Summer Wrap Up

OK, I know, summer ended a while ago, and it’s been a little while, (alright, more than that) since I last wrote, but we’ve had a lot going on. Amanda is at French class, and Aidan is asleep, so I have a few minutes to tell about what we’ve been up to. Since our arrival in Brussels, our first month was consumed with setting up house and learning the city. After getting lost in Brussels traffic several times a week on our multiple trips to Ikea, we got the house set up. Then it was off to Budapest, Hungary for Impact Now. The first half of this event was a conference/mission trip. Around 400 youth from all over Europe gathered for teaching from missionaries like George Verwer and Greg Mundis. Then they were sent out to witness on the streets and help with evangelistic rallies at local churches. European youth in general are so spiritually dead; it was such an inspiring contrast to see the life in these young people as they went out to share the gospel! The second half of the conference was our annual Students for Christ training, as we trained students from around Europe to be effective in reaching their campuses. I had a wonderful time teaching about the Holy Spirit to a group of eager students, Amanda guided the discipleship groups in encountering the parables of the Kingdom, and Aidan enjoyed flirting with college girls and being the conference mascot.

Below: SFCien Nat Tselentis, on the left, sharing the Gospel on the street in Budapest

After the conference, for the rest of the summer, we’ve been building relationships with students who are involved with SFC. There is a core of 10-15 students who joined the group last year; several of them are new believers, and full of faith and eager to reach their friends. We’ve enjoyed getting to know them so far.

Below: hanging out with some of our new friends at our “End of Summer BBQ”!

Life in the City

Living in the city has certainly introduced us to some new experiences, so I thought I’d share a couple of photos. Both of these were taken from our apartment windows.

Green space, any green space, is precious! This is our neighbor, in house coat and rubber boots, mowing her lawn……

which is also the 2^nd story roof of another apartment building!

Moving is done through the window, not the door. (Next time you have to move, just think of this guy, and it will all seem a lot easier.)

Baby Abroad

*Baby Abroad is a new feature to the Gravelys Go Global blog. My intent is to give a glimpse of our day to day life. It will focus more on the family/personal stuff of our life in Belgium. --Amanda

Let the Baking Begin

Last Thursday, we had a few students over to watch a movie. I thought this
would be the perfect time to "get my bake on" and make my first batch of
chocolate chip cookies in Belgium.

I love baking. Few things make me feel as relaxed and "myself" as creaming
butter and sugar, measuring out flour, and bringing a finished product out
of the oven. Baking has also become an expression of ministry for me.

It's taken me awhile to get my bearings personally and especially
ministry-wise not just since moving to Belgium, but really since having
Aidan--or even a few months before. So pulling out the flour and sugar and
eggs was more than just making a simple batch of cookies, it was a step
towards feeling like myself again.

The first thing I did was put on some James Taylor and pull out my
ingredients. (I love how listening to familiar music in an unfamiliar place
makes you feel more at home.)

This isn't all the ingredients, but a few are worth commenting on. I use
the traditional Nestle Tollhouse cookie recipe except that I substitute
shortening for butter. Why? Because that's how my mom makes them. Also, I
like the texture and look of the cookies made with shortening. Shortening
isn't easy to find here, and when you do find it, it isn't cheap. I found
the small can you see here on sale for 50% off, and it still cost about $5
USD.

Seeing how Belgium is the land of chocolate, you would think chocolate
chips would be falling from the sky. Surprisingly, no. I made do with
these two tiny bags of tiny chips. They got the job done.

Lovely batter

Aidan woke up from his nap. I think he's drooling.

The first batch got a little burned overdone, but once I adjusted my oven temp and moved the rack up we were in business.

The cookies were enjoyed by all, and we had a nice time getting to know a few of the SFC students here in Brussels.

I'm trying to decide what my next baking project will be. I'm thinking muffins.

At Last!

Well, we finally made it! After a year and a half of support raising and anticipating our work in Belgium, the last month came in a rush. We packed up our apartment and spent two weeks with my parents in North Carolina waiting for our visas and letting them get some quality grandparent time with Aidan. Finally, in the space of 5 days, we rushed to Atlanta, got our visas, re-packed, and flew to Brussels on June 16th!
As our itineration phase comes to an end, we again want to say how grateful we are to all of you who hosted us, encouraged us, and gave to help us along the way. We are blessed to have friends like you!

What's Next?
One month prior to our departure, we heard a message by Pastor David Campbell in which he said the size of your field will determine the size of your harvest. We feel that God is speaking to us to establish large boundaries for our work in Brussels. July is a holiday month in Belgium, and the campuses are vacant. So we are using this time to walk these campuses, become familiar with them, and pray that God would establish them as fields for a large harvest. But you don’t have to be physically present to join with us in these prayers. Would you also like to join us in praying for the students at the Free University of Brussels--French and Flemish campuses, the Catholic University of Louvain, and the Hogeschool Universiteit Brussels, just to mention a few of the major colleges in Brussels? As you pray for them, please know that you might be the only person who has ever prayed for them in their entire lives. Yet God loves the students of these schools, and his plan is to turn their barren lives into a testimony of his grace! Thanks for praying.

