M & M in Suriname

We enjoyed our weeks in Lawa. It was very nice to meet the people again and hear their stories.

Our view at the end of the afternoon

Picture moment

In the past 12 1/2 years that we have been living here, we have never seen the river this low due to the extremely dry ‘dry season’.  This has many negative consequences for the people: the cassava on their farm land has hardly grown, all food and fuel for the outboard motors must be delivered by air. As a result, prices have skyrocketed. For example, 20 liters of petrol for the outboard motor costs 120 euros in a village 3 hours downstream. The store near Lawa has run out of gasoline. A trip downstream now costs at least 240 euros. Fortunately, various organizations and private individuals support the Wayana communities by sending in rice by air.

It recently started to rain every day again and we see the water level slowly rising. We hope that prices will then drop back to the previous rates.

Meeting with the church leaders for the 2025 plans

Cross-cultural working requires a lot of flexibility. We had discussed in advance with one of the church leaders whether our arrival was suitable because we wanted to talk about the plans for future ministry in Canada. We want to know the vision of the Wayana churchleaders in this matter. It is finally Friday afternoon, December 13th. when we managed to speak to the church board.

Saturday morning, December 14th. we had a church-wide leadership meeting about the planning and the budget for 2025. We enjoy seeing the younger leaders take the lead.

Result

Explaining this telephone

half hour walk in the early morning, stretching the legs

goodbye in church

It was very nice to spend a few days with Anneke in Lawa, share things together and look ahead.

Marjoleins dad left a few days earlier

On Monday, December 16, we boarded the plane back to Paramaribo.

We have now been in our house in Republiek for a week. Tomorrow we celebrate Christmas with Elsbeth and her family. Very special that her grandfather can be with us this year.

Christmas shopping

Lights of the season

We are also planning for 2025. We look forward to what the new year will bring.

After 7 wonderful weeks in the Netherlands and surrounding areas, we landed safely in Suriname last week. It was very nice to meet a lot of people and see how they are doing. On Friday, November 8, during our fundraising dinner we briefly reflected on the fact that we left for Suriname with our 3 children 35 years ago. It was so nice to review some photos from the past.

This week is filled with preparations for our trip to Lawa next Tuesday. The boxes with groceries are filling up steadily. Preparations are also underway for the first Foundations for Farming introductory training at the expertise center in the making on Friday 22 and Saturday 23 November.

We have had several rain showers last week, but it is still very dry inland. This means that the water level is so low that Chinese supermarkets can no longer be supplied. This means that the Wayana cannot buy rice. Next Friday, MAF will fly a plane full rice to Lawa. Other organizations are also working on food aid since the drought also affects the growth of the cassava.

Suriname celebrates its Independence Day on Monday November 25 and the next day we fly to Lawa. We hope to be there until December 16th. We look forward to meeting the people again. To hear from Ame and Susina how their English is going. To learn from municipal leaders what plans they have for next year. We would also like to hear from them how they plan to move forward with their vision to reach out to the First Nations in Canada. And we would like to learn how we can support them.

At the end of October, a whole group of Wayana and Tareno planned to go to Brazil for 3 months to evangelize and encourage the churches in the Amazon jungle. Due to the presence of soldiers in the area they plan to go, they have not yet left. There is no clarity yet on when they will be able to go, so everyone in the group is ‘stand by’.

Recently, a great project was started via Trans World Radio (TWR) to build two local radio stations in the interior of Suriname. Trio programs will soon be produced in Tepu and broadcasted, in Apetina Wayana programs. The studios have been built, the antennas are now being installed, charged by solar panels. Tom Schoen, whose father translated the Wayana Bible, grew up in Apetina as a child. He now works for TWR to supervise this project. This video beautifully portrays their family history.

Last night Marjolein’s mother passed away.

We already said goodbye several times, knowing that she was living in the last phase of her life among us. We believe that she is now with her Heavenly Father and that when our time comes we will see her again.

We will stay in the Netherlands for a little bit more than three weeks and then fly back to Trinidad to complete our tasks here.

We plan to be back in Suriname at the end of July.

Time flies when you’re having fun!

In April, we spent two weeks in the Netherlands for Marjolein’s father’s 90th birthday. It is very special to still have him with us and being able to celebrate this with the direct family.

Together with a Dutch missionary who has been working in India for years, Marco was invited to present an introduction on “Trends in Mission” for ‘MissieNederland’ – a network of Mission Agencies in the Netherlands.

A special detail was that Marjolein remembered this missionary’s name from her teenage years. In the car on our way to the meeting she asked him about it. He asked if Marjolein’s father had been imprisoned in a Japanese POW camp, for then he was thinking about that very same family. When Marjolein confirmed this, he shared some things from his childhood, which Marjolein shared with her father at his request. This way the circle became complete again. Very special to experience how an unexpected conversation turned out to bring things together from long ago!

