. The talking in the room and out, the laughing in the halls, the dropping of trays of items which I counted at least four time with the accompaning sounds of breakage. It is all the more remarkable because as a rule, Europeans are the quietest people in public. Americans are known as loud and boisterous because while on vacation we are so in comparison with Europeans. You can have streets full of folks at the Oude Barneveld or at the Fair or just walking on city streets or eating in outdoor cafes and barely hear a murmur of conversation. So the hospital was a completely unexpected experience. I was sooooo tired and couldnt sleep. I would just fall asleep, go immediately into dreaming from fatigue, only to wake up a minute later. This went on all day and evening. I must have had a hundred extremely short dreams that day. And this with an eyemask over my eyes and good earplugs in my ears. I am a light sleeper, so I had come prepared for a normal amount of hospital noise.

We asked if I could go home that night. I was so very tired I just wanted to go home and sleep. The doctor said no, not that I saw him that day at all after the surgery, but the nurse called for me. I was very disappointed but had been praying so figured the Lord knew what he was doing.

     I was able to snatch sleep in 1 1/2 hour to two hour intervals through the night. It was quieter, but there was enough noise and that dreaded hallway light and a door always open so it all came tumbling in.

      The next morning I was cranky and irritable and just wanted outta there. I had a low grade fever and feared I would be forced to stay. Jon wasn't allowed to come back until 10:30 in the morning so I had about five hours waiting for him. Bored, tired, just wanting to go home.

Finally around ten o'clock the surgeon comes in and says I can go home. Yea! I jumped up with cheer. I got dressed, called Jon to come get me and we got our post-op instructions and prescriptions.

       I started recording Membercare radio programs again this week. I was figuring out that it has been about two and a half years since I was last in the studio. I found myself nervous about the process which I don't think I ever was in Holland. I've spent some time figuring out why that might be. It is a new place and a new producer, but recording on a scheduled date instead of the casual kind of way we could do things in Holland was probably the biggest factor. I was used to preparing the programs, then when they were ready I'd contact Ted and we'd set up a date, usually in the next day or two. This time, maybe I didn't feel quite as prepared as previously. I don't mind the stumbling over words or a bit of rambling or some of the other things that naturally occurred. Those can be edited out, but I am always concerned about forgetting some important point which I might remember much later. Those are "argh" kind of moments.


      As I was thinking about how I felt I realized it was just like the feelings I had when we first moved to the Netherlands and I was reintroduced to riding a bike. When  we moved, we bought bikes within the first week or two. We had bikes before we had a car and used them much more. I really came to enjoy the bike riding aspect of life in Barneveld. It was one of my favorite things about life there, but I well remember those first days and weeks of riding. 

      When I first got on my bicycle I assumed I still had the basic skills to remain more or less vertical. And amazingly I did. However, some of the finer points, like steering, had been lost in the intervening years. The bike paths there are wide enough for three people to ride abreast. This was almost enough room for me to comfortably steer past someone coming towards me. Well, almost. The real danger arose when two people were heading right at me and I wasn't at all sure I could steer well enough to keep from running into them. I so wanted to have a sign around my neck, in Dutch, of course, that said, " I have not been riding a bicycle continuously since I was three years old. Be on the alert and kindly move into single file while passing me for your own safety." Okay, it would need to be a placard to say all of that and no one could read it fast enough to be of any use. How about, "Buitlander, Let Op!" "Foreigner, Watch Out!" 


      It wasn't just the bicyclists coming towards me that unnerved me as I rode, but there were other obstacles and narrow places along the way too. The one I remember most was a place between our home and the grocery store. It consisted of two waist high metal arches which were spaced a bit apart, but which overlapped. I could not just turn and right straight through them, there was a bit of a weaving motion that was necessary. It was narrow and my bike was wide with the saddle bags for carrying the groceries. 

They were made of these metal bars.

But they are configured like this. The barrier sides were a
little shorter and a bit wider apart , but you get the idea.

