What it means to be Dutch
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What it means to be Dutch

I am an American who happens to have a Dutch last name. That’s one of the surprising things I’ve learned while living in The Hague this year. Frankly, I had expected something quite different. I thought I would feel a lot more Dutch. What would you have expected to feel if all your ancestors, going…

Saints in the Making
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Saints in the Making

On July 26, 1942, a young Nazi nurse administered a lethal injection to a patient in the Dachau hospital. The patient was a Dutch clergyman named Titus Brandsma; he passed out of this life within 10 minutes. That moment doubtless seemed of little consequence. The clergyman had been in poor health and unrepentant of his…

Kerkplanting
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Kerkplanting

When he first dreamed of a multicultural church plant movement in the Netherlands, Theo Visser was regarded with pity and curiosity. “There wasn’t even a word for church planting in Dutch!” he says. But no one could have imagined where that dream would take Theo and his wife Rieneke over the next two decades: from…

Dutch data on COVID’s learning loss
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Dutch data on COVID’s learning loss

Many people are wondering about the effects of pandemic-induced school closures. Here in Ontario’s third wave of the pandemic, schools are closed again (with some exceptions for special needs students). It’s possible the year will finish online. While the closures are necessary from a medical standpoint, what effect do they have on our children? Recently,…

Before fascism takes root, churches must speak up
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Before fascism takes root, churches must speak up

During the 1930s, when Hitler destroyed Germany’s democratic institutions and turned his country into a Nazi superpower, he used the force of his government to spread Nazi lies to the rest of Europe and around the world. Goebbels, his propaganda wizard, made sure that all his words and images were tailored to exploit the differing…

Bookends
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Bookends

Christian Courier has recently celebrated its 75th anniversary. The end of one world calamity and the beginning of a new world calamity stand as bookends to these 75 years. My feelings of isolation in the current pandemic have drawn my memory back to the days of WW II and my own experience in The Netherlands….

The Soldier

The Soldier

I was in my early teens during the years of World War II, 1940-1945, having been born in 1930. Though those events took place more than half a century ago, I remember some details clearly.

When freedom came
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When freedom came

Listening respectfully to another’s story is simply this: love.