"O Come Let Us Adore Him" in the supermarket

We were standing in line to check in at a small hotel in Manila, in the Philippines, when we suddenly looked at each other in surprise: clear Christmas music was blaring from the loudspeakers, and it was only the beginning of September! "Yes, the Christmas season has already started," the receptionist told us, “It’s always this early here!"

This was the second country on our long, nearly four-month trip. We had begun in India, where we had the privilege of teaching at a Children at Risk School in Jaipur. And now, in the Philippines, we were part of a huge YWAM conference with 4,500 YWAMers from 110 different countries. 

Still the same leader

It was the first major international conference since the death of Loren Cunningham, the founder of YWAM. His wife, Darlene, shared that before he died, many people asked Loren who would lead this large international mission movement after him. He always gave the same answer: “The One who has led it from the beginning: the Lord Jesus!”

It was wonderful to see so many young missionaries from so many different countries gathered to seek God together. As Darlene emphasized: “To listen to His voice, to obey, and to never give up!” 

Grateful and blessed.

Encouraged, we continued our journey to Richmond, USA. Here, instead of Christmas decorations, there were still decorations for Thanksgiving in the shops. It was beautiful to see all kinds of products in large stores, from napkins to towels to wall plaques, with messages like "Grateful and Blessed!" What a wonderful reminder to pause and give thanks to God. 

Classroom teaching, practice, and "micro learning"

In Richmond, we were at a YWAM base pioneering a Children at Risk School. After a few years of mostly online teaching, it was great to be on a physical base and meet the students face to face. This time, we combined classroom teaching in the morning with hands-on lessons in the afternoons, where students, among other things, created their own large puppets. 

 

In the evenings, there was "micro learning," where students watched short (YouTube) videos and read articles through a dedicated Google Classroom. All of this was designed to help them absorb the lessons in different ways. We are excited about the amazing possibilities of delivering educational content in so many diverse ways! 

Students fly out

In August in Jaipur, India, and in September and October in Richmond, USA, we had students with a calling to India, Cambodia, Cameroon, Ecuador, as well as to work in the USA with children in disadvantaged neighborhoods, refugee children and their families, and children in foster care. What a privilege to help them on their journey. We hope and pray that their work will bear much fruit and that they will reach many children, families, and entire communities through God's love.  

Little boy in Jaipur, India

Daily reminders that God loves us!

Now, in November, we have arrived in Brazil, and yes, here too you can hear Christmas music coming from store speakers. The songs about Santa Claus can be annoying, but I love it when I suddenly hear "O Come Let Us Adore Him" or "Holy Night" in the supermarket. Little reminders that our lives belong to Him, that He loves us, guides us, and blesses us. That the Lord Jesus, God Immanuel, came to earth to save us from sin, sorrow, and lostness, and to offer us His friendship - and more than that: His sonship! Wow! 

How one little tooth disrupted our plans.

We had everything planned. Johan was turning 70 on November 10th, and we had invited a large group of people for a barbecue. Then, the next week he was to teach in Recife, a city in the northeast of Brazil where a Children at Risk School is also being pioneered. But things turned out differently... Johan went to the dentist with a loose canine tooth and it turned out the root was broken. Everything moved quickly after that, and within a few days, he was with the oral surgeon who performed minor surgery on his palate, gums, and jaw. He was then instructed: "Rest for three days, don’t talk, stick to liquids, and avoid teaching or physical activity for two weeks." 

Our kids presented him with new ice skates!

Oops! Just a few days later it would already be his birthday! We quickly called the guests and postponed the date, while the classes in Recife were replaced by video lessons. Not ideal, but better than nothing at all!  

With Michele, Romeu, and kids

Fortunately, Johan is feeling much better now, and we are enjoying our time with Michele, Romeu, and the grandchildren, Igor and Eva. It is wonderful to have such intense time together for a few weeks. It helps us temporarily forget how far apart we live and how much we miss them.  