 I remember the first time I headed into this bicycle trap. I was following Jon, who had no difficulties picking up cycling with all its necessary skills. I didn't see until too late where he was leading me. All I could think as I approached this was that one line from an Indiana Jones movie, "Go between them, are you crazy!"  Falling down and hurting myself was somehow not appealing. Running into metal poles seemed like an efficient way to do that. By the time I saw them it was too late to do anything but try. As I was winding through I saw that my front tire was heading toward a curb which was ready to jump out and attack my  front tire. 




Avoiding it was going to require a sharp left turn partway through the slalom to avoid the curb. It looked hungry. It looked like rubber was its favorite food. It's face was black with the evidence of its previous victims. Timing, proper speed and dexterity were the keys. What are those?!  Inside I am going,"Aaaaaaa!" On the outside I am gripping the handlebars like a vice and wishing I was on foot.

     I well remember the feeling of triumph when I did manage to navigate that obstacle unscathed and emerged on the other side. Yes, the rush of adrenaline, this was my own version of extreme sport! You can see my expectations for myself are very low. That little challenge to my riding skills got easier and easier, of course, and then became a fun part of the ride. A small challenge to myself in the day to day. Amazingly I never fell, never ran into someone or something nor did I ever crash in any way in all the time we were there. I count myself most fortunate.  

      So I am hoping and expecting that the recording will become easier in the weeks to come. I plan on recording on a regular basis now. I sure hope I get my groove back. In the meantime it looks like I have made sitting in a chair talking into a microphone my latest adrenaline delivery system. Does that make it qualify as an extreme sport?

Diverging from Europe for the Moment

I heard yesterday that the huge oil refinery on St. Croix in the U. S. Virgin Islands was going to close within a month. My husband and I have had what I call, "a cosmic connection" with St. Croix for our entire marriage. It all began more than thirty-three years ago when we honeymooned on the island. My husband had been a paper boy for many years and worked some summer jobs and had saved most of his money and he chose to blow most of it on a very special honeymoon for us. We stayed at a hotel called Hotel on the Cay which was a very nice hotel on a tiny island sitting in the small harbor area of St. Croix. It had pools and little streams and beautiful landscaping with bridges to carry us across the water features. It was a very beautiful place.

You can see a small part of the huge refinery

 from this hill behind our house.

About four years later when Jon was working for Hercules, a chemical company that was an off-shoot of DuPont, he applied for and got the chance to work on St. Croix. Hercules was in a partnership with Hovensa, the name of the company that runs the refinery. Hercules built a small plant within the refinery to take a waste product of the refining process and use it to make useful items like polyester. Hercules employed two people to work at the plant, a plant manager and a finance guy, the rest were Hovensa employees. Jon was the finance manager. We moved down there with a four year old and a little baby. We moved into the company housing which was double wide trailers winding up a small hill with nice landscaping. We settled in and loved it.

Water Babies

We never would have considered this move if we had not honeymooned there and had some acquaintance with the island.











We purchased a small inflatable boat, a Zodiac, or as that baby, Benjamin, would call it when he got older, a "Modiac". We would take it out on most Saturdays and head to Buck Island, a small island about three miles off the coast of St. Croix, which was a tiny National Park. We would take hot dogs and baked beans, deviled eggs and brownies, charcoal and a hammock. Jon would pump the boat up with a foot pump and the two of us would drag it into the water, stow our gear and the children and head out. This is the place we called "our" beach because we would have it to ourselves. It had a long sandy beach, lots of trees for shade, picnic facilities and most importantly, a place to hang the hammock. You can just see, between the tree limbs, our zodiac anchored a little way out.

Jon enjoyed the beach and in a fantasy world I would have been a mermaid, so I spent the majority of the day snorkeling in the water. After a couple of years I was able to fulfill a long-time dream and get Scuba certified. Jon joined me so I'd have a diving partner and we added scuba diving to the pleasurable activities of our island life.

After being there less than a year we got a letter from a couple that had been Jon's youth leaders a few years previously. They were moving down to work in the refinery. We were happy to show them around and take them on our boat and to get to know them.







