We were impressed while visiting missionaries from our home Church in the Netherlands who live and work in a closed country in South-East Asia. Great to see how they live, what they do and to meet some of their team members. Without them, our visit would have been quite a challenge because not many people speak English. We don’t speak a word of the local language. The tropical warmth, the well-known fruits, scents, and vegetables, also gave some sort of a ‘home feeling’.

After this, we moved on to World Team’s first global conference held in Thailand. We were together with about 400 people in a beautiful environment. We enjoyed the conversations during meals, praying together at different times during the day, the inspiring workshops, and the various presentations from all places where ‘WorldTeam-ers’ are called to work.

We also made a trip to ECHO, an agricultural NGO where we received a very interesting tour.

Monday morning, July 25, we boarded a plane again to land in Brisbane the following Tuesday morning. There we could relax in our cozy Airbnb and enjoy the beautiful surroundings for the next few days. On Friday, July 28, we were able to share with students and staff of the Brisbane School of Theology about God’s work in various places around the world, showing them that there are quite a few opportunities in our World Team fields.

In the meantime, we also had regular contact with Amepun and Susina in Canada. What a blessing modern technology is at such a time! We are so proud of them as we watch them learning and serving in Canada for a period of 3 months. During the conference in Thailand, we also brainstormed with our colleagues from Canada about the next steps for the coming years as the Wayana outreach in Canada continues to grow. Amepun and Susina arrived safely in Suriname last Saturday morning.

After this, we enjoyed our time in Sydney last week being ‘missionaries of the week’ at Sydney Missionary and Bible College representing World Team. Our desire was to encourage and challenge the students to serve elsewhere in the world. We have received feedback from various people that our enthusiasm and stories from our own lives have been very encouraging. We already live and work in so many beautiful places in the world, but this place and its people have certainly also got a place in our hearts!

 

Now we get to work on the last part of this journey. We have exchanged the winter in Australia for the tropical warmth of Thailand. We arrived safely in Chiang Mai yesterday morning. Tomorrow, together with Dick and Johanna de Koning, fellow missionaries from C&MA, we will travel to Northern Thailand to give Foundations for Farming training for the next 10 days. We are looking forward to this!