Roodeschool Ho!

This morning we went to church in Groningen. Another one of those really old huge churches with a wonderful organ. After that we went to Roodeschool to visit with some of the Sikkema family there. It was really neat to see Oma Sikkema and Oom Maarten and tante Janny and Gerrit and Elies and the kids along with some other family. We went to church in the newly renovated Roodeschool church building in the afternoon. What a beautiful job they did. The acoustics are wonderful in that church so it was a real pleasure to sing there. On the way home there was a torrential downpour and we could hardly see the roads. A much welcomed rainstorm as it has been very hot and dry here for a long time.

Kabouterland Ho!

Today we went to Kabouterland. But first this morning I went on the bike grocery shopping. When you shop in such a way you must always remember to only buy as much as you can fit into your bike bag and carry on your handlebars. While waiting for my sister-in-law I observed a mother and daughter exit the grocery store with a cart laden with groceries. One would assume with such a load that they would have a car... not so, they managed to pack everything into their two bike bags and bags they hung over the handle bars over a period of about 15 minutes. Fascinating to watch...
Anyways, after lunch we went to Kabouterland. It is a family attraction in a far off (45 min away) village. This is a place where gnomes and trolls are the main attraction. You can walk around the park and view live animals such as foxes and owls and mice etc.. and also view displays made up with gnomes and trolls some underground displays as well. There were also a couple very nice playgrounds, always a hit with the kids. It was a neat little place to spend an afternoon in. Our kids also had their first taste of poffertjes. Tiny little pancake like thingies. By the speed at which they were inhaled, I would say they really like them.
Last night we were able to visit with Betty Bosma, formerly Nauta, and her husband Marco. Betty lived in Surrey for a year while working for the Schoen's. It was really neat to catch up with her again and finally meet her husband.

Cultural Experience....

Today I enjoyed a cross-cultural experience. What to millions of dutch people is a very normal thing to do, is for millions of others a special experience. Today my lovely sister-in-law Mathilde took me to down town Groningen. We went by bike. Together we navigated the narrow streets of this ancient dutch city bumping over cobblestones as we went. Many buildings downtown were built before 1500. Coming from a country that was formed in 1867, this is very special to see indeed. We shopped and biked and had a nice dinner on the upper terrace of a very large multi-floored department store. We biked through a very old rose garden and over canals and beside ancient churches. Thankfully, due to the heat that Holland has been experiencing, it was not very busy in the city. I say this as it had been a very long time since I had ridden a bike. I wasn't sure I would be able to avoid hitting anyone if it was very busy. Never mind the incredible saddle sores I'm left with as a memory of our memorable evening out together.... Meanwhile our wonderful husbands stayed home with the kids and ate a traditional dutch meal of pannekoeken. (I think there were some videos involved as well...)

Fun in the Sun!

We are now able to blog again after a week of not being able to access the internet while "camping". We are now in Groningen visiting Hugo's brother Luuk and his wife Mathilde and their four kids. We just spent a week camping in Den Helder. It wasn't really camping as we were staying in a cute little green log cabin with two tiny bedrooms and a main room for everything else. We did have to walk to the washrooms though, so that makes it qualify for camping status.... We had a really nice time there and on saturday there was a bit of an open house for people to come and meet us. That was nice and afterward it poured and poured. From then on it was nice hot weather again. Sunday we met some more old friends and relatives as well. Yesterday we went to the beach there by the ocean. It was beautiful. There was just the right amount of wind so that it wasn't so hot and the water was a great temperature. Today we drove 2 hours to get here in Groningen. It is very hot here as well. I think we are going swimming tomorrow... The bathing suits and towels are getting quite a workout here...

Fun in Holland

Well, we're now four days into our four week trip to Holland. We've had some fun already. On Monday I went shopping with Mom and experienced what it was like to shop in Holland. A lot of little containers... People here don't have the behemoth fridges and freezers that we in North America have. So they shop more often in smaller quantities. Tuesday Mom took Mikah, Christiaan and I to the market in downtown Enschede. It was a real cross-cultural experience, especially when we had a bite to eat at McDonalds.... The fresh fish, fruit, veggies, cheese and such stands are neat to check out with the sellers calling out to shoppers to come and buy. We also took public transportation to get there. It is very efficient here and it is quite easy to get around without a car. In the afternoons we went to the campground where mom and dad are staying and went for a swim in the pool there. Very refreshing as it has been very hot here. Well over 30 degrees each day. Today we went to a little petting zoo that is in a fairly large park with paths and a playground and a man-made pond complete with a fountain in the middle and a black swan. Mikah was very impressed to see a black swan. Aidan got sick on the way home of course and lost his picnic lunch by the side of the road (thankfully not in the van we are borrowing.) Unfortunately this van has no airconditioning and only the front two windows open. So we're starting to prepare ourselves for Indonesia already...
All in all things are going quite well. We're still jet lagging a bit and having a bit of fun adjusting to the time change. Hugo and I are having a bit of a hard time falling asleep at a reasonable hour. We'll get there though...

We made it! To Holland that is...