Back to the Netherlands

In a few days we will fly back to the Netherlands. After such a long trip, it will be nice to spend quality time with our children, grandchildren, brothers and sisters, and other family and friends in the Netherlands.
  

Our tentative plans for next year are to teach in person at some of the Children at Risk Schools, and to develop and teach a third module of our online seminars. These online seminars have consistently been a great success, with a total of over 800 students. So, we hope to continue to combine this with face-to-face teaching.

Light of the world

But first in December we hope to celebrate Christmas in the Netherlands - the celebration that is announced months in advance in so many countries around the world. The celebration of the light that came into the world and drove out the darkness. The feast of our Lord Jesus! We wish you all a blessed Christmas season!

  

Made with AI

Prayer Points

• Thank God with us for the greatest gift we can ever receive: God Immanuel, God with us.
• Thank God for the many young missionaries in countries like India, the Philippines, America, Brazil, the Netherlands, and more, who are ready to take the Good News to the most difficult places.
• Praise God for Johan’s successful surgery.
• Pray for our plans for next year, that we will continue to train and encourage many missionaries.
• Pray that people who still live in darkness and do not know Jesus will be awakened to the Gospel, seek Him and find Him through all the Christmas preparations in stores and churches!

Will you travel with us, around the world?

We hope you all enjoyed the summer as much as we did! Johan and I went camping in England and took our granddaughter Iara with us on the way back, to bring her to Heidebeek, a YWAM base in the Netherlands, a few days later, where her adventure began with a Evangelistic Go Team that was going to the Olympic Games in Paris.
 

How special to bring her to this Youth with a Mission Campus, where we ourselves did the DTS, Michele and Romeu 30 years later, and now Iara, the third generation of our family. She too has special stories to tell about getting to know God better and to make Him known! What a blessing!
 

Then Dilma and Davi came to stay with us for two weeks of vacation, and we ended it with a day of boating near our hometown, together with ten of our children and grandchildren. How wonderful to be together like that, we enjoyed it so much!
 

In Jaipur, India, a CAR school for the first time

And then it was time to pack for our big trip, so here I am writing this letter from Jaipur, India, also called the pink city. There was just a heat wave here, with temperatures over 45 C degrees. Luckily, it is now in the 30s, which is warm to us, but people here complain that it is chilly!
 

Our friends Andrew and Eliane and their children picked us up at the airport, and were immediately given beautiful flower garlands.

Rajasthan, a state with only 0.1% Christians.

We know Andrew from the time we held a Children at Risk School (CAR) in Kolkata in 2008, where he was one of our students. He joined us in Brazil where he met Eliane while she was taking the CAR school in Belo Horizonte in 2009. They got married and have since led many CAR schools together in India, Brazil, and South Africa.

I remember when we came to teach at one of the schools in India, Andrew had a list on his door with the states of India and the percentage of Christians in each state. He told us even then that he felt called to go to one of the most unreached states, Rajasthan, where only 0.1% are Christians, to be a light there. So that is where they are now, and this is the first time that a Children at Risk School is being held here.
 

Celebration in the church

We teach every morning and afternoon, and on Sunday Johan was invited to preach in the local church. It was a family service, together with the children, and it became quite a party! The pictures speak volumes! What a privilege to praise and serve God together with these Indian brothers and sisters.
 

On Saturday we hope to visit Peter (from the Netherlands) and Rupy (from India). Peter was also a student in one of our CAR schools in Belo Horizonte and has since started several schools here in New Delhi for children from disadvantaged neighborhoods. His wife, Rupy, completed the two online CAR School modules with us.

 

After that visit, we hope to fly on, on this big trip of almost 4 months. Our next stop is Manila, Philippines, where we will attend a large international YWAM conference.

In Richmond, USA, and in Marco Zero, Brazil, a CAR School will be held for the first time.

Then we will fly on to Richmond, USA, where a CAR School will be held for the first time. We will teach there until the end of October before flying to Belo Horizonte, Brazil to teach for a few weeks at a new CAR school in Recife. We hope to return to the Netherlands in early December.
 

