A formal reception took place soon after in Amsterdam and sometime later the Reformed (Gereformeerde) congregation Pa  served in Middelburg in the southern province of Zeeland, arranged for a festive occasion to celebrate his achievement.    A congratulatory letter from Queen Wilhelmina's private secretary crowned the event.

The photo above partially records the local congregation's feast.   Aside from the church caretaker, a few friends, and a sister-in-law, he is surrounded by the immediate family:   daughter Helen (by the shoulder at his left), sons John, Bert, and Neal, our mother, Tine, and me on her lap.   It is said that in this pose, Ma's gown became wet because Pampers had not yet created effective absorbent baby diapers in that early post war period!

By contrast, on my father's lap is a dry bound copy of his thesis, the material outcome of academic labours carried out during the Nazi German occupation of our house, city, province, and nation from 1940.   Zeeland was liberated by British and Canadian forces in the November of 1944 after the dykes of Walcheren Island were bombed inundating the island and blocking German troop movements in the area.   During the occupation, curfews had kept locals captive in their homes, thereby curtailing all after-dark church meetings.   This allowed Pa to study, research (including ways of informing the resistance patriots), and write to complete his thesis by the end of 1945.  Once liberated, he was free to research as necessary, including in England.

Each of the children received a bound, hardcover copy of the thesis in January of 1950.   Mine sat on a shelf for the bulk of my lifetime - occasionally brought out as a trophy of parental achievement.   It was only about 65 years later that I actually read the whole volume.   Happily there had been another major opportunity to appreciate the unread thesis.   

This happened in early 1974.   My spouse Glenys and I were travelling in southern India and visited the United Theological Seminary in Bangalore.   There we met and were given a guided tour by Mrs. Adiappa, the then librarian of the school.  Mentioning my family name, her eyes lit up and asked, are you related to the Oussoren who wrote about William Carey.   It could not be denied.   She said that the thesis was prized in her school so much so that she had traveled specifically to Serampore in northern India to hand-copy parts of the thesis for students at UTS to use in their studies.   Was there a chance to get a copy of the work for UTS students to use?   Indeed there was.   Subsequently we sent two copies for her to include in the UTS library and later established a fund in Pa's name to award a prize to proficient students.

It was not the thesis that moved my brother John and me to continue in our father's footsteps as ordained ministers of The United Church of Canada.   But whatever motivated us, there is no doubt that something of our father's ways - thinking, believing, acting - played in our minds and hearts as we responded to our calls and plotted academic tracks.   We were in a sense recipients of the "paradosis"  - the handing on of a heritage of faith and theology vocationally affirmed by ordination.    But we also pursued the academic researching, thinking part in our own pursuits of doctoral studies.

For my part, I focused on Practical Theology, rooted in congregational ministries. My thesis was sparked by an increasingly urgent question: what underlies the decision of people to want their children baptized when they have little or no commitment to the faith or mission of the Christian community?   Both Glenys and I registered in separate doctoral programs at the University of Geneva, Switzerland in 1978. By 1983, my course work, exams, and a thesis entitled "Becoming Christian: Towards a Normative Baptismal Practice" were completed (in English) and defended (in French) for the Doctor of Theology degree.

The point of all this is to signal the beginning of a series of blog posts that engage in a loving, critical dialogue between my father's theological work and where I am now as a retired pastor/theologian. Shaped in large measure by our wildly different contexts, what can still be affirmed and what must be transcended in order to continue to be faithful companions and friends of Jesus Christ in a pluralistic world?