Tell Me When To Pack

Esther Expedition: Huili — Esther’s house?

noel.piper — Wed, 23 May 2012 03:34:50 +0000

My laptop is living up to its name by sitting in my lap while I sit on the love seat in my living room. So it’s a good time for some virtual travel. One virtue of virtual travel is that we can be together in Europe one moment, and then fly the next moment to China.

A few days ago I heard of someone who was in China and would be traveling to Huili, Sichuan Province. She is related to one of the families who was serving there at the same time as Esther Nelson. Esther was there 1948-1951.

Sending some Huili information to her reminded me that I hadn’t yet uploaded any of my photos from Huili or posted anything here about that significant place.

Today, let’s just visit the church.

The Huili church building is entered through the courtyard behind some businesses that face the street. The church owns the businesses (one is called the Gospel Snack Shop or

something like that) and rents them for income.

We showed up without notice just when a small meeting was about to begin in the balcony area. We were greeted first with kindly curiosity. Their interest and enthusiasm grew as we explained our reason for being there and showed them the “Esther Nelson’s China” photobook that traveled in the back pocket of my vest.

They told us that there had been an old missionary house where the altar of the church is now, and they thought that must have where Esther Nelson and Flora Mae Duncan lived.

Perhaps that was Esther’s house, but I’m not sure becasue a letter from that time says they lived in a house behind the chapel, which was a different building.

Around town later, we showed a 1949 photo of the chapel building and asked a number of people in the streets or in shops where the chapel building was–the former bank building that the Baptists bought to use for classes and other gatherings besides the usual church services.

Finally, someone put the pieces together and pointed us to a place a few hundred yards down the street from the church building. The old building isn’t there any more, but in the courtyard, you can see the top edge of an old house over a wall. It’s in the right place, in the right courtyard behind the former site of the right building, so it might have been Esther’s house. It wasn’t accessible at the time I spotted it.

White building is where chapel used to be

Roof of old house, just visible over long low wall

And there are more Huili Church photos too.

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My travel photos may be viewed at my Shutterfly Share Site.
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Love sung between Romania and America (video)

noel.piper — Sun, 20 May 2012 14:51:07 +0000

Larry & Alice Agnew

Back when it was the hippie generation, it was also the Jesus People days. About that time Larry and Alice Agnew recognized the call of Jesus to be his.

Then, in the amazing mysterious way God works, he made sure that they in small-town Minnesota heard about faraway, mysterious Romania in a way that grabbed them and has held them for life.

They moved to Los Angeles to live in a Romanian neighborhood so they could learn the language and culture.

Silvia Tarniceriu, a recent refugee from Romania, became a friend and frequent companion.

Silvia helped them fill a tiny notebook with hymns, and she recorded herself singing the songs. Larry and Alice listened and sang along for hours, days, months. This music became a key part of their learning Romanian.

Silvia Tarniceriu

Larry’s first trip to Romania was a couple of years before Communism fell. Since then, he’s been back many times, and Alice has traveled with him or supported him from home. All these years they have been missionaries to Romania who happened to live in America. They are known and loved by many Christians in Romania.

That same little notebook still travels to Romania in Larry’s pocket. So when he was invited to sing in the Sunday morning service at Holy Trinity Baptist, he had the words at hand.

Here are Larry Agnew and Silvia Tarniceriu singing “Ibiti! Ibiti!” (Love! Love!).

And don’t miss another music video of Romanian worship that I posted at NoelPiper.com.

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My travel photos from Romania and elsewhere may be viewed at my Shutterfly Share Site.
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Subscribe to Tell Me When To Pack. Use the links to the right or click here.
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If you make a purchase after you click on some of the product links in a post or after you use an on-line shopping link in the sidebar, I receive a small commission, which costs you nothing extra. I recommend only items that I think will be of interest to my readers and that I probably have used personally or wish I had.
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I hope you’ll also visit my other blog–NoelPiper.com

Being reformed in the land of the reformation

noel.piper — Thu, 17 May 2012 21:15:41 +0000

We are at the end of our time in Europe. We’ve been in Hamburg since Saturday. Johnny preached Sunday morning at The Arche Church.

Then, that evening in the church was the opening session of Evangelium 21 Conference 2012. My pictures are posted now from the service and the conference. Once again, you’ll see some great interpreter shots. This time the interpreter was Christian Wegert, pastor of Arche.