We would like to thank all of you for your participation with our adventures, our "travels" around the world, the classes we teach and the missionaries we train. Thank you for your support in prayer and finances. We wish you God's rich blessings!

Prayer Points

- Will you also pray with us that all the young people who are being trained in these CAR schools to work with children in need will be encouraged in their work, learn a lot, and under the guidance of the Holy Spirit put what they have learned into practice in their own cities and countries?

- That many children will come to know the love that the Lord God has for them?

- Will you also pray for all our travels, that they will be without problems and for our health?

- And especially for Davi's health, which is always quite delicate.

New Children at Risk Schools open in the US and India

Just a few days after camping here in the Netherlands at a huge Christian festival with 60,000 participants, together with Dilma and Davi, 3 grandchildren and a friend, we left for Richmond, where we were invited to teach at the Discipleship Training School (DTS) about working with at-risk children.

YWAM Richmond

It is a wonderful YWAM base, and after the classes we also joined them twice a week for "outreach", an evangelism program in a nearby neighborhood, where the students under Johan's leadership had set up a program for the children.

 

The intention is for this YWAM base to set up a permanent project among the needy children, and so we hope to go back there in September to help pioneer the quarterly Children at Risk School (CAR School) and to train staff to do this work full time. 

We had a great time at the base and it was so nice to get to know the staff and students there a little bit.

An extraordinary cloud!

Davids tent

It's only an hour and a half drive from Richmond to Washington, so we took a look around. The most remarkable thing was that since 2015, YWAM has been allowed to set up a large tent, "David's Tent", right in the middle between the Washington Monument and the Capitol, on a wide green lawn about 1.6 miles long, where prayer and worship take place around the clock.  What an amazing opportunity and testimony!

 

Good friends

Then we drove to Miami for our flight back. On the way we had a chance to visit Scott and Becky, good friends who ran the CAR school with us in Rio de Janeiro during the 2016 Olympics. It was so great to see and talk with them again!

Big trip

In the meantime, we are preparing for our big trip from Aug to Dec. We have been invited to Jaipur, India in August to teach at a Children at Risk School with Andrew and Eliane. Andrew has helped with all of our online courses and has also led several quarterly Children at Risk Schools in Brazil, South Africa and India. This will be our first time in Jaipur, Northwest India, and we are looking forward to it. From there we hope to go on to the Philippines (2 weeks), Richmond, USA (7 weeks) and Brazil (6 weeks). But I hope to tell you more about that in a future letter. 

 

For those who are going on vacation this summer, we wish you a very happy and relaxing time: God's rich blessings!

Technology grandparents?!

"Please continue to develop more modules of the online seminar for working with children in need! Not everyone will have the opportunity to attend such courses in person, but online it will be accessible to all. Congratulations on your initiative. Johan and Jeannette, you have become my inspiration, technology grandparents 😊 !" (student from Poland) 

These and many other messages we received from our students who took part in the second module of the online seminar on working with children at risk in April. Once again, we had students from all over the world, 23 nationalities, most of whom already work with children in need and are often missionaries themselves with Youth With A Mission. It was an intensive month for us because this time we offered the online course not only in English on Mondays and Wednesdays, but also in Portuguese on Tuesdays and Thursdays. It was good brain training for us: which language are we doing it in today?

For the days in between, when there were no online lessons on Zoom, we had set up a Google Classroom with homework, articles, videos, tests, etc., so that the students could delve a little deeper into the topics of the lessons and learn about them in diverse ways. We had spent a couple of months together full time preparing on this, and it was a wonderful feeling of satisfaction when, on the 1st of May, we were able to send the students, who had attended all the lessons and completed their homework, their diplomas with credits from the University of the Nations. 

Zoom meeting with the portuguese speaking facilitators.

