Yay! We FINISHED! Last year, for Christmas, Jelle gave me a blog course by Jeff Goins. And this summer we have been working on it in the wee hours of the day. Hiding from the heat, outside, working on the blog course, inside. We learned a lot, Jelle fixed everything behind the scenes. Thank you, Jelle!…

Here we go: September has arrived. Laurens went for the first time to the Croatian school, and we do school at home with the girls, online. We are pretty proud of Laurens, speaking three languages fluently, while we are still struggling when conversations get more complicated. Also, we are a bit impressed by the girls’…

One of our Roma friends talks about being rejected: When I graduated I was employed at the state hospital at the intensive care unit, everything was fine until the moment (..) they found out that I was a Roma. I noticed that they began to behave differently towards me, more negativity in the sense that they…

Marijke and Judith both found lovely opportunities for summer jobs in the Netherlands. It was their first time flying together. Jelle brought the girls to the Budapest airport, and Jelle’s dad received them in Eindhoven (NL). Judith worked at a blueberry farm, and Marijke worked with granddad at the Free University of Amsterdam. It was…

As you might remember, Fanny Bernitez, and I hosted the last silence/writing retreat in Hungary two months ago. We got to know each other last year at the conference in Germany, and we do have a few things in common, like a love for our homes as well as being a mom and having a…

“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Blaise Pascal This is one of Jelle’s  favorite quotes. No wonder: He loves doing just that. So, that is how we spent our first day of holiday. The next day, though, we traveled from Szentistvan to the South of Slovakia…

“This week changed my perspective on missions forever!¨ was the reply from one of our guests last week. We had a team of more than 30 people of quite a few nationalities: a lovely group of young Americans, a few Serbs, Croats, Roma, and us, the Dutch family. We did Una Bible Club in two…

Again we challenged the border police lately. This time with crossing the border with a car full of 8 women. 3 of them were having the same name: Maria Hendrika. (Marleen, Maaike en Marijke) Early June we had a special family time. I asked Maaike, (my sisters daughter) to write about it and this is…

It is not the first time, and hopefully not the last time either, that Sheridan Voysey wrote some wise words: ” I’ve found that a small retreat is often disproportionately more powerful for attendees. I pray it’s a powerful retreat and that God meets every person in a unique and powerful way!” This was in…

31 days of love, life and happiness, except for that day that the lid of the teapot, that we have since our marriage, scattered on the floor, but well, what can I say? That is nothing when I compare it with all the precious moments that this month has given.