They introduced us to another young family they got to know and we became a trio of sorts. We socialized together, our kids played and grew up together and we discovered and joined an infant church together.








One of the first activities I joined when we arrived was a Bible study taught by three, then four wonderful missionary ladies. They ran a book ministry all up and down the islands from a home that was a converted chicken coop on an estate owned by a Christian family. We became good friends with them and I was happy to introduce the rest of the trio to them as well.



These were all small things at the time, but they would have a tremendous impact on our lives.

Jon's term on the island for Hercules ended and we were transferred back to the continent, as the islanders would say. We moved to cold Wisconsin, introduced that baby, now a kindergartner to snow, which he loved, and added another boy to our family. Jon went to school, got an MBA, got a new job, got another new job which meant a move to Indiana. So like the gypsies we are, we packed up, moved, and settled in again to a new community. I hated it there, had a breakdown, found the Lord in a completely new and deeper way, found healing, and loved it there.

 In all this time we maintained contact with our friends on St. Croix and one day we got a letter inviting us to join them in their ministry. We never would have even considered going if we had not lived there while Jon worked for Hercules. We never would have met these missionary friends nor known of their ministry. We prayed and wrestled and then knew that the Lord would have us go.

My world fell apart.

Nevertheless we packed a few things, left the house and things I loved and moved into the chicken coop. Within days the island was hit by a hurricane and I turned 40. It was incredibly hot in our little house with the corrugated tin roof. There were termites in the roof rafters and fire ants and stinging nettle in  the yard. The bed was uncomfortable and my back hurt. I hated it.

After many months spent in anger and unhappiness I found the Lord in a yet deeper level as he worked to grow me up some more. I learned to be grateful for things I didn't like and wouldn't choose. I learned to let go and surrender a lot of stuff that wasn't important. Then I was free to love it there and I did!

After three years the ministry closed rather suddenly. The board and the missionaries were aging. The youngest was just shy of 65 and the eldest was well into their 80's. The board decided to close the ministry and it was devastating all around. So we once again packed up our things, mailed them home in boxes, sold the rest and headed back to our house, which had been rented but which was now unoccupied. After a few months Jon found another job and we settled back into "normal" life.  But I left my heart on that dry, hot island.

The boys working on their hiking merit badge. Eventually
 they would hike all the way around the island.

This was the place where we had had some of the closest friendships we had ever experienced. That infant church we had attended years before had become a vibrant and mature church. It was here that I learned to really worship the Lord. It was here that other gifts emerged. It was here that so much happened for me spiritually. It was here that I met two women who would be intimate prayer partners with me. We would go through many trials together and be forged by that heat. It is a deep bond that continues to this day. It was here that Jon started a boy scout troop which produced the first Eagle Scout on the island in more than twenty years. That troop continues to this day and it is still producing young men of character and faith. They were incredibly rich years. That hot dry island has unbelievably rich spiritual soil.

Most of the people we know are employed directly or indirectly by the oil refinery. The private school our kids attended are funded by the tuition that Hovensa employees pay for their kids to attend. The refinery paid 60 million dollars in taxes each year and the employees, most of whom were locals, fueled the economy of the island. Hovensa built a hospital and helped draw doctors to it. Many of the people in our beloved church there were employed by Hovensa. The ripples from its closing will go on and on. We wonder what will happen to our friends and our church and our island.

My heart is very heavy.

Nederlands Politics

European economic woes and news of conflict within the European Union on how to best deal with Greece and its economic threat to the Euro have been in the news lately. Having lived there, we understand the situation and some of the difficulties the Europeans are facing. The EU has been a force for good in many ways within Europe. It has united Europe as they had hoped and certainly opened up trade and travel within its borders. We were very happy to drive right through old border crossings and the unified currency saved us a lot of money in conversion fees. We, especially Jon, still traveled to non-EU countries so we still had to deal with currency conversion. These you pay coming and going so I gained new insight into why the money changers of old were so wealthy. And reviled.

