Looking back on the past four weeks, we can’t find the words to fully describe our experiences. We praise God that we were able to see what He has been doing in the last few years.
Our ‘daughter’ Diana, her husband Jeroen and their one-year-old son Timo, traveled with us from the Netherlands to visit us in Suriname. They got a good picture of our life in the jungle. They also had the privilege of attending the annual tribal Bible conference at Lawa.

When we arrived at Apetina, we were informed that a group of 25 persons left for a Bible conference in Brazil with the Apalai. They traveled upriver by canoe as far as they could go, then walked through the jungle to another river, where hopefully people were waiting for their arrival to bring them by canoe to the village where the Bible conference was held. What a journey to worship the Lord together and share His Word!
Monday October 31st we flew from Apetina to Lawa. We were in time to help with the last preparations of the conference. Marco and Jeroen assisted with the electrical work in the expanded churchbuilding together with a group of skilled Wajana’s. We saw men returning from their huntingtrip, others building shelters, women preparing food and drink for over a thousand attendees. Quite an organization for a village of 100 inhabitants to host more than a 1000 people.

Each day people were arriving by canoe or by plane. The MAF worked hard to bring all the people to the conference in time. The crew was staying next to our house in one of the shelters. We also hosted 12 Dutch and American missionaries. It was nice to share our home with so many.

The Bible conference was a blessing to so many people. Each village had a couple of new worship songs to share. They all tried their best on their outfits, beautiful! The food for the soul and for the body was delicious! We enjoyed it, especially seeing so many teenagers in the services. Over 200 kids attended the childrens club each morning. We pray that everybody will cherish Gods Word spoken by a number of messages.

Monday November 7th we flew back to Paramaribo. Roy Lytle stayed another week at Lawa together with his two friends. One of them taught Responsibility in the Kingdom of God for 5 afternoons. They were so encouraged to see so many people attending every afternoon! The hunger for Gods Word is tremendous.

We had another conference in the city from Wednesday November 10. The C&MA in Suriname and French Guyana hosted the second Caribbean Chinese Missionary Conference. Guest from 17 different countries and 3 continents attended. Again it was great to hear what God has been doing in the past 40 years in the Chinese churches in South and Middle America. On behalf of World Team Marco gave a presentation about the plan to reach out to the 200.000 chifa owners in Lima, Peru. We’re looking forward how God will use this conference to build His Kingdom.

The remaining days of last week we full with shopping in order to prepare our flight to Apetina Novemer 21st. A number of boxes are packed to be broiught to the jungle. We bring 4 young Dutch teachers along who will work in the school for a number of weeks.