Pacific coast in Lima

17.000.000 People

From the Netherlands, Amsterdam is a great starting point for travel to Peru. KLM provides a 12-hour direct flight to Lima. From Paramaribo, this would require several layovers, making it more cumbersome and often more expensive. As we write this, we are spending 5 weeks in Peru, visiting several projects and locations.

Last week we had a team training for World Team’s workers among the 200,000 Chinese in Lima. This was a good, intensive week since we work with a multicultural group of colleagues. As we keep experiencing, communication then needs extra attention. Getting to know each other’s culture takes time. That is why we are happy to have some follow-up meetings in the coming weeks to further build relationships within the group and their vision for this work.

Last Sunday, the Chinese association in Lima already celebrated Mother’s Day. As the only non-Chinese, we were allowed to attend. Quite a spectacle with a lion dance and lots of gifts handed out via a tombola.

This week we visit Pucallpa, a city of some 350,000 people, on behalf of Foundations for Farming. We are conducting training at a rehabilitation center for former addicts. Some 100 boys/men and 20 girls/women are now in the program. The founder of this work has been homeless and addicted himself, but he was saved by God. Our hearts broke when we saw some boys and girls the age of our grandchildren! What a different world. Our hearts overflow with gratitude when we see the opportunities our (grand)children have. We enjoy the privilege of sharing God’s message of hope also very practically with this farming method in this facility.

Arrival in Apetina

“You are here again. How nice”

“We thought you had gone back to your own country.”

“Did you bring, soap, toothpaste, batteries, reading glasses and more?”

Just a few greetings when the hatches opened at our house. For us, it was wonderful to be back in Apetina after a year. The cleaning of the house went faster than expected. Very nice. Because of the arrival of the MAF crew of four who stayed overnight, one day after we arrived in Apetina, we also had to speed up the cleaning.

MAF crew in the house. Tom Schoen came over for a visit.

They brought a lot of fun and for us it was nice to be able to be hospitable to them for once. Next Wednesday we will even have 6 MAF people visiting us. They will be halfway through the two-day shuttle to fly the Bible school students back to their villages. This time we are better prepared. We pre-cooked cassava fries yesterday. There are several pieces of meat and fish in the freezer, so a nice meal should be arranged in no time now.

Students in the Weejo Bibleschool

Speaking of the freezer. The village generator has been broken since last November. That’s how long the whole village has been without power. We are extra grateful that our solar system is still doing well and providing us with power. By now, with a number of replacements, the system has also been running for 12 years.

Let’s first DO beads

Too little rain has fallen for months. This means that cassava, the Wajana’s main food, is not growing well. Many people have little to eat, besides the fish and meat they catch and hunt. This also means that there is less cassava to make drinks from…. from our point of view, a positive development caused in unpleasant circumstances.

Long waited for … RAIN

Last Saturday, a government crew came to visit Apetina to register the names of the children, for child benefits, of the elderly, for their elderly support benefits and of the people with disabilities for their benefits. They were staying with our neighbors, so we could enjoy all the fun. This registration started Sunday morning so we saw very few people in church.

This week the church started practicing in the afternoon for the Easter Conference. All the songs resound through the village. The girls and women are practicing the dances so it will be nice in sync next week.

Kids built Helicopters out of Duplo

Good Friday a MAF family will fly our way to celebrate Easter here with us and the village. Easter Monday we will then fly back to town together.

Since a week we are back in Lawa again. It is so good to see familiar faces and hear people’s stories. On the first Sunday of the year Marco was invited to share Gods Word in church. Since ‘Foundations are Forever’ he was asked to make a number of schedules in our computer for sermons, cleaning the church, etc..

Yesterday a team of elders returned from visiting the Trio village of Kwamala. They were there to support the church leadership during the preparations for Christmas and New Year’s Eve. We are curious about their stories. It is quite an undertaking for them: first by plane to Paramaribo, spend a few nights there and do some shopping. Then take the plane to Kwamala. After 3 weeks or a month, the entire journey takes place in reverse order. The costs for such a trip are also quite high. We salute them as they arrange this all among themselves.

Marjolein arrived last week after hurting her back. A few days of rest in the hammock and some Paracetamol served her well. Fortunately, she was able to lead the Bible study for the women last Thursday. Wonderful to notice that her Wayana appears again effortlessly. She will also give another study for the women next week. Since Marjolein would like to listen to the studies that the Wayana women give, she was discussing her role in this… Then two women came asking if Marjolein would train them to also bring God’s Word. This will start next Monday. These are moments that make you very happy!

