The afternoon of September 6 finds my train pulling into a nice old station near a lake. There was no passport check or anything, but now you’re in Switzerland. There are people biking and walking and sailing all over, and the general feeling is very relaxing. One train change places me on a packed express bound for Zurich. The beautiful green countryside in the late afternoon sun with the cows grazing peacefully pleases the eyes and provides a pleasant contrast, if it can be called that, with the high-tech life that makes up city life in Zurich.
The friend who is to meet me is someone who posted a few times on my earlysda forum. It was not even in my mind to come to Switzerland when first planning this trip to Europe, and only the last week or so in India did it occur to me that if i was in Germany already, that perhaps it would be worthwhile to meet this man who said he has Greek friends who may be able to help get this gc book into that language. I don’t have any clue to what he looks like, or his spiritual condition, except that he is Kenyan-born.
After arriving at Zurich station, and fighting the battles of cigarette smoke in the air that amazes me for such an “advanced” country, i call my contact. The phone eats my first coin with nothing in return, and the next one gives just a few seconds for my 70cents (euro). The plan is to meet at the big, four-sided clock in the station, but the time comes and goes with no one coming up to me and asking: “Are you Daniel?” I look for someone my preconception tells me should look like a Kenyan-born SDA, but no one who fits that description is wandering around looking for anyone. I am the only one with a medium-big suitcase, so should be easy to find….. About 45 minutes after the proposed meeting time i decide to ask a black man sitting down further from the clock than i am. Alright! we have connected 🙂 Thanks for coming to meet me.
He takes me to a friend’s house where i stay for the next 5 days. In discussing spiritual things, i find quickly that he is desiring a deeper experience, a closer walk with Jesus. It is wonderful to meet someone like that, as there are many who profess so with their mouths, but when it comes to actual study — well, they just “don’t have time”, or they know it all already…. But this new friend seems different, and i am to find out during my stay here that he IS different, seriously wanting to follow Jesus with all his heart, soul, and might.
His new car is “Smart”, and while i’ve seen them before, this is my first ride in one. They are plenty spacious for 2 people, and you can even carry a bit in the back. It may be illegal, but in a pinch you could perhaps cram a small adult or teenager in the back too. His wife drives me to his friend’s place, where a bed is all prepared for me – thank you!
I get caught up on a bunch of internet stuff the next day, and have a 1858gc study with my friend and host the next evening. We try to cover a chapter, but there are more than questions – there is a strong attitude of knowing more than the inspired prophet by the host, so the study doesn’t provide the blessing it could have.
I take a walk thru Zurich, and am amazed at the high prices of things, like 5 bananas for nearly 3usd, and at all the luxury cars on the streets. Zurich surrounds a lake, and is quite pretty, but i am told that there is a big drug problem, and that some areas you definitely want to stay out of. A large part of the city tho seems to be a mix between a city and a village, as there are many green spaces, and lots of the businesses have small signs, not screaming out their wares like in America and Japan. That makes it very difficult for a first-timer to find things, but very nice for long-timers as their eyes aren’t distracted by the advertisments and big letters and neon.
Zurich seems very similar to cities in Germany, and German seems to be the main language in use. One thing that is even worse here than in Germany tho is the church bells – why do you have to remind me every 15 minutes that my life is slipping away? And why do you have to get crazy at 7am, forcing me to get up? Does everyone here really enjoy it this way, or is this perhaps one more reason why lots of people avoid church at all costs? ha! Makes one almost long for the loudspeaker prayers from the musseins. At least that is only five times a day!
My host graciously allows me to eat fruit he has, and one of the largest pears i’ve ever seen is a delicious feast dripping down my fingers into my muesli. I think these pears are a gift from someone, and almost choke when i see that the 3 of them cost almost 10chf (7usd). There is a sushi shop in a shopping center, and i hang around a few minutes to see if i can still understand anything – whew, i can. I can also understand that the young Japanese workers there are a bit bored with their work. Something did look a bit strange about all Japanese workers serving Swiss clientele. I go into the basement where the food floor is, and am surprised at foods from all over the world, and also at the prices. Sure wish i could bring one ton of mangosteen from Malaysia, or of tamarind from India. If i could really sell it all at the price displayed (around 26 – 30usd/kg), i could make a bunch of money. Let’s see…tamarind in India….I remember picking up some off the ground that had fallen from a tree and was going rotten….But i think in the stores it might have been 60cents-1usd/kg). Whoops, what am i doing – having reveries of India? This is a first!!! Actually, the pleasant air of Pune, the nice friends i made there, and the good-tasting food of India all combined to make me really like the place this last time there.
But this is Switzerland – a salad at McDonald’s costs over 7usd. A Jaguar is parked next to a Mercedes which is next to a Rolls which is next to…. The streetcars are nice, and i enjoy the ride over the tracks going down the middle of the street. I exchange a bit at the post office, and am amazed how the post office is like a high-class variety store, with cool travel items, computer equipment, books for kids, stationery, etc. Maybe the post office has been privatized here.
Friday evening i am asked to give a talk/study, so i choose chapter 30 of the 1858gc, and we cover spiritualism with 9 in attendance at the central Zurich SDA church. Let’s see, of those who come, only 2 are native born Swiss, and one of these is not a church member quite yet. The others are from the Philippines, America, Kenya, and Indonesia. Sad to say, the one Swiss SDA has the most doubts about Ellen White, but that pretty well sums up the state of Adventism among most Europeans it seems. Hope the lady who got baptized one week later, who expressed a very strong faith in the Bible and Spirit of Prophecy being from God, will continue with strong faith, and help wake up the church there. After leaving Switzerland, my Kenyan-born friend decided to go thru the whole book, a chapter a week with this group – may the Holy Spirit work mightily with you and the group there Brother!
