Belgium Excursion

My first weekend off was September 17-20!  While I was at the Avant Europe Conference, I met Willy and Sue Topps.  They live and work in Belgium and they invited me and some friends to visit.  What a great opportunity.  So we jumped in the car for the 6 hour drive.

We got a bit lost.  Anna is checking the map because the sign just said welcome to the Netherlands!!!  Hello...weren't we going to Belgium?!?  Luckily we did find Belgium.

 Here Julie is driving. Notice the GPS we are using....even with that we can get lost!  Oh the adventures of having no directional sense.  We did find Willy and Sue's home and we were able to really rest there.

Sue took us girls into Sint-Truiden, one o the small cities in Belgium.  

Here are my travel buddies:  Anna, Julie, and Amy.  

The four of us girls.  Julie, Amy, and I are all from Bluffton, Ohio and support by Saint John Mennonite Church as are Willy and Sue Topps.  Sue is a Paulding girl.  Now Anna has no connection to Ohio, but we just like her and were happy to travel with her.

 Willy is a Belgium and he is the pastor of a home church.  Here is one of the Belgium families that that goes to their home church.  At the church service, Willy preached first in English, then Flemish, and finally in French.  Pretty impressive.

On a lazy Sunday afternoon we just had to go for a walk.  Amy and Julie found some Belgium apple orchards.

Beautiful Apples!

They looked so good, I was ready to eat them right off the tree!

We noticed how similar the Belgium landscape looks like Ohio.

Here is a typical street in Belgium.  After living in Germany with all of the buildings being made of cement and wooden beams, we were impressed with the nice square brick buildings.

This is the town sign.  Willy and Sue live in Nieuwerkerken...wow that is fun to say and spell!

Northwest Ohioans connect! All of us are connected to Saint John Mennonite Church in Pandora, Ohio because that church supports all of us. 

Willy and Sue Topps!  They are an awesome and friendly couple who are so willing to open their home to us!

 The four ladies: Bonnie, Anna, Julie, and Amy.

While we were driving home, we just could not resist driving through Luxembourg!  It is a VERY SMALL country next to Belgium and France.  Oh and we got lost in the city of Luxembourg...pretty awesome.  I know this shocks nobody since I was driving!