As the statement about Evangelium 21 (The Gospel for the 21st Century) implies, they are a relatively new Gospel Coalition type organization for Germany. Ironically, this land of the Reformation is not an easy place to be a Reformed pastor.

Thanks for your prayers for us while we were here and for your brothers and sisters here as you think of them in the future.

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Don’t miss the giveaways for this trip:

The Bucharest Giveaway (I know what it is now, and it’s good)
The Geneva Giveaway
The Hamburg Giveaway
For subscribing or getting someone new to subscribe

You can see photos from this trip, as they’re uploaded, at my Shutterfly Share Site.
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Subscribe to Tell Me When To Pack. Use the links to the right or click here.
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If you make a purchase after you click on some of the product links in a post or after you use an on-line shopping link in the sidebar, I receive a small commission, which costs you nothing extra. I recommend only items that I think will be of interest to my readers and that I probably have used personally or wish I had.
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I hope you’ll also visit my other blog–NoelPiper.com

What I said in Hamburg

noel.piper — Tue, 15 May 2012 14:03:22 +0000

A few days ago, I asked for help from fellow ministry women. Their answers were tremendously challenging to me as I tried to prepare for my presentation yesterday to women here in Hamburg.

One of the challenges was what to do in a short session with so many heartfelt questions and so much wise advice. So how did it all turn out? Find out at NoelPiper.com. There’s a link to audio and photos too.

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Don’t miss the giveaways for this Europe trip:

The Bucharest Giveaway (I know what it is now, and it’s good)
The Geneva Giveaway
The Hamburg Giveaway
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Moving on too soon

noel.piper — Tue, 15 May 2012 13:13:13 +0000

I haven’t had time to tell you all I wanted to about Geneva, and now we’ve been in Hamburg since Saturday evening.

At least, I’ve uploaded all the Geneva photos for you to see.

Flying Bucharest to Geneva, via Munich

Around Geneva

Geneva Bible Institute / Conference

Lunch by Lake Geneva

Walking around the village of Veigy-Foncenex

Calvin’s old city of Geneva

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Don’t miss the giveaways for this Europe trip:

The Bucharest Giveaway (I know what it is now, and it’s good)
The Geneva Giveaway
The Hamburg Giveaway
For subscribing or getting someone new to subscribe

Mothers day here and there

noel.piper — Sun, 13 May 2012 12:05:22 +0000

It’s Mothers Day at home in Minneapolis and here in Germany, where we are in Hamburg.

Today I think, of course, of my own mother and of our daughters-in-law, the mothers of our grandchildren. And my heart is soft toward the ones for whom Mothers Day has a large measure of sadness.

You can see some thoughts at my other blog.

What I Learned by Being My Mother’s Daughter

When Mothers Day Isn’t a Celebration

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Don’t miss the giveaways for this Europe trip:

The Bucharest Giveaway (I know what it is now, and it’s good)
The Geneva Giveaway
The Hamburg Giveaway
For subscribing or getting someone new to subscribe

How shall they hear without an interpreter?

noel.piper — Fri, 11 May 2012 18:55:46 +0000

Once again, we are thanking God and the conference organizers for the choice of an interpreter who is in tune with Johnny’s theology, energy, and language.

It’s an amazing thing to me to watch a person who can simultaneously hear English and turn it into French so the second there’s a pause in the English, he can immediately begin to communicate the same thought in French, as close to the English that was spoken as French allows. In other words, he’s not delivering a paraphrase, but what was originally spoken.

I’m all the more aware what a gift that is because of an experience I had yesterday. Bill and Cindi and I were at a museum. We had handheld audio devices that guided us in English. For some reason theirs wouldn’t work at one video station. Since we were the only ones there, I listened and relayed aloud what I heard. I could hardly remember from one second to the next what I’d just heard in English so I could repeat it in English.

I was out of breath by the end of the 10-minute film. And to think that Florent Varak is interpreting for an hour or more at a time–not just repeating what he heard, but translating it.

Florent Varak is a pastor in the village of Villeurbanne, France, near Lyon. We’ve enjoyed having a bit of time to visit with Florent and Lori.

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Don’t miss the giveaways for this Europe trip:

The Bucharest Giveaway (I know what it is now, and it’s good)
The Geneva Giveaway
The Hamburg Giveaway
For subscribing or getting someone new to subscribe

East meets west

noel.piper — Thu, 10 May 2012 20:05:35 +0000

You may have thought that when I came to Europe, I was leaving the Esther Expedition behind for a while. Not possible. Esther’s world seems to follow me wherever I go.

