2nd day of Christmas

The Dutch celebrate two days of Christmas. On the 2nd day we took the sisters to hear Pastor Koopman's final sermon in his church in a small village called Waalre. It was his birthday also. The congregation of mainly older people in the cold huge church sang 'lang zal je leven' (Dutch Happy Birthday song translates to Long Shall You Live) to him. We filled one row with the Dordrecht sisters and Eindehoven elders.

We then headed to St Niklaas in Belgium to make a delivery to the Elders. Here are the sisters standing by a statue of St Niklaas.

We had been on the road all day and were hungry. We hoped to find a Turkish Pizza shop open but nothing was open. We found this Friets (french fry) stand next to a temporary ice skating rink in the towns square. We all had friets and I bought a sack of smoutebollen which translated is lard balls. The Belgians are funny. The Dutch call them oliebollen or oil balls. These were hot and fresh, very tasty and different from Dutch oliebollen of which there are several variations. Desi tried to taste all the variations on her visit. Elders Wilcken and Wait joined us.

We ended the day by driving through our old city to see the lights. These sail boats had lights and a small Christmas tree on top.