I had a great sleep and woke up very refreshed, but a little sore from my falling off the bike yesterday.

Berrien Springs is home to Andrews University which is run by the Seventh-day Adventist Church. I had been here once before about 12 years ago with Lis when we visited some friends at the seminary, but that was only a fleeting visit. Joan attends the ‘Pioneer Memorial Church’ which is on the Andrews University campus so we were heading there for services. They have an early and a late service and I voted for the late service so as to have a bit longer of a sleep in. Call me idle, but I wanted to make the most of my rest day.

We had a delightful breakfast of blueberries and cereal. I put it in that order since I am addicted to blueberries and Michigan is home to some of the nicest I’ve tasted. I bought a box of them on the way to Joan’s yesterday and made short work of a good portion of it. Joan was raving about ‘Rusk’ cereal which transpired was Sanitarium Weetbix. We know it well in the antipodes. I enjoyed trying some different American cereals as I’ve been living on Grape Nuts for the whole trip.

As we drove to church we looked for Lis’ old house. She lived here as a child while her father attended Andrews to do his MBA. She had given me vague directions failing to appreciate that one visit in winter was not enough to get me completely oriented and so furnished a much more precise description on how to find it, although she expected that it had been knocked down in favour of progress. It was still there, and still the same colour it was 25 years ago. This is her old house, with Lis’ bedroom on the top floor at the left. I was tempted to go and ask to get some pictures inside, but decided against it.

Instead of attending Bible Study Joan and I went to a video session which was aimed at improving marriages. She said that her husband Tim goes to the Bible study class where they engage in deep discussions as he isn’t into the videos. While there were many couples in the room, the number of women sitting along suggested that other husbands have the same view.

It was an excellent video and was aimed at stressing the importance of communication in a marriage. They opened with a skit of this fellow coming home from work to a friendly and interested wife but who answers her questions with monosyllabic answers. Reminded me of some people I know (but I’m not giving any names!). They gave some practical advice and guidance for couples and overall I was quite impressed with the series.

We then went upstairs to the main church for the service. The halls were a polyglot of people of all nationalities reflecting the multi-cultural nature of our church and the diversity of the students at the university. Many were in their native garb and I saw west Africans wearing their wraps that look like Togas as well as Indian women in Saris. I thought as I passed through this mass of people that it was unfortunate that they were all centred here and not in the surrounding areas. From the time I left the Rockies until here I found three Seventh-day Adventist churches; there may have been more, but they were well hidden.

Before the service started Joan showed me a statue that had recently been made of the founder, J.N. Andrews. It had him with his son and daughter looking out towards an ocean. He was the first of the great Adventist missionaries and he helped start the work in Europe as well as contributing a great deal towards developing the Seventh-day Adventist theology. Joan told how the students covered it in Vaseline and toilet paper as a prank and how hard it was to remove the Vasoline. Another time someone erected a small shrine at the foot of the statue and offered vegetarian meat on it. Students will be students!

The church is by far the largest Adventist church I have ever been in. I was told that it is normally completely full but since our church is having its ‘General Conference’ sessions—business meetings held every 5 years—many are away attending the meetings. As it was the church was half full with a range of nationalities.

The singing was superb. There were four women up front and it was better than many professionals that I have heard. Even the audience did well, but the churches in the Philippines still have the best singers (followed by Tonga). The service was taken by a young black minister who spoke on one of my favourite passages in the Bible; Elijah on Mt. Carmel.

I usually make a habit of attending black churches when I am in America (at least without Lis) since I enjoy their ‘enthusiastic’ preaching style. This fellow was obviously still developing his style, but he had the basics and I enjoyed it. I like the way that they alter the tone of their voice; emphasise certain words and use dramatic body language. I wonder how/where the cultivate the style since it is present in almost every black preacher I have seen.

After the service it was raining quite heavily so I was pleased that I was not on the road. We went home and got some food before going to a ‘South Pacific Club’ pot-luck lunch. When I say South-Pacific I actually mean Australian as Joan and I were the only non-Aussies there. Since her husband Tim is an Aussie Joan qualifies, in fact she is the president since the charter says the president must be a student. For the record, it is probably more accurate to call Tim an Aussie Missionary Kid since he grew up in Penang and Bangkok and did his university in America. These third culture kids are always different to those in their ‘home’ countries and really are a unique culture all unto themselves. I should know, I’m married to one!

Our hosts were Keith and Ngaire and they were Aussies who moved to Canada in the early 1980s to work at the Adventist college in Alberta before moving down to Andrews University. He is involved with the library and she works with external accredited programmes. They were extremely friendly, as were all of the other Aussies there. Keith was most interested in my trip as he had done something similar when he was 41. In a series of trips he walked around the watershed in the Hunter Valley and wrote a book on it. I had worked in the Hunter valley in 1981 so it was neat to see his book and recall some of the places I visited.

One of the couples there were Barry and Liz who were on their way home to Australia after working three years at Newbold College west of London. Part way through the afternoon Barry says to me "You’re married to Lis Pedersen" and I was taken aback. Lis used to work for him when she was a student and apparently she had introduced us at some stage during a visit to Australia or the U.K. It is a very small world when you are a Seventh-day Adventist.

I proved this by introducing myself to Dawn Dalhunty. I had last seen her in Kathmandu in 1993 when I was working on the Road Maintenance Project. Dawn and her husband Paul were running ADRA, a non-governmental organisation (NGO), and they spent 12 years in Kathmandu. She didn’t remember me but I recalled that we gave a donation to their work and that I took her son’s insulin kit back to Australia for repair. He had recently suffered from adult onset diabetes and was having trouble adapting. I was pleased to hear that he was doing well.

Dawn and Paul had just spent a year in Kosavo handling the work there and were on their way back to Australia where they now live. We got into a discussion about NGOs and international development and she was even more cynical about aspects of it than I am, if that were possible! She commented how there was so much happening in Kosavo that the local economy was unable to handle the sudden influx of money and work, and that there was going to be some long-term problems with everything stabilising there. I was pleased to hear that one of the big successes in Kosavo was funded by our friend Alan Fletcher through ADRA New Zealand. He had apparently supported a programme aimed at farm productivity which was so successful large international organisations such as the FAO are looking at it as a model for how to proceed. Dawn said it didn’t cost a lot of money, but it had brought many benefits to the area. Alan will be pleased to hear that and I promised to relay this good news to him.

One of the areas which has always concerned me about areas like Kosavo is that way in which the enmity is so deeply entrenched. We have hatred going back centuries, much like in Rwanda. Dawn is very keen on developing a programme for children which would endeavour to get at the root of this hatred and which would try and show that were have much more in common than places where we differ. I think it is a laudable idea, but will be very difficult to realise. I hope that she can do it.

We had a delightful meal and I made an absolute guts of myself. I figured that I needed to stock up for the next few days, or at least that was my excuse. They even had nutmeat which is something I really like the taste of and have been missing. It was all so tasty and I ate so much that I kind of rolled out to the car afterwards.

Joan and I returned home and I had a short chat with Lis who had rung while we were out. I worked on my journal and then in the evening updated my web site and packed. It was a great rest day with good spiritual food, good physical food, and great company. I felt rejuvenated and ready to hit the road again.