Joann, my travel companion in China in March, had been fascinated to discover that the Lutheran World Federation in the 1940s operated a charter plane, which they named the St. Paul. Ever since then, she’s been researching the history and story of the Lutheran Airline, as she called it.

Now here’s where east meets west (if you use your imagination). Earlier this week for the second leg of our flight to Geneva, the carrier was a regional affiliate of Lufthansa.

After we arrived, as soon as I had Internet, I emailed Joann: “There is a Lutheran airline–Augsburg Airways–and here’s the plan of salvation they make available to each passenger.” (Augsburg is to Lutherans as Westminster is to Presbyterians–Lutheran churches, colleges, publishers, nursing homes named Augsburg, and now apparently an airline!)

Some discussion of the name followed. Augsburg Airways is obviously ELCA, because LCMS would have been Concordia. Air is good–it’s appropriate that Christians should meet in the air, doncha think? But why Airways when we know there’s just one way?

Enough!

Here’s the scoop Joann just posted on the real flying Lutherans–the ones in China.

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Don’t miss the giveaways for this Europe trip:

The Bucharest Giveaway (I know what it is now, and it’s good)
The Geneva Giveaway
The Hamburg Giveaway
For subscribing or getting someone new to subscribe

Beauty spot in my soul

noel.piper — Thu, 10 May 2012 17:36:26 +0000

View from our apartment

I love maps (though not as much as my friend Joann, who’d rather watch the plane’s flight path than a movie during a long flight).

One of the pleasures of travel is experiencing geography. Often there are surprises–usually things I could have realized easily, but just haven’t. This trip, for example, I was surprised that Geneva is so close to France that our countryside hotel actually is in France, within sight of the village of Veigy-Foncenex.

There’s a glimpse of Veigy-Foncenex in the photo at the left. When I walked around in the village, I kept asking myself, Am I taking this picture because it touches the beauty spot in my soul or because I’ve seen such a prototypical village in a travel book and I’m copying it? But who cares. I had a great time and came back with a happy soul.

The Geneva Bible Institute , conducted in the French language, is in the town of Cologny, Switzerland, about a 10-15 minute drive from our accommodations, and even closer to the border with France. So it’s easy to see why many of the Institute’s students and teachers are French.

It’s also a short flight from Algeria and Tunisia, where French is a common 2nd language. So the Institute is in a strategic location.

Please pray for the Gospel-Centered Ministry conference, which began this morning. The 750 attenders include about 250 theological students from schools around Switzerland and France, as well as Francophone people from many other countries.

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Don’t miss the giveaways for this trip:

The Bucharest Giveaway (I know what it is now, and it’s good)
The Geneva Giveaway
The Hamburg Giveaway
For subscribing or getting someone new to subscribe

I guess we’re safe

noel.piper — Tue, 08 May 2012 20:27:30 +0000

We arrived in Geneva this afternoon. On the drive from the airport to our hotel, I learned something that I don’t remember reading in either Cultureshock Switzerland: A Survival Guide to Customs & Etiquette or Switzerland – Culture Smart!: the essential guide to customs & culture. Maybe it was there, but I surely don’t remember it.

Until last year, every new house construction had to include a basement fallout shelter. Now it’s only required of buildings with more than 38 apartments. It’s not necessary for every new house to have one now, because every town has community fallout shelters and there’s already enough space for 1 million more people than Switzerland’s total population. So I guess there’s room for us visitors, if necessary.

I just arrived, so I’m just watching and learning. It would be presumptuous to try to explain a culture and people I’m not familiar with. But apparently, the Wall Street Journal gave it a try.

As always, I’m counting on my readers who are from Switzerland to chime in here with their thoughts, additions, corrections, etc.

One of the benefits of having so many community shelters is that there’s space going unused until it’s needed. So the Geneva Bible Institute, for example, houses students in community bunker space in Cologny, a Geneva suburb.

The Bible Institute is the venue for the Gospel-Centered Ministry conference, which is what brings Johnny to Geneva this week. Thanks for praying for him and the other speakers and for the students and church leaders who will be attending.

By the way, the inexpensive bunking option for the conference is in the local bunker. Here’s hoping nobody’s claustrophobic.

And here’s praying that we all say to the LORD, “My refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.”

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Don’t miss the giveaways for this trip:

The Bucharest Giveaway (I know what it is now, and it’s good)
The Geneva Giveaway
The Hamburg Giveaway
For subscribing or getting someone new to subscribe