It has also united them economically, which was one of their goals, but this has been for better and now for worse. These changes have all come at a price, and a high one from an American perspective. Each country and its inhabitants have surrendered to a very large degree, their sovereign rights as a people and as a nation. In some cases the people are still trying to make themselves heard and have an impact on the decisions made by the EU, They have been able to vote on issues in the past, but to little avail and an encounter with a young Dutchman highlights what has happened.



When Jon and I were in the process of renewing our annual residency permits about a year ago we needed photos. We are in our fifties and the truth be told we don't change much from year to year, but no photo older than six months is allowed, so we help sustain the photo industry with new photos each year at $30 a pop for the two of us. Normally this is a simple thing - sit on the stool, don't show your teeth, no smiling, expose both ears for facial recognition software, and snap, snap, snap. We pick the best of a bad lot and we are done.

Jon's photo, couldn't find one of my mug shots

       Our photographer was a young man who, when he found out we were American, wanted to talk a bit of politics. Normally if a European wants to talk politics with an American, it is about American politics, healthcare reform, Obama, etc. This young fellow surprised us by wanting to talk about Dutch politics. He shared with us his frustrations with the parliamentary system of representation. I knew a bit about it, but I didn't realize how little representation it actually gave and in many ways, how little of a sense of control in government for the people. In this system you vote for a party. If one party gets a majority, then they govern. If not, which is the usual case, then they must form a coalition. They have twenty or so parties here in Holland. Basically any parties outside the coalition have no power at all. The people do not vote for their Prime Minister, their equivalent of our President. He is chosen by the dominant party. He shared how he voted as conservatively as he could, but he said it didn't matter much here. There is no black and white in politics, just shades of gray. There is no one representing your area or a particular constituency. Instead the parties represent ideas or philosophies. For example our neighbors are proponents of the Dieren Party. This is the party for the animals. Their goal is to promote animal welfare and rights. This is all this party represents. They actually currently hold three seats in the Dutch parliament.

              He shared with us about their Constitution. It has one important provision in it and with that one simple statement it deprives their constitution of all meaning. It ends with a statement that he summed up as saying, " Any law passed by Parliament will overrule anything in the Constitution." He called it a worthless document. In contrast, our laws must line up with our Constitution. At least in theory. It provides a solid foundation for our laws and our Founding Fathers made provisions for changes to the Constitution keep it from being rigid. At least in theory.

       He was frustrated that the people of his nation, when given the chance, have often voted against European Union laws or initiatives, only to have their vote dismissed and their Parliament pass the law anyway. Of this, we were aware. This has happened in other EU countries as well. We have wondered why the European Union Parliament makes provisions for popular votes on initiatives if it carries no weight.

    He wanted to talk us about the conservative talk radio movement in the US and how many people listen to it. (And people think westerners dont listen much to the radio any more, hmmm.) He shared with us about the one, somewhat more conservative radio station, they have in Holland and that it has low listenership. He longed for a place to hear his own ideas expressed and shared by others. It was actually a brief conversation, but we understood his frustration which amazingly had no bitterness in it. He is a young man, maybe in his mid-twenties. It was refreshing to see a young person who cares about politics and the course of his nation. I don't know if that is common here in the Netherlands, but more and more the young people of America are opting out of the political spectrum and their voting levels are usually low. They see their one vote floating in a sea of millions and think it has no value. 

         All of this as well as the things happening politically in the United States reminded me how important it is to pray for our leaders that they may rule us with wisdom. Having lived in Holland has made me realize that though my prayers for my nation seemed large in the scope of all they covered, they fell far short of encompassing the globe which is what they should have done. My horizons have enlarged a bit and this encounter with this young man reminded me of that necessity.

Things I Miss From Holland

I was getting ready to make the dressing for our turkey and since it was just Jon and I for Thanksgiving I got a small turkey and only needed about a half a loaf of bread. We dont eat very much bread and I was thinking how nice it would be to buy one of those half loaves of bread we used to find in the Albert Hijn store. I think there would be a market here for them. Lots of singles and elderly folks who might like just a little bit of bread. It got me thinking about other things I miss from the Netherlands.