Sabbath is communion day, and it is nice after foot-washing to hold together in a big group and pray. I showed the gc book to the pastor, and he just looked at it without touching it or saying anything. My friend explained later that the pastor doesn’t like Ellen White at all, and is actually against anyone trying to promote her works.
After church my Kenyan-born friend and i go out to the lake, and study chapter 2 of the 1858gc. Zurich is so nice and peaceful, and the sun shining down pleasantly with a cool breeze off the lake made it wonderful. Evidently some 40-something women thot so too, and started picnicing nearby. After eating one of them got up, and without making an effort with a towel or anything to cover her nakedness, she stripped bare, and swam a ways in the lake and came back again. It’s funny how the Americans and Europeans went to teach the savages to put on clothes 150 years ago, and now need the “savages” to come and teach the heathen great-grandchildren of those people to put their clothes back on!
Lunch was at another Kenyan-born SDA member’s apt. All together, let’s see, that made 2 Kenyan-borns, one Tanzanian-born, and one American-born present. The greens with coconut sauce, and the corn-grit paste that you scoop up with your fingers was just wonderful. If African food is like this all the time, i will have no problem with diet there. After lunch we took a somewhat vigorous hike. It was nice that just within 5 minutes of this big apt. complex, there is a nice wooded hiking trail with a stream running thru it. The cows with their clanging bells hanging around their necks reminded one that yes, we were in Switzerland.
After getting back to the apt. we sang a few hymns, then got busy studying the 1858gc. After just a little background, we went to chapter 32 where we stayed for nearly 4 hours!!! The conversation did get a little sidetracked a couple of times, but for the most part was on-topic, almost doubling the previous record for length with anybody in studying a chapter of this book. It was wonderful, beautiful, uplifting, and several other words and feelings that i cannot express. To be bound together by the truth with those who are studying to know and understand and assimilate the truth, rather than picking at the book to make it fit their preconceived views —- this was a balm to my soul.
The lady mentioned that one of her nieces was working at the SDA mission in Ethiopia, and that the work was progressing rapidly there just now. If we can have prayers for this project, please pray that things will be arranged somehow so that someone in Ethiopia will be convicted to translate this book into Ahmeric. Who knows, maybe the Lord has a plan for me to go there instead of in Europe again??? It sure wouldn’t surprise me, as his ways are quite mysterious.
I watch about 10 minutes of some superhero cartoon on TV in the morning while eating, as the man i stayed with first was watching that, and it was interesting to see how the Satanic influence was quite strong, and bewitching. It was a bit of a lesson in helping me to know what young people are expecting in animations today tho.
The people at the Sabbath afternoon study place ask me to come stay with them, and i happily oblige. It is always more pleasant to be where the people love the words of God and study them, and that is a Biblical principle too – to leave those who do not value God’s words, and go to those who do. We study a chapter in this book every day, and even twice a day once, along with a Bible study on the state of the dead once, and usually the first friend comes to join us, altho he is often late. The hunger to study and the love between the Brothers and Sisters is a very wonderful, peaceful, healing feeling. Is this a little taste of heaven on earth?
We take a 3 hour hike to a place where you can walk on a wooden bridge across a narrow place on the lake, up to an old castle with church. There are old churches everywhere, mostly unused or little-used or turned-into-business type buildings. My friend wishes to open a health-food/book store somewhere in Zurich, and i pray that the Lord will bless efforts made along those lines, as he has promised he will when we move understandingly in the Lord.
Sabbath finds us in a small church, and somehow it comes to where i teach the lesson using the 1858gc book. There is a distinguished looking youngish Swiss man in the group, and with my experience-based preconceptions, i half expect some sort of outcry over using Ellen White material, or else a spirit of doubt manifested, but am very pleasantly surprised to see that is not so, that here is the real faith so desperately needed today 🙂 A couple who come in near the end join the study, and while the woman sounds very interested and believing, the husband casts a doubt shadow over the group. I find out later that he was in America several years training and working at several self-supporting institutions. Must have had some kind of bad experience, but i sure hope you live fully for Jesus again someday soon Brother! I sure do thank you for the Italian contact information.
My friend has nearly all the books put out by Echoes from the Past, which produces fascimile copies of early Adventist literature. It is astounding to me, and i eagerly lay hold of a short book “Dissertations of William Miller”, and eagerly type it all in. Hopefully i can get that put up on the internet before long. It is a real blessing to do this kind of work, because i have to concentrate on each letter, thus making the message sink down into my brain better. While William Miller was led of God, he certainly wasn’t inspired, as some of his explanations of Revelation are quite off the mark.
My friends are very hospitable, treating me, and more importantly, the inspired words that i bring to them, with love, joy, and peaceful actions, making my heart overflow. I wish i could stay here much longer, helping lift each other up more and more to be like Jesus, but after a day of internetting, typing in the last of the William Miller book, enjoying another delicious meal with borscht, i must make an early exit on the following morning via train to Como, Italy.
My friend drives me to the station, and after prayer, i get on the train and watch Zurich and then the rest of Switzerland whish quietly by in the rain. There are lots of landslides to see along the way, and the little towns with the tall church steeple are very beautiful. After a long spiral tunnel, we come out into the sunshine, and it looks already like we are in Italy – pastel color houses, sun-shade awnings, and a beautiful, sunny, blue sky. Switzerland, i wasn’t expecting much from you, but you have given me the greatest spiritual uplift of my whole trip to Europe – thank you so much!!!!
NOTE: Post written November 3, 2006