The Brussels Belgium Stake Center might well be a mini-United Nations.
Long-known for its bilinguality of French and Flemish, Brussels is home for NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), SHAPE (Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe) and the European Common Market.It is also home for Latter-day Saints from such diverse countries as the Philippines, Chile, Russia, Sweden, China, the United States, New Zealand and Zaire, just to name a few, according to missionaries in the Belgium Brussels Mission.
These members attend the Brussels International Ward where English is used as the common denominator.
Belgium, about the size of Vermont, today is teeming with more than 10 million people and has one of Europe's highest population densities and cost-of-living rates. Though pastures and forests cover a quarter of the land, only 4 percent of the people live in the country. The rest live in cities punctuated by palaces and cathedrals, lined by cobbled streets. Encyclopaedia Britannica.
Ninety percent of the people are Catholic, with Protestant and Muslim religions also represented. Commerce in Belgium depends on refining raw materials imported over extensive waterways and rail lines, according to Encyclopedia Britannica. Among these refined goods are favorites of tourists: diamonds, crystal, handmade Brussels lace and chocolate. Tourists enjoy visiting Grand'Place, which is Brussel's town square; stained-glass cathedrals; and old fortresses. Stray smells of diesel and a chilly, damp climate will remind travelers of their days in Belgium.
Visitors long remember "gaufres" (pronounced like "gophers"), the Belgian waffles sold by Brussels street vendors. Popular "pomme-frites," or french fries, are of Belgian origin.
Belgium needs two missions to meet its linguistic needs. The Netherlands Amsterdam Mission sends Dutch-speaking missionaries into the Flemish northern half of Belgium, known as Flanders. Flemish is a dialect of Dutch, comparable to geographical accents and grammar in different parts of the United States.
French-speaking missionaries from the Belgium Brussels Mission serve the rest of the country southward. The mission also covers areas in northeastern France.
Belgium has two stakes and a district serving almost 6,000 members. The Antwerp stake crosses the Dutch border and takes in three wards and a branch in the Netherlands, according to missionaries in the Netherlands Amsterdam Mission.
Annually, the Antwerp stake holds a stake family days of sports and games. This past August, 130 stake members not only participated in family days but also took an excursion to the temple in Frankfurt, Germany, missionaries said.
In the Brussels stake, interesting logistics arise at conference times. For the Church's general conferences, both the cultural hall and the chapel in Brussels are used - the cultural hall has the direct television broadcast in English and the chapel has the broadcast translated into French. At stake conferences, however, the conference is held in French and it's the English-speakers who have headsets.
Missionaries find their best successes through member referrals and by talking to people on the street. These two methods lead to 75 percent of the baptisms in Belgium. Tracting, which is difficult because of the many restricted-access apartment buildings, accounts for only 5 percent, according to missionaries.
Referrals come from such members as Jean and Jeanine Marichal of Herstal, who accepted President Spencer W. Kimball's challenge in 1976 to bring at least one other family into the Church each year. During a period of 10 years, they invited more than 250 of their friends to family home evenings, and 38 of these people were baptized.
"What has been our reward?" asked Sister Marichal. "The heartfelt thanks coming from these brothers and sisters when they say, `Thank you having been our guardian.' "(L'Etoile, June 1985.)
Most of Belgium's members are first-generation converts. Among the most prominent of these is Elder Charles Didier of the Seventy, born and reared near Brussels. Elder Didier reflects Belgium's multi-ethnic attitude, fluent in French, Dutch/Flemish, English, German and Spanish.He joined the Church's melting pot when he was baptized in 1957 at age 22. His skill in languages has provided strength to area presidencies from South America to Eastern Europe. (Ensign, November 1975, Church News, June 27, 1992.)
Another prominent Belgian member is Marcel Kahne, currently the Liege district president. Formerly part of the Brussels stake, the district was formed in a division of the stake.
Born in 1935 to Jewish parents who perished at Auschwitz, Pres. Kahne escaped because as a child he was entrusted to a Catholic family who adopted and reared him. Similiar to Elder Didier's experience, he first met the missionaries in 1950 at age 14 and was spiritually converted. In 1957 when he turned 21, his step-father allowed him to be baptized. He served full-time in the French Mission from 1960 to 1962, assigned to serve as a translator at the mission home in Paris.
"Missionaries experienced much success in that period," he noted in a recent telephone interview, "because it was a very different time then. People were very receptive to the gospel message."
In 1964, Brother Kahne married Paulette Gilles of Verviers, Belgium, and became a high school English teacher. He also began his part-time job for the Church, translating the standard works and other LDS publications into French, which he still does today.
Sister Kahne is very talented with language in her own right, and has served as a public affairs specialist for the Church. All four of their children served missions, and the Kahnes are now basking in grandparenthood.
Though afflicted with severe bouts of asthma, Pres. Kahne has not allowed it to keep him from fulfilling his callings.
"My only ambition in the Lord's Church is to be His servant when and where He wants me to serve. I express my gratitude to my Heavenly Father for His never-failing goodness to me and my family."
The family of Johan and Anne-Marie Verschuure is a mixture of the Dutch and French cultures. They are members of the Turnhout, Belgium Branch, Antwerp Belgium Stake.
Brother Verschuure, a high priest, is a native Dutchman. Sister Verschuure, a convert to the Church in 1976, is French. She was born on the African continent when her father, Casimir Mattera, a French citizen of Italian descent, was assigned to work in Algeria.
Brother and Sister Verschuure met when Johan was a full-time missionary in the Brussels mission and Anne-Marie was a stake missionary in the Nancy France Stake. After their sealing in the Swiss Temple in 1980, they settled near Thionville, France, where their three children were born. Brother Verschuure, who also speaks flawless English, runs an import-export business. Sister Verschuure continues the family tradition of expanding their cultures and is learning Dutch and Flemish.
Though converted in Belgium, Filipino Romeo Caturao brings with him the same member-missionary zeal which has caused such phenomenal Church growth in his native land. Each day at 4:30 p.m., Brother Caturao puts aside his academic responsibilities as a foreign graduate student, and teams up with the missionaries to tract, to follow up on referrals, to teach investigators, or to get members excited about the ward's Book of Mormon program. According to missionaries in Brussels, his enthusiasm has become legendary, and they are praying for it to become contagious.
Members in Belgium received a spiritual boost on June 12, 1996, when President Gordon B. Hinckley visited Belgium.
For 17-year old Glynn Davies of the Brussels 1st Ward, meeting the prophet was unforgettable and full of meaning.
"It was wonderful to see the prophet, especially here in Belgium. I never thought such an authority would ever come to this small country with so few members of the Church. I gained a very powerful testimony of the great care and love of the prophet for every Saint. Now when I hear or read a message of a prophet, I am more attentive to it. Thank you so much, President Hinckley!"