We were also able to have a Board meeting with the elders of Lawa. They now plan a river-wide elders meeting on Saturday, January 20, to discuss the church plans for 2024. This concerns planning for the church-wide celebrations and the budget that each village has to contribute. We see a huge difference in planning compared to ten years ago.

Then will also be decided who will be the new students of the Bible school in the interior. It is very special that the Chief of both the Trio and the Wayana will enlist. If everything works according to plan the first module will be taught March 18 – 28, 2024.

It is great to see that Anneke Kempeneers, who now lives in the mission house in Lawa, has mastered many skills. To the Wayana’s surprise, she mows the lawn with the lawn mower and bush cutter. That’s a man’s job here. Well Anneke stands her ground!

Last Friday we loomed with some teenage girls. That caused a lot of pleasant chatter. At the end of the evening, we practiced English together. It is still difficult to ask a question or give an answer. Saturday the English as a Second Language class was online with the teacher from Calgary. It is currently -34 degrees Celsius there. For us, we can’t imagine this kind of temperature! It is very special that Marilynne has been freeing up an hour every Saturday for two years now to teach Ame and Susina and Ipomadi and Melissa.

This year we celebrate Christmas with our youngest daughter and her family in Paramaribo. For the first time in years we are not celebrating the birth of Jesus together with the Wayana in Lawa or Apetina. We see the necessary preparations taking place via Facebook. For example, an elder from Apetina went by boat to Albina, a town on the coast, to do Christmas shopping for the community meals during Christmas. We were able to help him purchase some of the groceries in Paramaribo. This shopping costs him about a week of travel time. Just a different perspective on the long lines at the checkout 😉.

Our health is well. That’s something we’re very grateful for. The vulnerability of Marjolein’s mother remains a point of prayer. Fortunately, we know that she and Marjolein’s father are safe in God’s loving hands.

Marjolein has recently given very special answers to questions from Marco. Given the fact that her father and his sisters all wear hearing aids, reason for an appointment with the ENT specialist. Last Tuesday we were told that she indeed suffers from hearing loss. It is her choice whether she wants to start with hearing aids or whether she wants to wait a little longer.

During our time in the Netherlands, Marjolein had already started translating some parts of the interviews that were made in 2022 with the Wayanas in Canada. She was 4/5 of the way through, when her iPad crashed. An attempt was made to remove the documents from the machine. Unfortunately, that did not work out. She hopes to have all parts translated in the coming weeks, so that the video maker can continue with his work. Fortunately, Marco also has an iPad and she uses that one now.

House, garden and kitchen

We get up early every morning and then spend more than an hour removing weeds from the creek. Now that the long dry season has ended and the rains are bringing in the water again, it is a race against time to scoop out all the grass and the thick layer of leaves at the bottom before the creek is completely full. The materials are good to build a compost heap and we use the leaf layer to raise the garden floor. The sand in the creek comes from the garden, so we will have to do this more often in the future. At the same time, this is a nice work-out.

We just got started here

After a few days we see nice results

We have also been busy further organizing the kitchen cabinets. Here and there a shelf to put things on. The new doors and drawer finally got a coat of paint. The other doors are also due. The kitchen looks like new again.

Foundations for Farming Suriname meeting

The last few weeks, we worked hard to prepare everything for establishing a Service and Training Center of Foundations for Farming on the premises of the Lob Makandra foundation. We received a contribution from EO Metterdaad, in the Netherlands, to finance the first phase of this project. First, the road to the entrance of the site was constructed. This required a number of culverts to be placed in a drainage canal. The road was extended over this to the entrance of the site.

Then we had to find out whether or not the dam on which we planned to build a driveway would be strong enough to fulfill its purpose. Fortunately, that turned out to be the case. Immediately after the machines had done their work, we were able to drive the car over the dam without any problems. The first part of the plot then was scraped in such a way that excess rainwater would run to one side.

The first test fields were set out last week. We will cover the fields with a layer of ‘mulch’ to ensure that no weeds can grow. We will then plant/sow the fields to demonstrate the effect of the principles we will train here.

Friday, December 8 was marked by a special meeting on the site with more than thirty interested participants. We invited pastors from churches and a number of government representatives. The Minister of Territorial Planning also came especially, to hear about our plan.

The many questions that were asked after the three presentations showed that there was great interest. The question also came up how quickly we can start our training. People see the usefulness of what Foundations for Farming has to offer and would like to participate in the training that is (still) in the preparation phase.

Christmas

We would like to thank you very much for making the work at the Wayana’s possible this year through prayer and financial support.

