ChezSlaughterBlog

Watoto Children’s Choir Comes To Brussels

We organized a weekend of concerts in February featuring the Watoto Children's choir from Uganda. The 28-member choir presented two concerts to more than 1,000 people with a Sunday morning concert for Christian Center, and a Sunday evening concert for the public.  Just before the evening concert, we hosted a reception for the diplomatic community and Watoto Choir, with the Ambassador of Uganda as the guest of honor.

See a few photos and videos below or click the 'Watoto' image at left to see our Watoto photo album.

 

Watoto Children's Choir is Coming

Last fall, Kathy and I attended the Hillsongs London Conference and discovered the Watoto Children's Choir from Uganda. We were amazed at this energetic choir and were excited to learn they were planning a tour on continental Europe. We have them coming Saturday, February 16 for a concert organized by the Ugandan Embassy and then a citywide concert at Christian Center on February 17.

If you've never heard the choir, go to www.youtube.com and type in Watoto Children's choir. You'll enjoy them.

Jeff Attends Ministry Com Conference in USA

Jeff attended the 3rd annual Ministry Communications Conference in Nashville last week. This conference has grown from 125 to 400 attendees in just three years. The conference covered the gamut of ministry and church communications issues including general sessions and workshops from top ministry communication professionals. General sessions focused on key broad topics including "Brand Schizophrenia,", and "A Matter of Message", "Everybody Doesn't Hate You...It Just Feels Like It". Workshops featured topics from writing, graphic design, and communicating to a multi-cultural audience to branding, video production and crisis communications. For more information about this great conference go to: www.ministrycom.org

Christian Center Choir Sings ‘Amen’

Jeff directed the 40-voice Christian Center worship choir in two outreach concerts June 3 featuring the gospel musical ‘Amen’, written by Geron Davis. More than 800 attended the concerts which celebrated God’s goodness, faithfulness and victory. The choir also presented selections from the musical at an "International Family Festival" outreach event sponsored by Christian Center on June 23.

Au Revoir McClaves

Our dear friends, Dan & Christin McClave, and their two boys, Aiden & Torin left Brussels on December 4 after five years of living and working in Belgium. We threw them an Au Revoir reception after church on the 3rd to thank them for their contributions to Christian Center during their tenure here, including involvement in the worship department and youth program. Kayleigh has babysat for the McClaves for years (including attending their children while on vacation with them in London and Italy) and will be spending June and July with them in Philadelphia next summer, helping Christin after she has their third child. Au Revoir McClave Family! Come back and visit soon!

Christmas Is Coming

We were blessed recently to have our friend Steve Thompson from England in Brussels to coach our choir for a session as we prepare for our annual Christmas program. As always, Steve was fun and engaging as he urged the choir to "sing it like they mean it". (Photo at left: Steve's friend Colin, myself, and Steve). This year, we have two other Belgian choirs joining us for our Christmas musical which we are touring with in as many as six concerts in Brussels, Rhode-St-Genese, Mouscron and Tournai, Belgium. We liked our Christmas music from last year so much that we are repeating it this year. Called, "Sing Joy", the gospel musical was written by Geron Davis, author of "Holy Ground" and many other great songs. If you'd like to sing some joy with us, click on the following link and have a listen to the songs at: www.jjonline.com/catalog/productPage.php?productID=17936. Until next time, Jeff & Kathy

Broadmoor Serves The City

An incredible team of 25 volunteers from Broadmoor Baptist Church came to Brussels July 2-10 to participate in "Serve The City" projects by day and Christian Center's "Summer Family Week" by night. This team went from "can to can't" as they got up each morning, shopped, made their own lunches and divided into several day ministry teams to do "Serve The City" (STC) projects. STC is a citywide ministry initiative headed by a new church in Brussels called "The Well". Broadmoor and members of Christian Center joined together to do odd jobs at a local orphanage, help with a Vacation Bible School at an Arabic church in Brussels, minister to inner-city kids through basketball and soccer camps, and deliver 12,000 flyers in mailboxes for a church plant in north Brussels. And that was just during the day! At night, the team converged on Christian Center to offer something for everyone at "Summer Family Week". The children attended Vacation Bible School, while the Youth participated in Teen Mania events and the parents attended "Parent Talk" classes. The week was filled with lots of memorable moments, one-on-one talks and connection points between team members, people in the city, and at the church. Both Brussels and Christian Center were blessed by this team! Thanks for coming Broadmoor and thanks to your missions committee and church for supporting your trip! See you next year!