Thanksgiving

Richie thinks how thanksgiving is tomorrow. He will probably skype with his parents and there will be a little feast at the community house on the Willemsstraat. It should be a nice day. Richie has to work in the morning, but this is not so much a problem as it is not a usual thanksgiving. He is in Amsterdam.

Richie is in a small state of mourning. There are many volunteers leaving at the end of the month. He enjoyed spending time with them and will be sad to see them go. Some of the ones he is closer with he hopes to see again in this life. One of these is Seth. He has enjoyed the last few months of hanging out with him and getting to know him. He is from North Carolina and a godly and good man.

Richie bought his plane ticket home yesterday. He found a good price with Icelandair leaving from Copenhagen on February 13. It may not be the most comfortable flight and he may not get food for free on the flight (based on the reviews)...but he will survive.

Richie had the opportunity to share last Friday at a hostel night. He believes he remembers describing these events in a past post so he will not bother describing it this time. He was in charge of coordinating the night along side Maaike. He came up with a theme stolen from Charles Dickens called Great Expectations, and he composed a speech about our expectations when we come to God and Christ. He kept it general at the beginning of his speech. He spoke of expectations in sports, traveling, relationships, and then he spoke of expectations of the Pharisees when they came to Jesus. Jesus did not meet their expectations, and yet he was the Son of God. Then Richie made it personal by speaking of expectations when coming to God. What do we expect from him? Are our expectations reasonable? In line with scripture? Do we get angry with God when he does not meet our expectations? And then Richie asked the guests to evaluate their expectations and see if they are blinding him or her from seeing truth. Giving this speech was an interesting experience for Richie because he received very little feed back after delivery. People kind of just sat strait faced and dumbfounded, and in Richie's mind, they seemed to have turned their brains off. After the speech, they turned their brains on again and chatted with each other, but Richie is starting to think he should reevaluate his speech giving and try to make things feel more conversational when delivering rather than preprepared. He had a strong sense of the prepreparedness of the speech. He did get good feedback from the manager who had attended yesterday (Tuesday) so that was nice and made him feel a bit better.

Richie also had the opportunity to lead a Bible discussion last night. He chose to discuss Cain and Abel. It was a nice discussion. Two guests came. One who when to Trinity Western University in Canada, and the other was a guest from Michigan close to the end of a two year travel trip he is on. His name was Steven, the guest who went to Trinity Western was Colon. They were both friendly and eager to discuss, so the conversation was not so hard.

Steven was an interesting guest to talk to for Richie. He always finds it interesting to speak to world travelers. Richie asked him, now that he is close to the end of his journey, if he feels like he has changed a lot since the beginning. He mainly feels like some priorities in life changed. He spoke of the family oriented nature of the Central and South American life, and how that challenged the priorities of America where everyone strives to have the best and be the best. This was the main philosophy shift he felt. He said he had such inclinations before, but seeing it lived out in Central and South America made it real for him.

This was an interesting conversation to have because it caused Richie to remember another conversation he had with Ewout, one of the managers of the Shelter hostels. Richie had commented how both Apple and Microsoft come from America and how the rest of the world uses one of these operating systems. He stated it as a curious phenomenon. Then Ewout made the observation that in America, economics is largely inspired by trying to be the best, make the best operating system, have the best life, make the best car, or the best country, whatever. Yet in countries in South America or Central America economics may be more driven by the family or focused on the family so they are not as worried about being best. It was an interesting thought for Richie.

Belgium

Richie just returned today from Belgium. So he would like to record his experiences before he forgets.

First, Richie really like Brussels. He knows some people consider it to be not so pretty, but Richie found it rather nice and enjoyed walking around in the city for the one day he was there. Richie and his friend Kristen stayed the first night of the travels in Brussels with a nice man named Sergi. The discovered him via couchsurfing and he was kind enough to let them sleep at his place. He had a very nice apartment, he gave them a very good map of the city, and he had several good suggestions for places to go and things to see. He also shared about his work with a fair trade company and this seemed like interesting work. Things in this line of work take a long time as governments are slow to act, but he said as long as a person was not results oriented the job is good. Richie thought Sergi had a very nice apartment, he was impressed with his knowledge of language, and Kristen and Richie were able to sleep in actual beds at Sergi's apartment making it all nice.

Now for the city. Richie did not realize that Belgium is comic book central and that Tintin came from this beautiful country. Brussels has a comic book museum and that he visited with Kristen and although everything was in French, Richie had a nice time. There are also many comic murals around the town so these were nice for pictures. Richie also got a laugh out of the church with a urnal built into the side of it.

Richie laughed at Kristen who fell in the middle of the street after she tripped over the median. Richie had to pull her out of the road and she dirtied her white coat. This white coat had already been a source of angest for her when she got it dirty by spilling a little bit of her waffle toppings (banana, strawberries, chocolate) on it. She said she had recently cleaned it.

Richie saw the Mannekin Pis, the Jannekin Pis (female version), the main square, and several other things. He also got a laugh about the flea market when all the goods for sale were spread out on blankets on the ground or simply just on the ground.

Richie spent the next two nights of this three night trip in Belgium in a small southern city called Mons. This is the place where Kristen's cousin Brandy lives. Brandy and her husband are both very Canadian. Her husband Aiden has a strange brew accent and Brandy has something of an accent as well. Richie got more of a taste of
Canadian culture on this trip than he got of Belgium culture.

Things Richie and Kristen saw in Mons:
Van Gogh's old house. It is sinking into a swamp.
Some country side.
The Belfry.
A huge church.
An art museum.
They had some chocolate and waffles.
Watched the movie Se7en.


It was all a very good experience.

Now Richie is back in the Netherlands. Sitting at reception.

Richie also finished Renovation of the Heart by Dallas Willard, but retention quality was low.

space cakes

The excitement of the hostel:

Richie's hostel has a group of 38 junior highers (and their adult leaders) in the hostel. Richie feels like dad of the daycare.

Richie also got to see a girl get carried away to the hospital after getting a high overdose on a space cake. What a nice experience for him. Richie read some information on the internet and the space cakes should be eaten carefully even though if a person does get too high there is no danger and nothing the hospital people can really do (according to the internet).

Richie is currently reading Renovation of the Heart by Dallas Willard...but for some reason he has trouble remembering much of what he reads.

Trips

Richie just returned to computer access after a nice trip to Berlin and then the UK.
He saw many nice sites in the UK with his parents and uncle and aunt and cousin. These include stone hendge, Bath, Carthage, the Forest of Dean, Stratford, Warwick Castle, Oxford, and one other little town the name of which Richie can not remember.
He also got detained at the Border of the UK for about 2.5 hours. They were suspicious of his ability to support himself while in the UK. He appreciates their concern and would like them to know that he did not become a homeless man on the streets of London but returned to Amsterdam and the volunteer life. They did, however, give Richie a free lunch and the ability to watch a bit of the movie the changeling which turned out to be better than anyone planned.

Berlin was good with WWII, a good beer or two (in moderation of course), and academic society to spend time with. All very inspirational to return to school study a second langauge along with something else. He sadly did not get to experience everything, but it was a good taste.

He enjoyed eating at the Cod Almighty in some town he cannot remember and another kebab place in Stratford. He also appreciates the English for their assumption of the easiness of directions when the reality is otherwise. He also found that once you get out of the major cities everything stops moving by 5pm and it is terribly hard to shop or eat after this time unless a person wants a Doner Kebab. He thanks Amsterdam and the Dutch for not living this lifestyle.