GREEN Beetles Become Jewels Fit for a Palace

Monday is for MISSIONARY stories!!!

GREEN Beetles Become Jewels Fit for a Palace

We arrived in that city expecting to hear “Bon Jour!” and see the blue eyes and blonde hair. I was sure that I would finally feel like I blended in after somany years living in a country where I was the one who always stood out. Instead I heard Arabic and Italian, Spanish and Chinese. It was a potpourri of culture and language. Here I was in Brussels, Belgium on the other side of a missions team, as the guest, not the host. The Aldermans greeted us at the airport with their Niceville smiles. Though our origins were the same, our destination has been in different hemispheres. Yet this week, by God’s grace our worlds of service would collide and I couldn’t even begin to imagine the JOY we would share in this “same-kind-of-loving” that we have been called to do.

The Speed the Light vehicle drove through the European city and I couldn’t help but just smile at how the light is speeding throughout this WHOLE WORLD in these vehicles bought with squished dollar bills found in teenage pockets. Our weary bodies arrived at the Continental Theological Seminary, thankful for a place to lay down our heads, as we tried to adjust our nighttime longing to the light of day. The Seminary was nice, rich in history, and I thought of my parents who painted those walls over twenty years ago. The seminary students are all on their summer break, so we enjoyed the peaceful campus that was only sometimes interrupted by the flock of geese that populated the front pond. Their honking made me think of the “Wild Good Chase” that the Lord has had us on this past year. I couldn’t help but smile as the honking became my 5:30 am alarm clock. Roosters and geese sound so different, still, I have actually missed waking up with open windows.

For the afternoon, we had the privilege to see the National palace. It was the special time of year in which they open the palace to the public. It would be impossible to describe the beauty in each room. However, one room stood out. This one was decorated with green beetles. The green of their wings looked like jewels that decorated the ceiling and the chandelier. Someone actually saw these beetles as more than a crawling insect and made them into jewels fit for a palace. And I thought about the prostituted women of the red light district of this city. Our mission in Belgium would be to serve the Breaking Chains Network ministry. How sad that the labels that we give people often block our view of the beauty of the image of God in each and every person in this world.