~~~

Sunday, July 30

~~~

Before I start. It is nice to be back on my laptop. It is what I am familiar with and feels much easier for posting. 🙂

To tell you about our connection with Belgium, I must go back more than 20 years when Hans Ringoir (from Belgium) ordered a lighted cross for the front grill of the company truck which he was driving. He found the information during a time when Cerwin and I stored most of Transport for Christ’s ministry supplies at our home office. The contact person for the online order of the cross was Doris High. 🙂

As we shared testimonies with Hans and Anneke’s family on Sunday afternoon Aug. 6, we concluded that if Cerwin and I had said, “No,” to God when we were asked to serve with the Northeast Region of TFC in 1990, this trip to Belgium would never have happened and we would not know the Ringoir family.

We marvel at the blessings God has given us because we said, “Yes” to His call that day in early February.

Hans and I stayed in contact on occasion following his order, but our conversations (via email) intensified after their daughter Kaat contacted me toward the end of 2018 asking if we could help them surprise Hans for his 50th birthday. His dream was to come to America, meet us and some TFC staff and see lots of trucks. I said we would be glad to host them in our house and make some of his dreams come true. That happened in March 2019 after his family and friends made the trip possible.

I took this picture of Hans and Anneka in 2019 – at Lanita Specialized LLC, Myerstown. He loved having the opportunity to sit in this truck. Thanks to Scott Diller.

We thoroughly enjoyed their visit and when they asked us to visit them in Belgium, it began a new dream, which finally came true. We wanted to go before this, but Covid hindered our travels in 2020, 2021 and 2022.

So, here we were making it happen when we left Newark, NJ, airport on Sunday evening, July 30.

We purchased our tickets in January and purposefully chose two seats in the back of the plane – because that was the only place where there were only two seats side by side. There were three other sets like that. We didn’t feel like sitting with someone else for seven or eight hours. Other seating arrangements were three or four seats next to each other. We loved this arrangement and would do it again. We paid a bit extra for a direct flight and would also do that again.

Now, as I edit and delete my set of 2,208 pictures, I will begin the details of our ten-day trip to the countries of Belgium and Netherlands.

After attending morning worship at our church, we had a quick lunch before putting our suitcases in the car and heading to the airport – a three-hour drive. We arrived at the Hilton Inn where we had paid for a parking spot. They have regular shuttle service to the airport, which is just a few miles away. Because we had done precheck online, we could go right to “Easy Drop Off” where they took our two checked suitcases and gave us boarding passes. Precheck made it possible to avoid very long lines at the United Airlines check-in desks.

After receiving our boarding passes, I asked the young woman where we go next. She started to point us to the long TSA lines which weren’t far away, then said, “I will take you.” Not only did she take us – she took us to the front of the Premier line, opened a rope divider and put us behind three people who were at the front of the line. There were now hundreds of people in line behind us. We tipped her and said, “You were an angel to us today.” She said, “I did it because I have grandparents and would do the same for them.”

We went through TSA without any issues and were at our gate with plenty of time to spare.

After finding seats, Cerwin left to get something to eat and drink. He was gone so long, I thought he got lost. However, he had to use a kiosk to order the food and had trouble figuring it out. 🙂

Newark Airport is huge and like a city, with people coming and going from everywhere in the world.

I went up a set of steps to get a photo of our plane. It held more than 300 passengers.

Looking down from the top of the steps. Can you find Cerwin between the 2nd and 3rd silver post? He is in front of the 3rd post.

We were supposed to leave at 6:35 pm but were delayed an hour due to the length of time it took to load passengers and luggage and a few other complications.

We enjoyed watching our plane’s progress as we traveled across the Atlantic.

Because we were moving ahead in time, we saw this scene for a fairly long time before it got dark. After that we only saw the lights of ships on occasion as we passed over them. Belgium is 6 hours ahead of us.

Cerwin enjoyed seeing the details of our flight.

A side view from my window seat as we prepared for an 8:44 pm supper – according to Eastern Standard Time. I didn’t know the time zone at this particular location.

Our supper was a vegetable stir fry, a quinoa salad, dinner roll and a small cookie.

We slept on occasion but can’t say it was a good night’s sleep. 🙂

Next post will begin with breakfast on the plane.