No.2 ended with: “Looking back now, I realize that God was already at work in my heart then, driving me to the edge, so that I would seek and find Him. I know now also from more than 50 years experience that God is much more active than we realize, working behind the scenes.” Maybe God is working behind the scenes in your life too. Maybe He is trying to get your attention? Maybe He is driving you to the edge of despair, so that you will seek and find Him. Are there strange unexplainable things happening in your life? Could it be Him? One night I walked into a restaurant and the jukebox was playing, “What am I living for if not for you?” That gripped my heart and haunted me day and night. “What am I living for?” “What am I living for?” I went back to work on one of the farms in Harriston where I had worked before. I met a young man, a brother of what had been my best friend, but we didn’t have much contact anymore because his parents figured I had a bad influence on him. This young man told me to read the Bible. I laughed, reading the Bible is for old grandmothers and little children. I had lived with my grandparents for a while when attending Agricultural College in Holland, and my grandfather had the habit of reading a chapter out of the Bible everyday after dinner, as was custom in many Dutch homes, it was the most boring moment of the day! However, those words also kept resounding in my head, “Read the Bible.” Finally I looked for the little New Testament my mother had given me along when I left Holland. Half the page was in Dutch, the other half in English. I started reading and sure didn’t understand much, but it was funny, the more I read, the more I wanted to read. There is some mysterious power in that book! Not only did it seem to draw me to read it more and more, it started doing something in my heart. A real struggle started! (Go to Musings)

Coming July, 2013 I will have been a Christian, or rather a follower of Jesus, as the word Christian doesn’t mean much today, for 53 years. Just to give you a brief background, I was born in the Netherlands with wooden shoes on and tulips coming out of my ears. 🙂 I experienced the Second World War as a scared little boy. When I was 18 I graduated from Agricultural College and immigrated to Canada. Why did I do that? For one, I wanted to farm and that wasn’t possible in Holland, one of the most densely populated countries in the world, that’s why I got to be so tall, one cannot grow sideways, only upwards! 🙂 Secondly, I was looking for adventure, and thirdly I wanted to be free, away from my parents, just to be able to do what I wanted. For two years I lived a bit of a wild life with a lot of drinking and what goes with it. First I worked on two farms in Harriston, Ont. and then in house construction in Walkerton, Ont. But I got pretty fed up there and felt my life was empty and useless. I made good money, received it on Friday night and by Monday morning most of it was gone. Some of my fiends were married, had children, got divorced and lived unhappy lives. I wondered whether this was all that life had to offer and I began to think about suicide. Looking back now, I realize that God was already at work in my heart then, driving me to the edge, so that I would seek and find Him. I know now also from more than 50 years experience that God is at work much more than we realize, working behind the scenes. (Go to Musings)

Introduction: I am in my seventies and my granddaughters say I’m old! I don’t think so, but I guess in their eyes I am. So we’ll leave it like that. I know that I am still young of heart and that’s most important. I will always put “Older” in quotation marks. They laughed when they saw that I was on Facebook and said, “That’s cool.” In fact, one of them said, we have a “hip” grandpa. Great! When I tell people I am on Facebook, some smile, others laugh and some frown! Great! Now I’m also going to post them on this website. My wife and I were just married 50 years (in 2012) and we have been serving the Lord together for all those years. We would like to share some of our experiences and answers to prayer with the purpose of showing that God is really real! Every time I will have two posts, one in English and one in Dutch. I will number them; this is number 1, so you can follow. There will probably be 1 or 2 each week, we’ll see. If you enjoy these posts, and we hope you will, please pass them on and/or share them with others. (Go to Musings)