I just got back from two days in Arnhem (a city in the eastern part of the Netherlands).  There were four of us together:  two current pastors of Zolder50, one former pastor of Zolder50, and one potential future-pastor of Zolder50.

We took the time to personally connect, spend a lot of time in prayer, and think strategically about the future of our ministry here in Amsterdam.  But we also got to see a bit of Arnhem in the process (my first visit to the city).  It was a beautiful city -- much like other cities throughout the Netherlands (they're all pretty similar, to be honest), but with a bit of contour to the land... and some significant World War Two history as well.

I've never seen the famous film about the Battle of Arnhem, "A Bridge Too Far" -- but now that I've seen the sites for myself, I'm going to have to see the film as well.

To see Arnhem today, you'd never guess that it had been a complete war-zone within my grandparents' lifetime.  The landscape is beautifully-forested.  The city is tidy and efficient.  It's a large and important city of 150,000.  Yet just 64 years ago, the residents of Arnhem returned to their city to find only 150 dwellings still intact.  The city had been decimated.  And all for the sake of a bridge (which the Allies had hoped to capture in order to facilitate a quicker attack through the heart of Germany's industrial region).

While we were in town, we decided to visit the military cemetary.  I had never been to such a war cemetary before (though I'm now doubly decided to visit Normandy someday -- perhaps even this summer).  It was quite the experience.

Especially to visit the grounds on such a cold, gray, wintry day... it was a very sobering experience.

I was actually surprised by how individualized each tombstone was.  There were a few, of course, which were marked simply:  "A soldier known unto God."  But most of them were engraved with each soldier's name, rank, regiment, specific date of death (not just a one-week range), a religious symbol, and a personal inscription.  Some of these personal inscriptions were words of remembrance from their parents.  Others had Bible verses.  Others had short lines of poetry...

One (of the many) that impressed me was the one here on the left:

"He did his duty, he did it well.  What he suffered no tongue can tell."

A guy my age, just doing his job.  He suffered greatly in the cause.  But Arnhem is now all the more beautiful for it.