May 11, 2015

This is part 1 of the trip report, showing the people that we met. Part 2 will show more of the country itself and some of the things that we did while we were there.

Darla and I flew to Holland on April 20 and returned on May 4. We were met in Amsterdam by our main contacts, Margriet and Hendrik, who drove us to the town of Hardinxveld-Glessendam, where we stayed with Afke and Hans Houtman during the entire two weeks.

Margriet and Hendrik with their children	Margriet and Hendrik's house

Afke and Hans with family (Jurgen not pictured here)	Jurgen is their son

Our first meeting was in the “Irish Pub” behind Peter and Claudia’s house. We sat where other friends of ours sat before us: Johannes from Australia and John from Colorado. In all the meetings there was plenty of bread and cheese with the teaching.

Peter and Claudia and Family

Saturday, May 2, was the going-away party at Sam’s house. Here is Sam’s family:
 

Sam and Family

Sam has a large property with a house and some sheds for equipment and also a nice meeting room. We had enough food to feed an army:

Meeting Room

In the meeting room, opposite the tables of food, Sam has a large map of Europe with the Protestant Reformers pictured on each of the countries that they influenced.

Map of the European Reformers (1500’s to 1700’s)

 The picture above is too small to see the Reformers, but here is a close-up of Holland and its Reformers:

Closeup of map

 One of those “Reformers” came a bit later in history and remains somewhat anonymous.

Outside of the meeting room, some of the men watched the BBQ on the spit:

The fatted goat on the BBQ

Others at the party included:

Arian (left) and Luuk (right)

Luuk came on the train from North Holland and was the only newcomer to the main group.

Arie and Nelly and family

Some of you may remember Leon and Willem and Els from conferences, pictured here:

Leon and Jantine and family

Willem and Els and family.

Rick and Seriene and family (twin boys on left)

Not pictured: Bert and Ineke and their family. Somehow we did not get a picture of them.    

Not pictured: Arend and Lenie. Perhaps we can put their picture in Part 2 of the trip report.

We had a few meetings at the farmhouse of Machiel and Mariska.

Machiel and Mariska and family

And, of course, we cannot forget his “Old Covenant dog,” who often remained in bondage so as not to disrupt the fellowship. However, he was delighted to receive the tasty bones from the remains of the goat.

Old Covenant Dog

We had two public meetings on the Friday nights that we were there. We rented in a room of a fairly large church. The meeting room was packed on the first meeting (April 24), with about 80 people. Many were friends and family of the regular group and were curious about this idea of the Restoration of All Things. So I gave a teaching on that topic from 7:30 until about 11 pm.

The second Friday meeting was not well advertised, and so they reduced in half the size of the room. About 40-45 people came to the second meeting, where I focused more on the dozens of Scriptures that teach about Restoration. In both meetings a lady named Sylvia came, took extensive notes, and then gave reports on her website about what I was teaching. She received a lot of feedback, ranging from “Heretic” to “That is interesting.”

Friday meeting, April 24, with Darla in the right side in front

The Happy Couple in Holland