The taste of dark chocolate, called puur (pure - roll the "R") in Dutch. The Dutch process their chocolate in a unique way which removes the bitterness. It so improves the flavor and less sugar is needed. I dont eat a lot of chocolate, but I love a nibble now and then. This was so satisfying and delicious to melt and dip things in.

I would love to be able to walk or bike to stores. Loved having things close and the built-in exercise of this kind of lifestyle. Having observed the European diet, which is heavy on bread, cheese, ham and more bread, I am convinced that the integrated exercise is the reason why Europeans are generally less overweight than Americans. This theory formed in my mind, in part, because of the changes in the European waistline from the 1980's to the present time. When visiting there in 1983 I don't think I saw a single person who was overweight at all. Now more people commute and live farther from school and work. More kids have motorized scooters to get around on. It is easier to drive. So, though most folks I saw were still generally fit, I did see lots of middle-aged spread and even occasionally truly obese people. My theory has been reinforced by my own natural creeping numbers on the scale, which I am now having to actively fight.

I miss the little tea shop in Barneveld (Barn-a-felt) that was so charming. Someone had converted a farmhouse and barn into a tea shop which also sold soaps and some pretty household things and the house held a garden shop. They were both so quaint, beautiful, and uniquely Dutch.

I miss pepernoten ( pepper-note-n) and schuim (shkowm) candies at Christmas or more accurately at Sinterklaas time, December 5th. Pepernoten are tiny spice cookies and schuim which means foam is a tasty soft, sweet candy with a texture somewhat like the orange circus peanuts in the States. These two treats are put into the children's shoes by Sinter (rhymes with winter) Klaas (klaws), the Dutch version of Santa Claus. Actually Santa Claus is the Americanized version of this character. The pilgrims picked up this bit of cross-cultural Yuletide celebration during the time they were living in Holland before making their pilgrimage to the New World. The local grocery store would allow the children to leave a shoe and they would fill them with the cookies and candies for Sinter Klaas Day, which is when the Dutch exchange gifts. Christmas Day is strictly a religious celebration, for the small percentage who are Christian and a day to spend with family for all of them. Fortunately for me, my Dutch friend has sent me some chocolate and pepernoten for this year's Sinter Klaas Day. She is a really good friend and I miss her :-)

I miss having an on-demand hot water heater. In Holland, we had almost immediate hot water and could run it all day and always have piping hot water. Our hot water here must be pumped up from the center of the earth judging by the time it takes to arrive at the spigot.

I will miss Candlelight in Barneveld with the music, free horse-drawn sleigh rides (on wheels), hot cocoa and poffertjes (poffer-a-juz) ( tiny little puffy pancakes slathered with butter and heavily dusted with powdered sugar - so good and so glad I have a poffertjes pan and had the foresight to bring a couple of mixes with me.) I loved the smell of the smoke from the fires along the street held in metal baskets, places to stop and warm your hands, giving off their warmth and glow. And the singing and music along the street. Carolers, a South American musical group playing their pipes and drums (in North American Indian garb all mix and match), quartets, choirs, and instrumental musicians.

I miss the ducks on the canals and the flowers everywhere. I miss walking and biking paths. In our neighborhood the sidewalks start and stop without rhyme or reason. We are having to explore back ways to get to things when we want to leave the car at home because most roads in this area seem to have the same inconsistencies as our neighborhood. America is definitely automobile centric. We have to be. Things are just too spread out to do much practical biking or walking.No more going to a crosswalk and just walking across. The car is king and even when pedestrians have the right of way, they never take it, because they don't even know they have it. We all just assume we yield to the cars.


         In spite of all these wonderful things I miss, I do not pine for Holland. It is more wistful remembering with fondness. We are in the "bridge" stage of repatriating. It is the transition stage where w have left friends and what we know, but haven't yet fully integrated into our home. That integration will come and one look out the window at the intensely blue and often completely cloudless sky and I am so happy to be here. Being able to talk to and understand almost everybody I see makes the move back home worthwhile. Walking into a church service in English and feeling my heart soar in worship - that is priceless!