Nr.146 ended with: “But now, what about West Flanders? Well, I received this phone call from Ingrid, the doctor’s wife in Peer……..!” (See richardandmarina.net).

Amazing, what a short telephone call can bring about! Ingrid called me and asked me to visit a couple in West Flanders. The woman, let’s call her Christiane, was a pen friend. Once a year she and her husband, let’s call him Tony, would go for a weekend to visit Ingrid and Phillip in Peer. They had just been there and the doctor and his wife had really talked to them about the Bible, and so they went home with a Bible under their arm. Now Ingrid called to say that Tony was reading the Bible and whether I could go and visit him and his wife. I said I would do my best and hung up. But to be honest, I wasn’t so happy about this, as I was so busy already and now having to go to West Flanders yet too? It just seemed a bit too much.

However I went and was invited in. Christiane made some good coffee which I enjoyed while Tony told me about his experience with reading the Bible. He was eating either a turnip or carrot, I forget, and so with his mouth half full and in his West Flanders’ dialect he was talking to me. I must confess I had a difficult time understanding him, especially as his story just seemed so strange. He was telling me how he had started reading the Bible from the beginning and understood that God had given us trees and plants to eat. In fact, in chapter three of Genesis Eve says that they were allowed to eat from every tree except the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Tony had a garden and in the back he had some trees and bushes, a couple of which were very poisonous. Seeing God had said we could eat from every tree, Tony thought he would try that out and ate some of that poisonous stuff, also giving some to a small pig in the barn. That same day it died, but Tony, except for some cramps, was all right. I didn’t quite get it all and follow his reasoning, but somehow he became convinced that the Bible was the word of God. I’ll come back to this later.

After a while I had finished my coffee and left. While driving home I told the Lord that I didn’t know what to think of this and that He would have to look after these folk. But some time later Ingrid phoned again and asked to visit them again as both of them seemed interested. So, in a way, with a bit of a heavy heart I went again, wondering what I was going to hear this time! I could have never guessed what was going to come out of this, wait until you hear that…………..! (Go to Musings).