We are already a few weeks further since our last publication on our blog at the end of March. A lot has happened in the past few weeks. In the first place there was the Easter conference in Apetina. Like every year, this was a great celebration with many guests from villages along the river. For many in the village it was a long-awaited reunion with family and friends. Four canoes full of visitors came upstream from Tepu and Palumeu.

Five large aluminum boats came from the Lawa with people from Awarahpan. They arrived within only a few minutes apart so that the choir from the church and the reception committee had to quickly walk over the rocks to the other side of the village immediately after the arrival of one group in order to receive the second wave of visitors. It turned out to be a great weekend with a number of meetings in church every day, eating together and in the evening exchanging what had happened in everyone’s lives.

In order to be back in town in time for our next trip, we wanted to leave Apetina right after the conference. We learned that during the conference a group from the Medical Mission came to the village to investigate the state of affairs regarding malaria. They like to take advantage of these conferences to meet many people in a village having their blood samples examined by microscope every day. More than 400 people took the test and it turned out that no one was infected. We also had our blood tested and our result was also positive. We were able to get a ride with the pick-up flight and therefore arrived in our house near Paramaribo fairly quickly after the conference.

At the end of April we left for the Netherlands. Marco immediately drove on to be in Florence in time for the World Team global leaders meetings. Marjolein arrived two days later after which we visited Marco’s brother in the north of Italy together. We hadn’t met in 6 years. Then we drove back to the Netherlands to be in time for the next trip, this time to Trinidad & Tobago. We had a short week in between to preach on Sunday in the Chinese Church in Rotterdam and then help Marjolein’s brother with some jobs in their new home in Vroomshoop. How nice it is to be able to catch up with each other for a few days about what is happening in our lives.

After arriving in Trinidad, Marco first traveled to Tobago. On Mother’s Day he was invited to preach in the church of Scarborough, the pastor of which is also chairman of the mission committee within the ECWI (Evangelical Church of the West Indies). He then spoke at church on two evenings to help put missions back on the map. After Covid, the churches were ready for a new impulse. Marco was asked to be the keynote speaker for the Mission Conference on Sunday, May 21, in the south of Trinidad. Marjolein joined him on Wednesday, after which we had a full program together with a number of meetings with people who were interested in missions. The days before the weekend of the 21st we were at ECWI’s Bible Camp to help with the final preparations.

It was nice to be able to work with the organizing committee and to get to know each other better. Peeling potatoes together well into Saturday night turned out to be an excellent bridge to each other’s hearts. Marco spoke about missions that Sunday morning to over 200 people who had gathered from the various churches on both islands. A nice detail was that he was allowed to talk about Foundations for Farming with a small group of interested people on Saturday morning. It now looks like we have been invited back in November for a first week of training on both islands. So to be continued.

In recent weeks we have been in regular contact with a few Wayana teams. Ame and Susina have arrived safely in Canada where they will spend three months learning English while deepening the various relationships they have met over the past year.

A team of 5 trainers from Foundations for Farming in Apetina has visited two Trio villages in the west of Suriname in the past two weeks. In Coeroenie and Amotopo, the principles of FfF were explained, a test garden was constructed and the first compost heap was set up. Also in these villages, there is a big problem to provide the people with enough food. The harvests are disappointing because the climate is also changing strongly here. We pray that this instruction will help people to see better results in their gardens with the newly learned method.

Marco turned 66 on May 24. Grateful for our health and energy, we were able to celebrate this in a small circle at the family of Andre and Wimke in Delft.

As we write this we are camping out at the Revival Conference at Pentecost. After many years we are involved again. Marco will speak on Sunday evening during a Foundations for Farming seminar and together we will be in the mission tent at the C&MA Mission stand a number of times. We remember how things were at this conference in the past. Yet an influx of around 75,000 people nowadays is something we cannot imagine yet. Our daughter Jiska is active within Mission the Netherlands in planning the mission seminars. We look forward to meeting with many of our acquaintances during the days in the field and pray that God may use us to assist those interested in missions in their preparations.

The month of June Marco travels to Peru for a number of training weeks for FfF and three weekends of meetings with the WT Team in Lima. For the first ten days he will travel with a Chinese team to Chile and Bolivia to research opportunities for new mission work among the Chinese population there. Marjolein stays in the Netherlands and looks forward to a good time with her parents in Veenendaal.