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Fiets from Hell to Heaven on High
Just in case that title isn't clear enough here's what happened on this bizarrely interesting day. As you may well know, we've been trying to get into Apeldoorn to meet the Mennonite congregation nearest to us for quite some time now and so far all of our attempts have failed. Now, next weekend we're planning a trip to Amsterdam and the weekend and following that is a Youth Conference we're both attending (youth out here ranges from 16 to 30). Then the week following that is the 1st Sunday of the month, which means that the Mennonites won't even be there, and the week following that we have been invited to Johannes van der Meer's house for Thanksgiving... So it was kind of becoming a "Now or Never" kind of thing. Unfortunately, as with last week, the trials from the previous day were making today's trek surprisingly difficult (what with the burning thighs and collapsed lungs and all). So about 10 minutes into our bike ride, Taliah's knee started to give out on her and she had to turn back, leaving me to make the remaining 10 km all by my lonesome. As much as I wanted to turn back along with her, I decided to press on. I'm not sure what it was, but something about the rest of that bike ride was none too pleasant. Perhaps it was that fact that I was listening to Apocalyptic Folk while biking through an area that was eerily void of bores, or perhaps it was the fact that Nederland is just flat enough that you can never see the incline but just steep enough that you can always feel it... One way or another I had quite the internal dialogue running through my mind the rest of the trip (primarily consisting of me having to convince myself not to turn back). In essence, it was probably the few short downhill bursts every now and then that kept me on my path to church.
When I finally got to Apeldoorn, I wound up making all the same mistakes we made leaving Apeldoorn the last time we were here (and it didn't help that I was already about 5 minutes late when I entered the city). But eventually I made my way to the church and, fortunately, was not the latest person to arrive. Sadly, although not surprisingly, the entire service was in Dutch... I was able to follow along every now and then (specifically with the Lord's Prayer which, being the rhythmic fellow that I am, I was able recognized the beat of it right away). I was also kind of able to follow along with the bulletin, except for when the bulletin suddenly ended and the service appeared to continue going. Suddenly an old lady was on stage and people were talking (one can only assume either about or to her) and flowers were coming from every which direction at her. The Mayor was even there, all decked out with some pretty elegant bling, to pin some kind of medal on her which apparently is quite the honor around these parts. They even had two women with a giant recorder, a slightly smaller recorder, a normal sized recorder and a bassoon play a few songs for her. And as if that wasn't enough, after everything was all said and done they passed out bubbly rose wine and everyone started chatting and drinking. I found out while chatting with two older gentlemen (which isn't really a good descriptor in this particular congregation) that this medal was in commemoration of all the time she has given to this community (as she was stepping down from her position in the church) and that today's service was kind of a celebration and bubbly wine was not something I should be expecting on a regular basis (although they did jokingly suggest that making it a regular occurrence might bring young folk back to the church services).
One of the two gentlemen (who had quite the respectable moustache and would have fit right in as a rich investor at a country club of sorts) was quite the fountain of knowledge and kept spouting topics of interest about the Netherlands at me. For example; did you know that this is the first year, in the history of the Netherlands, that they have had a minority government? And that no one is really happy about the people who wound up getting a good deal of power because they appear to be somewhat anti-Muslim? Interesting stuff right there... Or did you know that Amstel-dam (as it was once known) used canals as a defence mechanism because it's nice and easy to stab/shoot people when they're trying to cross a body of water... and that every time it grew they just added another canal to keep up their barrier of protection, which is why there are so many bloody canals in Amsterdam today? (Did you see what I did there? With the Canal's function and the descriptor for how many canals there are? Man I'm brilliant!). Or, that had it not been for a fellow named "Willem van Oranje" there may not be a Netherlands today... and that the only reason the dutch national colour is orange is because his last name was orange (which is quite possibly the best rational for a national colour ever)? Anyways, it was a very interesting conversation that never really developed beyond the point of dutch trivia to say the least.
One gentleman that I decided I had to meet however was the pianist. At first he just sounded like any old church pianist up behind the organ where I couldn't see him, and then he hurried down the to front of the church to play the piano for the choir where I noticed his hand was in a brace. Speaking of the choir, they were surprisingly off-key considering that this was a Mennonite congregation. Which got me to thinking; are we better singers over in Canada? Or are the dutch communities just supportive enough that it doesn't matter how bad of a singer you are, you are always feeling welcome in the choir... Food for thought I guess. But back to the Organist/Pianist, once the service was done and everyone made their way for the koffee after having finished their wine he began playing "Tea for Two" (this was the moment I decided I had to meet this fellow before I left for the day). Apparently he plays that every Sunday at koffee time (which is awesome). So after I watched in amazement as he rocked out familiar tunes like "Somewhere over the Rainbow" with a brace around his wrist without ever missing as single note, I finally got the nerve to go over to him and compliment his playing only to find out that this fellow speaks English better than anyone I had come across up to this date (which was surprising as my observations until that moment had been that the older they get the less English they tend to know, and this gentleman was by no means enjoying his wonder years anymore). So we got to chatting about music and Canada (apparently B.C. has quite the dutch atmosphere and it feels a lot like home to him when he's in Canada). He also kept telling stories about people in foreign places like Sydney and BC asking him to play organ for them, which usually turned into him trying to explain to me just how gorgeous their organ was and how wonderful they all sounded. At one point the trivia fellow showed up and began talking about something with the pianist in dutch and when he left the pianist began going into greater detail about what they had just finished talking about to my in English in what seemed to be mid-thought. My guess is that he forgot I didn't speak dutch and assumed I had been following their conversation up until that moment... which I hadn't been. So his sudden mid-sentence explanation came as quite the unexpected surprise to me given how fluent our conversation had been up until then. But luckily I managed to kind of figure out what he was talking about as it seemed to be in relation to what the other guy was telling me about minority governments and whatnot. It all kind of made me want to take up the piano again, and with all the pianos around Mennorode I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard to get my hands on one.
After our chat was finished I decided I should quickly hunt down the pastor before I made my way home as he was the one who invited us to his congregation in the first place. He was easily the youngest member of the congregation and began telling me of a youth group we could attend in Arnehm if we wanted (which is about two to three times as far away from us as Apeldoorn is) and even gave me the contact information for the group... So we'll see if we can't find a way out there, but at the moment it's not looking hopeful. So with that out of the way, I went outside, ate my lunch, hopped on my bike and made my way home. The sun was shining and after I re-entered the forest almost all of the uphill terror seemed to be replaced with downhill joy (which makes perfect sense now that I think about it). I even managed to get back before 2 in the afternoon... Once my leg muscles beef up a bit I may even make it home in time for lunch instead of having to pack along sandwiches to get me home. Only time will tell.
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