BRUSSELS, BELGIUM (May 31-June1)

Finally, a day of rest as we arrived in the afternoon from Strasbourg without the worry of an evening service. We used the time to go downtown for dinner near "Le Grande Place," the medieval plaza of the city, which is over 1,000 years old. Below are some pictures with the 1,000-year old fecods of the square in the background. Yvette & Joseph Dimitrov (the academic dean at Continental Theological Seminary) and Matthieu & Rachel Lemaire (Cambrai) met Jennifer and me for dinner, and we had a great time reminscing some of the crazy happenings of our past trips (including the notorious trip down Eastern Europe to Greece & Turkey about 17 years ago, during which Joseph was our interpreter). Here we are on "restaurant row" near Le Grande Place.

Friday, June 1 (performance for a school and an evening service)

Today, we had two performances. First, a Christian school in the morning,

SWITZERLAND & THE ALPS (cont'd) TO BELGIUM

FRIBOURG, SWITZERLAND (Sunday night, May 27)

From the morning church service in Nyon, the team traveled a couple of hours away to Fribourg, which is near Gruyere Castle, the place from which the famous (and delicious) cheese is exported (a slice of which costs more than a steak in Texas!). We had a special performance for Youth, and stayed in various home ... Jen and I staying on a country farm with the same folks that Luke and I stayed with before. Last time, Luke and I got up at 5 AM to watch them milk their cows, but this time they had quit the MILK business for raising beef for food ... a lot less labor-intensive, they explained.

LUGANO, SWITZERLAND (May 28)

This morning we left Fribourg back south (through Lucern) to Lugano, which is a Swiss city just north of Milan, and just across the Italian border. Here we would be for performances for two days---Monday and Tuesday. I'll tell you about it later, since it is now 5 AM, and I need a couple hours sleep before driving to Paris. But, I will leave you with a few pictures of us in the snow (before a snowball fight) and our "fun in the Alps." The snow appeared and disappeared as we climbed, then descended from the higher altitudes.


The picture (below) of the Lake is the view from our hotel window, and ... we were only a lake away from Lake Como, infamous home of George Clooney (LOL).



As we drove back north through the Alps on our way to Brussels via Lucerne, then Strasbourg, France, the Lord provided beautiful driving weather so we could enjoy more of the beautiful mountain countryside. These shots below are just typical of what we saw all the way to France.





The long drive necessitated an overnight stop in Strasbourg, where we visited the town center with buildings and a cathedral dating to the early part of the second millenium (circa 1200-1400 AD). Here is a photo of the team in front of the cathedral.