We were picked up by the Airport shuttle at 12:30, of course a half hour earlier than they had said. So we quickly got loaded up, as quickly as you can load up 11 rubbermaid totes, 4 suitcases, 5 backpacks, one pack'n play, 2 strollers, 3 car seats and 7 people... There were 2 vans in case you were wondering.... The first photo is of the kids and our stuff just after we arrived at Vancouver airport.
We had an uneventful flight to Heathrow. Aidan didn't sleep a wink until we landed because he was too busy watching cartoons. At Heathrow, we were supposed to have a relatively short layover, but it turned into 6 hours of complete and utter boredom and hunger (it did help to have 2 gamboys and a stack of comics with us). We moved three times (and had to wake up Aidan each time) because first we didn't know which gate we would have to go to, then we found out which one and then just before we were to board, they changed it again and we had to walk to a shuttle bus and go on the plane the old fashioned way. Thankfully the crew were very helpful as we lugged 2 small suitcases, 3 backpacks, 2 duffle bags, 1 diaper bag, 2 strollers, a car seat and five kids throughout the airport and up the stairs of the plane. After a very short flight during which all the kids except Marc slept, we arrived in Schiphol (where we had to wake up Aidan again). We deplaned with a lot of help again and went to pick up our luggage. We were the last to get there so there was only our stuff and one lonely suitcase on the carousel. Of course, we were missing one of our 14 pieces of luggage. So I went into the line-up, I guess we weren't the only ones to be missing stuff, and waited for my turn. Meanwhile the Feunekes family had already seen us and knew that we just had to get our luggage. When I was near the end of my turn, the missing suitcase turned up as it had been sent on the next flight. Thank-you! So we managed to push our three loaded luggage carts and two strollers through the exit and into the waiting arms of the Feunekes relatives. The whole family except Arjen and Renate and kids made it to meet us! After an extremely pricey bite to eat from the Burger King, we loaded up the trailer that Dad had rented for our stuff and off we went for the two hour drive home. By the time we arrived at mom and dad Feunekes' it was just after midnight. So we got the kids off to bed and by 2:00 we were all sleeping. (big sigh) The worst is over. We've left the country and we've packed all our stuff. Yippeee!!! Our journey has officially begun! Today we heard a sermon about how Satan tempted Christ and how he does the same to us all the time. What a treat to worship in an over 100 year old church! Beautiful!



This is a photo of the kids at Heathrow, not looking so perky as at the beginning of our flight....

Still packing....

It feels like the whole packing thing will never ever end... Of course it has to as we are being picked up Friday at 1:00, but it seems to take forever....

See photo for more info on that....

Had to say good-bye to more family today. We've never had to say good-bye knowing that, the Lord willing, it will be 3.5 years before we'll see eachother again. Thankfully it's not like 60 years ago when families immigrated from Holland to Canada. When they stepped on the boat to go they thought they'd never see their families again. Today we can stay in almost constant contact if we want. Even going to the Mission field nowadays is different. There's email access virtually anywhere. It's not like the old days where once a month or less a plane came by and dropped a mail bag out. However, electronic contact is still not the same as personal face to face communication. But, we'll take it anyway!

P.S. Mikah now says that she 70% wants to go and 30% wants to stay... One of her reasons for wanting to go was because you can see neat fish in the wild in Indonesia....

Back in the Valley...

We are back in the Fraser Valley again. Over the past week Marc asked a few times if we could go home. It really made it sink in that we don't have a home right now. We are of no fixed address and will be so for the next while. But if you really get down to it, home is where your family is.
We had a good time with family this past weekend. It was hard to say good-bye, not knowing when we will see eachother again. But we can take comfort in the fact that one day regardless of what happens we will all be together in heaven with our heavely Father. Our life here is just temporary.
So now we get down to the nitty gritty stuff, the last little details. Pray for us that we will get everything together in time.


My parents, two sisters and a brother posing with our kids and my sisters little girl Iris(wearing the yellow shirt in the wagon).

We are back in contact...

We're back from camping. We smell a little smoky, we're all a little red in parts but we had a great time. We survived very well in the tent trailer, although that is thanks in part to Mom Moesker taking Brynne from Wednesday to Friday.
This camping trip Aidan learned the art of peeing in the lake without pulling his bathing suit down, Marc hasn't learned that art yet.... "It's like a water fall Mommy!" he says... Mikah learned how to do hand stands in the water... we had to watch like, hundreds of them and grade her on them...
The kids made some new friends. Particularly the kids of the D. Flokstra family! Keep in touch eh?
It's good to be back with the rest of the world. It felt a little strange not to be able to check email or read the news on the internet for a whole 4.5 days... Sad eh?
The Lord willing we will spend this weekend in Vernon and head back to Aldergrove on Monday where we'll tie up any loose ends that need tying before we fly out on Friday.

Tonight we did our final presentation on MAF and our role with them here in Vernon. Had a small but very interested group of people come out. Now we can give away all our artifacts from Papua. Anyone need a gourd? A grass skirt? Some pig tusks for in the nose?
Tomorrow it's off to Ellison park we go. The kids are very excited to go camping. Hugo and I are wondering how it will go with all 7 of us under the roof of one tent trailer....

Vernon Ho!

We're posting from beautiful, sweltering Vernon now. We packed up our van with all the kids, some clothes and Erica's wedding dress.... and drove to Vernon. We'll spend some time with the Moesker family and do some camping. So our house is empty and the new tenants have the keys. During our purge we took almost 2 tons of junk to the dump !?? Didn't know we had that much unnecessary stuff hanging around....
Today Grandpa Moesker asked Mikah what she liked about Indonesia. She said that she liked that you could catch goldfish in the wild there... huh?? Wonder where that came from? The other day she told me that she 60% wanted to go and 40% wanted to stay, but she did acknowledge that actually she has no say in the matter...
It's July 1st so the countdown is on, exactly 2 weeks until fly date...
Happy Canada Day! God keep our land!!
Or as Marc says, "Oh Canada we stand on guard for me!"