updated 120809

Many of the Commission's members are also planners of and participants in the EBF Amsterdam 400; therefore the Heritage and Identity Commission has been working diligently to support both the EBF Amsterdam 400 celebration and the BWA Gathering events.

Kirsten Timmer, who is Karen Bullock's PhD student and living this year near Amsterdam, is a native of the city and has been working with the Amsterdam Archives at the EBF and the BWA Heritage Commission's requests, to locate and translate several Mennonite and Smyth-Helwys documents never before translated into English. She has been of great help to both groups and is our Commission's premier "on the ground" resource for the Annual Gathering Week. (for her paper, click here)

The Baptist Heritage and Identity Commission is pleased to present the following final plans for the upcoming Ede Gathering in the Netherlands.

EBF and the "Amsterdam 400" Plans

The European Baptist Federation's "Amsterdam 400" planning committee is busy making final arrangements for its three-day celebration in Amsterdam, scheduled for the weekend of 24-26 July 2009, prior to the BWA Gathering. More than 1,500 Baptists from the European member bodies are expected to attend. All members of our Baptist Heritage and Identity Commission who are part of groups affiliated with this federation are invited to stop by the EBF "History Corner" and visit, enjoy the conference, and participate in all of the marvelous weekend events.

For those who are not attending the EBF Amsterdam 400, we ask for prayer for the work of our brothers and sisters who will be spending hundreds of hours over the next few months preparing for this event. Please pray that God's Spirit with move with mighty power and that Christ will be lifted up as the EBF meets to worship, learn, and celebrate together.

BWA and the Plans for Ede

 So far, the following plans have been made and we are very excited about many more that are shaping up for the sessions!

(1) The Commission has been granted space in which to offer our own "Heritage Corner" area for our Baptist Heritage and Identity Commission in Ede. We will have many items to pass out, photographs to display, artifacts from our Baptist Heritage for people to see, and hopefully, a place where some of the Commission's books could be offered for sale.

We are planning for some of our Commission members to dress in 17th century costume and tell a brief (10-minute) narrative of the Baptist Beginning story every couple of hours to those who might be interested to gather. We hope to have chairs and tables and make it quite cozy and comfortable, so that people can drop by and sit awhile, chat, and ask questions about Baptist history.

We will need several volunteers to take turns attending the "Heritage Corner" and welcome our guests and "hang out" to talk about history. We will also need some people to dress up and memorize the 10-minute script for the story-telling events. We need to arrange for our people to sign up for specific times, for the displays and books to arrive in time, and for the costumes and scripts to be on hand in the booth. We will post a schedule for hosting the booth. Please sign up for one or more spots! We have already had much interest in this ongoing event!

(2) Kirsten Timmer is finalizing our Walking Tour Brochure for self-guided tours to Baptist and Mennonite historical sites in Amsterdam. The brochure features explanations of the sites' importance to our Baptist heritage and the strong Mennonite connection of those years. The EBF is also using the same brochure for its "Amsterdam 400" celebration the weekend before the BWA meetings. Each of the groups (EBF and BWA) plans to insert an additional leaflet giving a number of other wonderful sites to see and things to do in Amsterdam, including ministry opportunities.

(3) Both groups wish to distribute Peter Morden's Baptist Identity single-page leaflet that he has been writing. It is finished and will be published for distribution at both "History/Heritage Corners."

(4) The children's Happy Birthday, Baptists! Coloring Booklet project is also almost finished. Sheila Heneise and Bethany Bullion have done a splendid job putting together the brief story of Baptist beginnings for use in the pre-school coloring book. This little booklet has 12 pages with lovely text and pictures for the children. We hope that as they grow, the little ones will learn to appreciate their own heritage of faith as Baptists, and this is one small way to help them. We will have these to pass out at the "History/Heritage Corners" as well.

As this project has unfolded this year, we thought a shorter, less-complicated version might be produced faster, and would not cost as much to copy for Ede and Amsterdam. We thought we could put a longer version on the web page or even develop together other teaching curricula for different aged children this next year in time for the 2010. Sheila has added Bible verses to support a more detailed text for older children. We will consider this together at our final session when the Commission meet in Ede.

(5) We are trying to secure a "live statue" for the Amsterdam Day Trip to stand in front of the site where the first Baptist church was organized. We may need for volunteers to help explain our Baptist heritage origins to visitors to the walking tour sites. We will keep you updated about these plans.

Our Commission Program

We have exciting plans made for our program this year:

Session One: Tuesday Afternoon, 4:30-6:30 - July 28th
Mr. Teun van der Leer, Rector, Baptist Seminary of the Netherlands, will present a paper on the history and development of Baptists in his country. Representing the host country for the 400th Celebration and Annual Gathering, Van der Leer will link our Ede sessions directly to the earliest roots of Baptist life.

Session Two: Wednesday Afternoon, 2:00-4:00 - July 29th
Ken Edmonds from Melbourne Australia, and a member of the Worship and Spirituality Commission, has been researching the Rembrandt and Anabaptist connections and contributions to art when they lived in the safety of the Golden Age. He will bring to us his paper and is also designing a self-guided walking tour of Rembrandt sites in Amsterdam that our Commission will insert into our Baptist-Mennonite Walking Tour Brochure. Our people may have time to do these walking tours when the Gathering journeys to Amsterdam for the day on Thursday, 30 July?

Session Three: Friday Early Afternoon, 2:00-4:00 - July 31st
Kirsten Timmer, who is a Dutch Baptist Historian from Amsterdam, has agreed to present a paper from her newest translations and findings from the Amsterdam Archives. She is translating from the Old Dutch some of the Smythe-Helwys materials never before published or translated into English. She will be doing some of this for the EBF, and helping them to set up the displays in their History Corner, and she will be helping us do the same, hopefully, in ours and to deliver this paper to us at the opening session.

Session Four: Friday Late Afternoon, 4:30-6:30 - July 31st
Our Commission will meet for Team Work Groups during our final session. This year we will hear updates from the Storybook Project and the Children's History Project, as well as review plans for the quinquennium in Honolulu, Hawaii. Be sure to attend this important planning event.

Questions for the Planning Event

 (1) May we ask about plans for Honolulu? May our Commission have space for a Baptist StoryBooth Project? This is an opportunity to conduct audio and visual recordings of individual Baptist stories that has the potential to produce many publications for the Heritage and Identity Commission. We will be finalizing plans during our Commission's meeting this year, and need to ask the executive committee about this possibility for 2010.

(2) Other items for our Agenda? Commission Members please ask your questions now, so that we can obtain answers in advance of our planning session. Also, plan on reporting to the Commission your updates on any Team Projects for which you are responsible this quinquennium.

NEXT ANNUAL MEETING

(preliminary tentative plans)

2010 - Honolulu, Hawaii - "Pan Pacific"

Since this will be the large quinquinnium gathering, there may be fewer smaller sessions. The Commission spoke about sponsoring a traveling museum from across the globe on display there in Hawaii, shipped from various archives and schools. The BWA Baptist Story Booth Project could also be non-stop here as well, with members of the Commission manning the booths. Audio could be saved into MP3 formatting (audio reflections and video files) with iPod capabilities and even flashed on the screen each evening.

---

Pictures - David Parker