Some more messages from our students:

"Thank you for facilitating this 2nd module - my husband and I loved exploring all these topics and it makes us so passionate to continue working in God's Kingdom among children and youth. Although we cannot make time for the official CAR school, we are eagerly looking forward to the 3rd module" (student from Costa Rica)

"Thank you so much for such a wonderful and rich course, every lesson was didactic, easy to understand, very practical, and also extremely deep in content . We noticed you passion when teaching. Thank you for making the course so accessible. I pray that this course will be spread even more, because this content needs to reach more and more people. (student from Mozambique)  

Where we started in YWAM

I am writing this newsletter from the Youth with a Mission base in Heidebeek where we are spending a week teaching at the Children at Risk School. 44 years ago, our missionary career began when we did the Discipleship Training School (DTS) here. How wonderful it is to come back for a while and see what a beautiful and thriving mission base this is. It's nice that a quarterly Children at Risk School has been running here for years, preparing the often young missionaries to work with children, teenagers and families in various places around the world. 

The Americas

Last year we were asked to help set up a 3-month school at a YWAM base in Richmond, USA. It turns out that the base is right next to a poor, crime-ridden neighbourhood where they would like to do some more work with the children, young people and families who live there. We are now going there at the end of May to speak at their DTS and give a seminar, and then we hope to go back in September to help with the first Children at Risk School there!

Jaipur

There will also be a first Children at Risk School in Jaipur, a city in the north-west of India. Jaipur is known for its pink palaces, buildings and houses. This is due to the visit of the Prince of Wales in 1876. The then ruler of India wanted to impress his royal visitor and decided to paint the whole city pink.

Johan and I hope to teach there in August. I will write more about this in a future newsletter. 

Prayers

We would like to thank everyone who has prayed for Johan's sister Ina after her serious cycling accident. We wrote about this in the last newsletter. Sadly, she died after just over a month from all her injuries, which was an incredibly sad time. Would you please pray for her husband and family that God would surround them with His comfort?

And thank you to everyone who is praying for our son Davi! His health is fairly stable now, but he still has a large open wound on his knee that is not healing, he is now on daily antibiotics, he has regained some of his energy and is enjoying half days at work and playing basketball with his wheelchair basketball team. But his health remains a point of prayer. 

Revival

Again, this year we hope to take three grandchildren and one of their friends to Opwekking (Revival), a large evangelical conference in the Netherlands that always takes place around Pentecost. We will be camping for four days on a large site with over 60,000 Christians. We will be going together with the Pinnenburg, an institution for adults with disabilities, where Dilma and Davi live. This will allow us to provide the extra physical care that Davi needs on a daily basis.

As you will understand, this conference is a momentous event every year and very nice to be a part of!

Thank you very much!

Dear friends, it remains for us to thank you all for your love, your prayers, and your gifts! It is always so special how the Lord provides for us through you! Thank you so much!

We wish you God's richest blessings!

Prayer points

- Will you pray for protection for us as we will be travelling a lot in the coming months?

- Will you also pray for the students and their work among children in need? These are the different countries where students from our latest online course are working:

Albania, Belize, Brazil, Cambodia, Cameroon, China, Congo, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Germany, England, Gambia, Georgia, Guinea-Bissau, India, Indonesia, Netherlands, Mozambique, Poland, Uganda, Saint Lucia, São Tomé and Príncipe, United States of America, South Africa.

- Please also pray for Ina's husband Jan and his family. May they continue to experience God's comfort.

- Thank God with us for Davi's health, which is now a little more stable. But it remains fragile.

I just wanna speak the name of Jesus

How much we enjoyed the five days around Christmas when we were together in England with all our children and grandchildren! Due to our kids living in different countries, the last time was twelve years ago. But now we got to celebrate our 45th wedding anniversary together.

It was quite an undertaking, traveling by boat to England, we had our van full with Davi and Dilma, 12 big plastic boxes with food, presents and games, a wheelchair, but what a lot of fun it was!

