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A relaxed weekend. On Friday we did the National Bible Test, aired live on television to celebrate the new Dutch Bible translation releasead earlier this week, and even beated the Protestants (yeah). On Saturday we went into the forest and had fun with a hollow tree. Today we visited friends Arjen and Madeleine in their new farmhouse in Noordeinde.
We already knew our David is a special child, but today we received the outcome of the psychologists' examination. Their diagnosis is PDD-NOS (Pervasive Developmental Disorder - Not Otherwise Specified). This is a mild form of autism, which basically means he has some difficulty in the area of social understanding and intuition, and needs extra help at home and at school to develop these aspects.
Too bad. The flu caught us. Last week the boys and my parents were ill. Yesterday Karolien was ill and today I caught it too. This means no work for the rest of the week.
Strange, when we were in Wittenberg last week, we couldn't find a toilet. But just one week before Reformation Day German archeaologists did a groundbreaking discovery: they found the lavatory where Martin Luther launched the Reformation of the Christian church in the 16th Century. The stone room is in a newly-unearthed annex to Luther's house in Wittenberg.
Luther is quoted as saying he was 'in cloaca', or in the sewer, when he was inspired to argue that salvation is granted because of faith, not deeds. The scholar suffered from constipation and spent many hours in contemplation on the toilet seat.
What makes the find even more fitting is that at the time faecal language was often used to denigrate the devil, such as "I shit on the devil" or "I break wind on the devil", Professor Stefan Rhein, director of the Luther Memorial Foundation, said. "It was not a very polite time. And in keeping with this, neither was Luther very polite."
Dr Martin Treu, a theologian and Luther expert based in Wittenberg, said that unfortunately "we still don't know what was used for wiping in those days." The paper of the time, he says, would have been too expensive and critically, "too stiff" for the purpose. Future visitors to Wittenberg's Martin Luther museum will be able to view the new find, though structural concerns mean they will not be free to test its qualities as a toilet.
More here
We just returned from our trip to East-Germany. I created an online photo album with some nice landscape pictures.
Today we met up with a group of the Christian Centre Herrnhut to check out the local hospital. They gained the first rights to buy this 70 room property just across the house of prayer to turn it into a prayer and training centre (see my earlier posting and this website for the vision). We had a good prayer and sharing time which was confirming God's purposes for this place.
In the late afternoon we went for a walk through the fields near Ruppersdorf. I love this landscape, especially with a low sunset that brightens the already strong Autumn colours. In the evening we hang out with Mike & Kay Chance, American missionaries to Europe who founded a training base in Bad Gandersheim.
This is my third visit to Herrnhut. In July 2001 I came over to pray and do research for a yet-to-be-written book on spiritual wells in Europe. In August 2002 we had our (first) Connect Europe gathering here with 50 young leaders from 12 nations. It was a time of birthing, for new Kingdom initiatives to spring forth, in the Spirit of prayer and missions that marked the Moravians.
Most people who visit Herrnhut today still notice God's peace and presence in this town. The community was founded in 1722 by pietist refugees from Moravia. Herrnhut means 'under God's protection', but also 'the watch of the Lord'. This foundation in Christ is most notable when walking over 'God's Acre', the local cemetary on the Hutberg. Hundreds of men and women from Herrnhut went out as missionaries to the far ends of the earth, sowing themselves in foreign soil to make Christ known. This movement was supported by around-the-clock prayer, for over a 100 years. More about the Moravians here.
We took time to visit the watchtower, the Moravian church hall, YWAM's new SOFM base in nearby Ruppersdorf (if you can read German, check out their story), Zinzendorf's to-be-restored castle in Berthelsdorf and the mountain area of Zittau at the border with Poland and the Czech Republic.
We arrived quite late in the house of prayer in Herrnhut because we spent most of the day in the Sächsischer Schweiz (Saxonian Switzerland), an area of astounding natural beauty and great rock formations south-east of Dresden. We hiked in the area of spa resort Räthen, where through various circumstances I also ended up just after the Wende.
A bright sunny Autumn day. We left Rogäsen and drove south to Wittenberg, the city where Martin Luther started his reformation, and Count Zinzendorf his Order of the Mustard Seed. We were allowed to dig into some very old books in the academic library, but the only mustard we found was the stuff they serve with the bockwurst.
In the evening we reached Dresden, where we had dinner with Kai & Cornelia Wurster and Martin Winter of the Connect Europe network.
It's a rainy day. Karolien and I spent the afternoon in the (new) Jewish Museum in Berlin, a colossal piece of architecture by Daniel Libeskind, who also designed the 9/11 memorial at Ground Zero. The museum shows 2,000 years of Jewish history and culture in Germany, and offers an amazing variety of art, objects, stories and interactive installations (like this one).
Of course the antisemitism throughout the centuries (see this picture), culminating in the holocaust, remains a disturbing pattern. In a way this museum is also a form of Wiedergutmachung, reaffirming the role Jews have played in shaping Germany.
