We have arrived already in India, with temperatures between 102 degrees during the day and 86 degrees at night. We forgot that May is the warmest month in India! And no, unfortunately there is no air conditioning. In the morning I wake up with a wet pillow, and during the day, when wearing my long dress over my long trousers, I fight with my matching enormous scarf, twisting and folding it, so it will be smaller, but what a heat all those layers of clothes! How do the Indian women do that? They all look so elegant, colorful and fresh. And then me with my hair wet from sweat and my fight with the scarf ...
Yet it is wonderful to be back here. Johan started his teachings immediately. This time all the students are from India and the lessons are translated from English to Hindi. A., the young man from northern India who 2 years ago was our student in Kolkata and last year came to Brazil to help staff the Children at Risk School, is now the leader of the Children at Risk School here. It's so nice to see him organizing and leading, he has worked incredibly hard for this school to happen, and he made it! Isn`t that wonderful?
It was three weeks ago still a lot of hassle to leave Brazil. Our ticket was for Monday, April 20 to Amsterdam, but the volcano in Iceland made that impossible with almost all the airports in Europe closed. But we had to go! We had a commitment with the Dutch television, from Wednesday to Friday, to participate in a documentary about Johan`s life and about our ministry in Brazil. Fortunately, we could change our ticket so instead of Amsterdam, we flew to Lisbon, one of the few open airports in all of Europe. From there we did not know how to get to Holland, with all the trains, rental cars and buses fully booked for days to come, we even considered hitch hiking! But to our surprise the Dutch television had managed to secure us flight tickets from Lisbon to Amsterdam, and so we flew with one of the first flights after the ash cloud had stopped all the flights, just in time for Wednesday night to arrive at the place where the television crew already was waiting for us.
There followed a few days of filming Johan: Johan at breakfast, making dinner, running, etc. Meanwhile, interviewing him all the time. The program will probably be broadcast in September, but there were also interviews for newspapers, magazines and radio included, pictures had to be taken of him in their own studio and they also asked me to write an article for one of their leading magazines for women. So in short, we were quite busy!
Just one week before we left Brazil, another Dutch television team had come to film a very nice program in Belo Horizonte especially about the street children and the work our team does on the streets, in the slums and in the Rescue House. So this year we already got a lot of publicity in Holland!
On one of the Saturdays we were in the Netherlands, my sister and her husband organized a very nice reunion with all our cousins and the following Saturday we had a family reunion in Zeeland with the mother, brothers and sisters of Johan (he has 10 brothers and sisters!) and relatives, children and grandchildren! What a blessing it always is to come together with our families!
It was also very nice to have Davi, our youngest son, again staying with us for a few weekends. He does really well, loves living in Holland. And we enjoyed it very much to just to be able to chat with Peter and Melissa. Among the other highlights of our short time in the Netherlands was the time we got to spent with Hannah and Rafael, our grandchildren, who came to stay a few days with us! It was a pretty busy schedule, but we managed to make another trip to Ikea, one of our favorite stores in Holland!
And now we're a month in India. Will you pray for us? For our health, it is always a big transition: temperature, food, habits, safety. It's also a very busy time: our days are fully planned.
Thanks a lot and we wish you all God's abundant blessings!
