Nr.196 ended with: “After more discussion with our friends there, a few days later I was on a plane to Toronto………….!” (See richardandmarina.net).

Why the hurry? Because there were others interested in this condo. Our friends had asked the person responsible, to wait and give me a chance to see it. I arrived in Toronto, was picked up and together with our friends went to see the place. I walked through it, took a good look at it and knew this was for us. The financial side had to be arranged which took time and then, on the fourth day I flew back to Belgium owning a condo in Elmira, praise the Lord! Marina and I decided not to move until the fall as I had a lot of speaking engagements lined up yet and we had to get rid of a lot of things. We had arrived in Belgium in December 1971 and were leaving in October 2009, so after 38 years there was a lot to leave there.

Just to mention this, we bought the condo in April and moved in the end of October, but from April until October another missionary couple, Les and Sharon Frey, who were working in Spain, were on furlough and were able to make use of our condo, it fitted all so well, praise God!

Quite a number of our churches in Belgium organized farewell parties for us, either alone or with a couple others, and there was a final farewell of all the churches together before we left. These meetings were wonderful but also painful, as we were saying goodbye to many spiritual children whom we dearly loved. Many were in tears, as we were at times. In one place a woman came to me in crying and telling me that her father had died just recently “and now, you, my spiritual father are leaving me too.” It wasn’t easy, but I assured her that we will meet again, if not down here, then “up there.”

I had quite a library, hundreds and hundreds of books, and since I could not take all of them with me to Canada, I took a number of boxes with books along to the meetings, put them out on tables and told the people they could take them and give whatever they wanted.

Slowly we were getting rid of things, selling some of our furniture and giving away some. Our daughters helped us pack boxes and boxes full of dishes, clothes, and many other things. We had all kinds and sizes of boxes. A friend had an export company and arranged the moving of our stuff by boat to Canada. We agreed to meet a certain day, bring all our boxes and pack them into eight large and strong cartons our friend brought. But now, could we get everything into those…………? (Go to Musings).