We wish you all a Merry Christmas and a hopeful 2024.

The suitcases are packed. The last shopping has been done, including seasonal goodies and a Christmas loaf that will go into the freezer for another month in Suriname 😁.

We are very grateful that Marco is doing so well. The blood thinners have dissolved the clots and the support stocking should prevent clots from occurring again. We bought compression stockings for flying. Despite the fact that we have been flying regularly for years, that idea had not occurred to us. You’re never too old to learn!

We have used the last few extra weeks to visit Marjolein’s parents a few more times, see other family members, enjoy autumn (although the many rain showers did get in the way of walks), and assist our son a few times in his building project.

As much rain as has fallen in the Netherlands this past month, so little has fallen in the entire Amazon region for months. The people have been praying for rain for months because the Wayana and Trio now have to use river water for drinking. We hear of (children with) diarrhea and vomiting symptoms. One of the elders of Apetina called us to ask for intercession for his youngest son who is very ill due to these symptoms. Last Wednesday they flew with the MAF to Paramaribo, where mother and son are now in a hospital.

Our daughter Elisabeth told us that it is raining today in Paramaribo and we hope that this is also the case in the interior of Suriname.

Tomorrow, Saturday, November 18, we will be in the car to Schiphol at 5.30 am. If all goes well, our plane will take off at 8:45 am. We look forward to meeting everyone again on the other side of the ocean!

There are days when it seems like your heart isn’t big enough to contain all the joy. Last October 8 was such a day for us. Our grandson Jayden was baptized and Marco, as grandfather, was given the honor to serve in the baptism. For us another sign of God’s faithfulness through the generations.

Every time we enjoy to connect with the Wayanas deep in the interior when on leave. We keep well informed of important developments. For example, on October 17 we heard from Johan from Apetina that the Grand Chief of the Wayanas at the Tapanahony river had passed away at the age of 85. Nuwahe Aptuk leaves a great legacy to his tribe: the Bible (all 66 books) in their own language! From the beginning of the translation process he has been involved as the helper of the translator, Ivan Schoen. It is their life’s work. What a privilege that we were able to attend the official ceremony in Apetina at the time!

“Things change” a famous poet in the Netherlands, Joost van den Vondel, said centuries ago. We experienced that last week Monday when our lives suddenly became all about visiting the medical doctor, having blood samples taken and a lung photo taken in a local hospital. After the results reached the doctor, an emergency visit was strongly adviced to the ER in Ede a few hours later. The outcome is that Marco has a thrombosis in his left knee and, given the severe shortness of breath during exertion, also a pulmonary embolism. The treatment has started immediately on Monday evening with blood thinners. We were also told that Marco is not allowed to fly for at least 2 weeks.

We have now rescheduled our flight to Paramaribo to November 18. We are extremely grateful for this quick diagnosis and the adequate and pleasant treatment from doctors and nurses.

In our previous blog we wrote that we would travel to Suriname again on August 26. That was over 3 weeks ago.

This time saying goodbye to our (grand)children was not so difficult. It looked like we were going on holiday to Suriname for a month. That holiday didn’t happen, because there was and still is plenty to do: check-ups with the dermatologist and dentist, visits to family and friends on this side of the ocean and the necessary online meetings. We also spent hours in the garden battling the weeds. We hired an expert to cut down a number of dead trees before one of them would fall on our roof or the neighbors’ roof in a flying storm. We felt some tension about the outcome, but the trees were pulled in the right direction and fell just right. In our home Marco has  installed three kitchen drawers and a new toilet.

Carefull nothing falls the wrong direction here

In Suriname the main holiday period is from mid-August to early October. We went to Commewijne for a day out with our daughter and her family. Canoeing together on the Peperpot plantation, walking to the lookout tower, which has unfortunately already been overtaken in height by a number of giant trees, drinking coffee together with a delicious syrup waffle baked in Suriname and then eating the famous saoto soup in Tamanredjo. We enjoyed it all, but most of all each others company.

Cannoe ride in Peperpot Plantation

We have been making several phone calls to the Netherlands to arrange our appointments for the month of October.

figuring out the right size here

This week we give another training for Foundations for Farming near Paramaribo on the premises of Lob Makandra in Santopolder. Very rewarding to do.

Using wood we cut down to make a rack for garbage on the side of the road

This coming weekend we will look after our daughter’s 7 dogs, so she is able to go away for a few days with her family. We use those days to visit some friends in the city.

Monday morning 25/9 we were able to make an appointment with our dermatologist on her first day after her holiday. After our appointment we will travel on to the airport to fly to the Netherlands.

Marco will fly to Singapore on 29/9 for the annual meetings with the directors of World Team.