Our New Home

This is our new home in Brussels. It has 2 student apartments, meeting space for 70 people, a nice garden, and is centrally located to several major universities. Oh, and space for us to live on the top two floors. Amanda is excited about hosting students in the large kitchen. Our hope is that this house would be a spiritual home for students, and that it would be crammed full of them all the time!

Beyond the Campus

In our work with students, our ultimate goal is to go beyond the campus.  A student will only spend a few years at university, after that, it is our hope that the Gospel seed that is planted in their lives will sprout and create new life in the families that they lead, on the jobs that they take, and in the communities where they live.  We've just heard from some friends in Belgium about how this is happening in Arlon, a small city on the border with Luxembourg.  Three married couples who were once student leaders in the group at Liege found work in Luxembourg and moved to Arlon.  They noticed that there was no church in their area, in fact there are very few Gospel churches in this entire Ardennes region of Belgium.  So they began to pray about what God would have them do in this dry place.  As they have prayed, the Holy Spirit has watered their desires, and they have formed a leadership team in order to plant a new church.  The Word of Hope Church will have its first service on June 19th at 10 a.m!  Would you be praying for this new branch of the church of Jesus Christ, that those in Arlon who are seeking spiritual food and shade would find their way to Word of Hope?

Visa Update:  Whoever said "no news is good news" was obviously not waiting for their visa to come.  We spoke in our last church service at our home church, Crossroads Church, in Lafayette, on May 15th.  Since then we have packed up and moved from Louisiana to North Carolina to allow Aidan to spend a little time with his grandparents while we wait for our visas.  We were sad to leave all of our friends in La, but we are excited about the next phase of our ministry in Belgium.  Our bags are packed and we are ready to go; we just need the Belgian government's permission.  Please join us in praying for a response to come soon from Brussels. 

Bound for Brussels

Today I found myself clicking for Belgian news online, and Amanda put on some French music while she cleaned. We are getting antsy, because the time of our departure for Belgium is drawing closer. This past Monday, we applied for our visas to enter the country. At the same time, we are working on getting Aidan's passport. Paperwork, paperwork, paperwork...We will hopefully be granted our documents in the next couple of weeks, and can be on our way to Belgium by the end of the month.

Where are we heading? To a house in downtown Brussels . This house has been the headquarters of Students for Christ Brussels for the last 10 years, and it will be our home for the next year. We are excited about this opportunity because it is right around the corner from the Free University of Brussels, which has 29,000 students, and is in close proximity to 4 other colleges. We can't wait to get on campus to share the Gospel with students, and host them in our home!

One other task we need to finish is the completion of our budget. So many of you have been so generous to give, and we are so close to leaving because of you. As of today, we are lacking only $304/month in monthly pledges to reach the end of our budget. We don't like to use this space to talk finances, we prefer to just tell what God is doing, but since we're so close we thought we'd ask if you'd consider making a faith promise if you haven't already. You can do so by using the link on the right under "Online Commitments and Contributions".

In other news, we just received a video from the group in Liege. We were glad to hear that the group is going strong 2 years after I left! This documentary was done by a student in a film class who chose to focus on SFC for a class project. It will give you a glimpse of the university, and of the group as they worship and pray. So, if you want to practice your French, check it out below!

Aidan has Arrived

Well, if a picture is worth a thousand words, this post already has 15,000 of them. The photos above were done by our friend Ana Treuil, (http://anacphotos.blogspot.com/) Aidan Isaiah was born on Jan. 24 at Lafayette General. He weighed 9 lbs, 9 oz. at birth, and was 22 in. long.

Those are the facts of Aidan’s birth. Here’s the story: He was two weeks overdue, and so the doctor suggested we induce. Going into the last months, we had hoped, prayed, and prepared for a natural birth, so we were a little disappointed in this, but went ahead with plans. On the day of the delivery, Amanda labored hard for 12 painful hours, but the little fellow just wasn’t moving. Finally, the doctor came in and said that the intense contractions were starting to put him at risk, and that we needed to do a C-section right away. This was obviously not at all what we hoped for, but the surgery was smooth, and an hour later we were holding our beautiful, healthy son!

One thing we have learned about babies is that, early in life, they lack an ability called “object permanence”. That is, they think that objects cease to exist when they are no longer in their field of vision. Through Aidan’s birth, our “spiritual” object permanence was expanded. We had prayed and expected God to respond with one result: a natural, easy delivery. Although we didn’t receive what we asked for, there was still evidence of God’s grace. His grace was there in the form of the doctor’s skill, as she intervened at the right time. It was also there in the numerous believing friends who prayed for us during that long day, and have brought us food and gifts since then. And it was there in the support of our families. If you were one of these people, thank you for being an expression of God’s grace to us. You helped us see that he was there even when our field of vision was too small to grasp what he was doing.