In September of that year, I moved to Belgium to work on the O.M. year programme. I livied in Zelzate, just outside the city of Ghent, where I was based until August 1991. There was so much to learn - learning about the Belgium culture and learning how to build relationships with local people through language learning (in Zelzate the language is Flemish). We also learnt outlines for presenting and sharing the gospel with Jehovah's Witnesses and Roman Catholics.

I spent a lot of time on door to door work, contacting people to be my Flemish language helpers and then visiting on a regular basis to learn Flemish and to build up relationships. I met all sorts of people and was able to use the Flemish I had learnt. Some people invited me in to their homes and wanted to know more of what I did. Over the Christmas & New year period of that year my parents visited me and I was able to take them to meet one of the families who had been very kind to me, and so was able to build up a closer friendship with them.

Our team in Zelzate was a pre-church planting team. We were all very close and were encouraged to speak Dutch (Flemish) the whole time. There were eight of us: Klass-Jan and Martine, a couple from the Netherlands, Alice, Clare and myself from England, Renee from the USA and Rick and Hilde who had just returned from the USA.
Each Wednesday evening we would have a Bible Study and once a month we would have a 'Koffie Babbel' for the female language helpers. At the 'Koffie Babbel' we would discuss a topic of interest and read the Bible.