I had a really nice Easter Sunday! I'd gone to bed early on Saturday, so I was up bright and early the next morning. We hadn't actually planned to do anything, which felt disappointing to me, so I quickly jumped on line and found out about church services at the American Protestant Church in The Hague. Knowing Wilbert had gone to sleep late and wouldn't be up for a while, I jumped in the car and drove for an hour to get there. The weather was beautiful at the time, and the Dutch landscape is just starting to green up and daffodils are EVERYWHERE. Even along the highways. So it was a pleasurable trip.
Got there right on time to experience the 10 a.m. "contemporary" service. The music was good, and the sermon was excellent, but it just sort of wasn't my thing. For me, church needs to be either traditional (from my UCC upbringing) or old school gospel (from my MCC experience in D.C.). For some reason, anything else feels to me like the one trying to be the other (i.e. white folk trying to have black church). Just doesn't feel natural to me. But I'm totally aware that that's just because of my own unique history.
I stuck around for the 11:30 service, which was far more traditional and much more up my alley with the old hymns. The sermon was the same, but I didn't mind hearing it a second time. I understand the pastor is at the end of her tenure there, which is sad because I like her. We'll have to see who her replacement is before I decide whether or not it's worth the 25 euros worth of gas it takes to get there and back every week. I was a little bit sad to see and hear that the choir was pretty small and not up to the standard of quality of choirs I've participated in in the past - again, my bar is set very high after having sung in some really excellent choirs. I've also begun to notice that my singing voice has improved since I've lost so much weight. I guess my voice box had been constricted by the fat in my neck; so another blessing to add to my list!
At the late service, I got to sat next to two of my colleagues from work, both of whom had lost their wives recently - one as recently as this week. I greatly admired their faith and strength, and continue to pray for them and mourn their losses. They're both great guys.
So then I jumped back in the car for the drive home. On the way back, I called Wilbert and expressed my frustration that we hadn't planned anything special for the rest of the day. He sort of just sees it as a normal weekend day, so he hadn't really planned anything. "Maybe we'll go to my brother's for coffee later." My intuition told me something wasn't quite right here, and indeed his brother had planned a whole nice day with Wilbert's parents and his niece and nephew, and had just sort of assumed that we were invited. I can't imagine NOT spending Easter or Christmas with family somehow, so we made more formal plans and headed over there in the afternoon and had a great afternoon/evening. Wilbert's brother Perry is always such a gracious host.
At the end of the night, Wilbert asked his nephew, Thomas (who was born literally the week after we met for the first time!), how much he weighed. It turns out that this 10 1/2 -year old kid weighs exactly the amount I've lost to date (give or take 1 kg)! I looked it up and he's completely average for an 11-year old. So that's how much I've lost. An 11-year old kid! :-) Wilbert picked him up (with great difficulty) and looked at me in amazement. :-)
So I got my church fix and my family fix for Easter 2008! And a nice validation of the progress I've made so far.
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