Vennekerk Archives

Tag: Vennekerk

Christmas, church, music, religion, school, Vennekerk, Winschoten

Herman de Jong, Poems

Johan

last night who pops up in my head? johan slender little johan i wish we had grown up together
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Bach, Christmas, family, Vennekerk

Home

The Middledom Manifesto: This is where I stand, neither to the left or to the right, but feet feeling their way through the middle, between the past and the future, between the good and the bad, between certainty and doubt.
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Bach, church, school, Vennekerk, Winschoten

Blog, Featured, Public

Vennekerk 2023

This is the story of our van der Laan reunion worship service, the summer of 2023, in the now abandoned Vennekerk, the church where my parents came of age.
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Bach, church, school, Vennekerk, Winschoten

Dutch

Vennekerk 2023 NL

Dit is het verhaal van onze van der Laan reüniedienst, de zomer van 2023, in de Vennekerk, de kerk waar mijn ouders volwassen werden.
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Easter, God, organ, Vennekerk

Featured, Herman de Jong, Poems

A Good Friday

Good Friday morning. I climbed the spiraling, creaking stairs to the organ loft, young and inexperienced, I needed to practice for the evening service.
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church, emigration, God, Vennekerk, Winschoten

Blog, Featured, Public

Another Good Friday

Herman de Jong’s prose story of “A Good Friday” has been with me for as long as he’s been gone — twenty-one years now. I wish I had known it before then, just as I wish I could have talked to him about it.
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Canada, church, emigration, God, Vennekerk, Winschoten

Dutch

Nog een Goede Vrijdag

Herman de Jong’s prozaverhaal “Een Goede Vrijdag” is me bijgebleven zolang hij er niet meer is – eenentwintig jaar nu. Ik wou dat ik het eerder had geweten, net zoals ik wou dat ik er met hem over had kunnen praten.
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Easter, God, organ, Vennekerk

Herman de Jong, Poems

Een Goede Vrijdag

Good Friday morning. I climbed the spiraling, creaking stairs to the organ loft, young and inexperienced, I needed to practice for the evening service.
Read More: Een Goede Vrijdag
Bible, church, family, God, organ, ship, Vennekerk

Herman de Jong, Memoirs

Church

My parents went to churches where sermons lasted 1½ hours, but when I grew up they had been shortened to appr. 45 minutes. Sometimes men would suddenly stand up in the middle of a sermon. They began to feel sleepy, and this was the way to stay awake. Other men would enter the church with…
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Christmas, church, family, marriage, music, organ, school, ship, Vennekerk, Winschoten

Herman de Jong, Memoirs

Organ Playing

I have no recollection that I played much with my siblings, Kees, Truus and Sense. I imagine they had their own friends as I had mine. Of course, they were 5 and 4 years older. All of us had organ lessons, but I was the only one who took lessons for over one year. My…
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