Sometime it seems like time flies, it did with us the last 5 weeks.

We had a building team from our homechurch in Holland coming over to do a home make over for Ilse van Dijk’s house in Paramaribo. We went earlier to the city to prepare a lot of things beforehand. Anneke Kempers also came to Suriname, so we had a great team!

The men worked long days to accomplish as much as they could. They’ve done a great job! We were all   astonished what has been done in 10 days by 8 men!

We felt priviledged to take them to Lawa for the weekend.  We flew to Tabiki, because the airstrip of Kawemhakan was closed due to heavy rain. From Tabiki to Lawa by canoe which was also a first time experience for most of them.

Anneke and Marjolein were the catering crew for these two weeks. They baked and cooked, made lots of coffee and brought them once in a while an icecoffee or a milkshake.

Ilse’s house was finished and re-decorated in two weeks time, but her terrace at the back still needed to be closed in. So a local team has been working on that the last two weeks. People in Holland donated that much that this could be paid for as well. We’re so happy for Ilse, she deserves this so very much! We’re also expecting that God will continue to use Ilse for expanding His kingdom.

After those 3 busy weeks we needed to pack our suitcases to fly to Manaus, Brasil.

We had two great weeks there! We met beautiful people, had inspirational meetings and learned a lot about the migrating indigenous peoples of the Amazon.

Manaus is a jungle city with 2.000.000 inhabitants. This means that this one city is 4 times the total population of Suriname. When you leave the city, you see the same jungle as in Suriname. That felt very much like home to us.

We visited two settlements. One started about twenty years ago. The indigenous people are now living in stone buildings with electricity etc. Their children go to school in this metropole and speak fluent Portugese. Life in the jungle is foreign to them.

The other settlement exists since 2012. The people there live almost as if they still live in their village far away from the big city. That city is only 45 minutes out of town by car. They still live next to the river, just as in our villages.

We’re very grateful to be part of the World Team Manaus team old. It’s our role to coach a young couple with their three kids from 6 months to 6 years. This reminded us on our start on the missionfield back in 1989. The Manausteam has the vision to reach the migrating indigenous in the settlements around the city, disciple them, train them to bring the gospel back to their tribes far in the Amazon jungles.

Today we fly to Trinidad for a week to work on a promotionfilm for World Team to recruit new missionaries for a new missionwork in Trinidad.  We feel very priviledged to hear and see what God is doing in different parts of the world. We very much enjoy our life!