 

We were able to celebrate 2 birthdays: Igor our grandson's birthday was December 24, and Davi was born on December 25. Pies, turkey, all kind of Christmas cakes and deserts, it was one big party, where together we got to celebrate the birth of the Lord Jesus.

 

   

    Look for the differences! :)

     

We played games like laser tag and floorball, did a scavenger hunt, had a photo shoot, and had lots of time to chat and enjoy each other together.

 

The drawing of the family was made before the picture!

We ended the week with a family thanksgiving service, in which each person shared what he or she thanked the Lord God for, and each played a worship song that had touched them the most in the past year. What a special evening that turned out to be! How grateful we are to God! What a privilege and blessing, and at the same time we also realize, that there are so many families around the world where big problems have broken the shalom. 

For those, the song: "I speak Jesus" is a beautiful song, which we may then pray together:

I just wanna speak the name of Jesus

Over every heart and every mind

'Cause I know there is peace within Your presence

I speak Jesus.

I just wanna speak the name of Jesus

'Til every dark addiction starts to break

Declaring there is hope and there is freedom

I speak Jesus.

'Cause Your name is power

Your name is healing

Your name is life

Break every stronghold

Shine through the shadows

Burn like a fire.

I just wanna speak the name of Jesus

Over fear and all anxiety

To every soul held captive by depression

I speak Jesus.

Shout Jesus from the mountains

Jesus in the streets

Jesus in the darkness over every enemy

Jesus for my family

I speak the holy name

Jesus, oh,

I just wanna speak the name of Jesus

Over every heart and every mind

'Cause I know there is peace within Your presence

I speak Jesus.

Ina

Similarly, we would like to ask you for prayer for Johan's sister, Ina, who had a serious accident with her bicycle last Wednesday. She is seriously injured in the hospital. Will you also pray for her and her family?

Health of Davi

After Davi had erysipelas 6 times last year, it was quite scary to take such a big a trip with him to England for Christmas. But fortunately, it all went very well. He now has a constant maintenance dose of antibiotics, which is going well, as long as he has no other problems like flu or corona. He remains very vulnerable. But if you think for a moment, aren't we all really? We live in a very vulnerable world, in which we need to choose daily to trust Jesus, to put our lives in God's hands. To ask his grace for us, our neighbors and those in need in so many places of war and violence around the world.
  

Five schools and two online courses

Right now, we are back making lots of plans for this year. Five Children at Risk Schools are planned: in the Netherlands, Brazil (2x), USA and India. These schools will be held at different Youth with a Mission campuses and will last three months each. In three of these schools, we hope to teach classes this year.

We are also in the process of organizing the second module of the online course on working with children in need, so that we can run it in April. It are actually 2 courses: one in Portuguese, the other in English. We have had the opportunity to teach and encourage hundreds of students in this way in recent years. They are mostly young missionaries, working in difficult circumstances with children in need. For more information about this course, you can take a look at this website: https://www.childrenatriskschools.com/online-seminar
  

Thank you very much again for reading this letter, being supportive with prayers, gifts, visits and cards. How beautiful that we can do our work together with you. What a great encouragement you are to us! We wish you God's rich blessing!

Prayer points

• Thank God with us for the wonderful time we were able to spend with our family.
• Pray with us for Ina and her family.
• Pray also for Davi's health.
• Pray for the students of the 5 Children at Risk Schools and the online seminars, that they may learn a lot, be encouraged and reach many children with God's love.

O come let us adore Him!

We have been married for 45 years! What a milestone! How grateful I am to Johan for all those years of love and loyalty, and how grateful we are together to God for all the blessings He has given us: our beautiful children, children-in-law, grandchildren and the work among children in need that we were able to do in Brazil and worldwide and which still continues.
 

45 years of marriage, 45 years of adventure with God!

In the Netherlands the housing shortage is extreem. So, we are also very grateful for the nice little home we have. We bought this as a holiday cabin from the inheritance my parents left us, more than 20 years ago, and now the municipality has converted our entire park from recreation to residential, which means that we are allowed to live here long term. In recent weeks we have fixed it up a bit, in between our work with the online classes. Johan has been installing extra insulation in the roof, and I was able to paint a lot. It is such a cozy little home!
 

