After a pleasant flight we landed in Suriname December first. We enjoyed our time of two months furlough in the Netherlands and we’re looking forward getting back to the villages in the jungle again.

We stayed two weeks in Paramaribo, visiting our daughter and son, friends, the medical doctor and several gouvernment offices. Next to that we have been networking as usual.

Elsbeth and Rafael moved into their new home. We assisted them in building cupboards and installing the new kitchen, since Elsbeth is not able to do so being pregnant for 7 months now.

Last July we asked the office of foreign affairs if we could apply for our new stay papers in December. They replied we needed to do this only 3 months before the expire date, so from the beginning of January. Now we tried to make a appointment in January and we ended up having an appointment on Februari 29th.

Last Monday we flew back to Lawa, with 300 kg luggage. Wonderful to be back in the bush again. After half a year the house really needed cleaning since a layer of ashes was all over the place. In the dry season the grass of the airstrip in front of our missionhome is cut by putting it on fire…

The school children are having their christmas holidays. The teenagers will come the end of this week.

Preparations for Christmas are taking place. The women practice their singing and dansing every night. Soon the men will go out to hunt for meat. The childrens workers in the churtch plan to celebrate with the children having a weekend full of celebrations.

The first 3 barrels of gasoline are ordered so the teams will be able to reach out to the villages on the river again from the beginning of the new year. We hear beautiful stories of people being baptised ,now able to live with a ‘howoime wanë’ light heart.

After a lenghty period of draught, the short rainy season started. we see the water level of the river rise day by day. This means the canoes can carry more weight across the river.

We already hear firecrackers resounding through the surrounding hills since there are no rules about time and place when and where lighting that stuff is allowed.