For the first time in 12 years

Because our children live in different countries, it has been more than 12 years (!) since we were all together, but in December we hope to finally all be together again in England, to celebrate these 45 years together. We are so excited, counting the days!

Upside down

In the meantime, we will be giving the last teachings in November in the various online courses that we run throughout the year. Most of our students are missionaries who work with children in need, in many different countries.

“These lessons have turned my life upside down,” we recently heard from one of the students. “I thought I was going to start an orphanage for the very poor children from my town, but through your lessons I now see that it is better to help the families of these children, so that the children can grow up at home with their own parents”.

And so, we hear and read a lot of incredibly positive reactions from the students.

It is sometimes not easy to teach online courses and we miss the personal contact with the students, but what an encouragement such responses are!
 

Our students work with children in need in many countries,
such as this group of children in India

Second series of classes online and in person

This year we were able to teach the basic lessons of the Children at Risk School, in English and Portuguese. We hope to give the follow-up course next year. Like the first one, it will be on different days in English and Portuguese.

But we have also planned a few months of teaching in “real” classrooms. We do enjoy receiving photos and videos of the online students who have ministries among children in all kinds of countries, but it is really nice if we can be there with the students ourselves and we can give them practical hands-on lessons in addition to the theory.
 

With Dilma and Davi at a pancake restaurant.

Health of Davi

But next year's planning depends not only on our own health, but also on how Davi, our son, is doing. In the previous newsletter I wrote how he had been struggling with erysipelas on his leg since December last year, and he recently ended up in hospital for another week. He is now on a maintenance dose of antibiotics, but while this should reduce the risk of even more erysipelas, it also causes all kinds of side effects, making him quite discouraged at times. We have so much respect for him, how he has been able to remain positive and cheerful over the years, despite all kinds of physical setbacks and problems. But now it seems a bit more difficult. Would you also pray for him?
 

Christmas, Jesus the King

God became man, the kingdom of God drew near, and anyone who accepts Jesus as Lord is saved.

Jesus, the Physician. When the Lord Jesus walked in Israel more than 2,000 years ago, he healed all the sick who came to him to be healed. Here, we can see a glimpse of what that kingdom of God will be like when the Lord Jesus will return and when He is Lord and King over everyone: there will be no more sick people, no pain, no tears.

Jesus, the Prince of Peace in a time of wars. And we see a lot of horrible wars around us. Where hatred only breeds more hatred, He is the God of forgiveness and reconciliation.

Jesus, the “Waymaker”, the one who makes a way where there was no way, who solves problems where there seemed no solution, who provides comfort and hope in the most hopeless situations.

“Jesus is winning,” said Loren Cunningham, the founder of Youth with a Mission, as he looked at all the messages he received every day from around the world.
 

Through the birth of Jesus, the kingdom of God came closer and became very accessible to us. With the arrival of this little baby in a stable in Bethlehem our God became man. O come, let us adore Him, that King!

Thank you!

We would like to thank everyone for your kind commitment to us and our work, your prayers, gifts, apps, emails, cards...

We wish everyone a happy and meaningful Christmas and a blessed New Year!

Lots of love!
 

Prayer points

• Thank God with us for the 45 years we have been happily married.

• Thank Him with us for the children, children-in-law, and grandchildren.

• Thank Him for allowing us to provide online courses to so many international missionaries again.

• Thank God for Christmas, God Immanuel, God with us.

• Pray for Davi's health.

• Pray for the peace of Jerusalem, and peace in the Gaza Strip, Ukraine, Sudan, Myanmar, Yemen, Congo, and many other countries.

• Pray for peace in the refugee camps, the slums, the favelas, and in the families where they do not yet know God's peace.

• Pray that God's good news may continue to reach places and languages where they have never heard of the Lord Jesus.