Under the cloud

"I have 7 brothers and sisters. Together with my mother we have been living here in Bulgaria for a year now, my father is still in Ukraine," said "Oksana" a 9-year-old girl.

We were in Bulgaria for a few weeks to, among other things, teach a course on trauma recovery to about 30 mothers so that the next day we could help them explain what they had learned to their own children. The first day was an immediate success. These women were part of a group of several thousand women and children who had all fled from the Odessa region of Ukraine to Varna, a tourist city on the Black Sea, at the beginning of the war. They had been accommodated in the somewhat rundown hotels on the beach and had been living there for over a year now.

At first, they had hoped, of course, that it would only be for a few weeks, but now, after more than a year, they were ready to get some rest, and to accept that it could all last much longer.
 

The eight of them under the "cloud"

Oksana showed me a drawing of her family, "Eight little dolls, together under a cloud on which I drew God,” she explained to me, “who protects us and cares for us." Her gratitude and recognition of God's faithfulness moved me, as so many of their stories moved me. What brave women and children, and how open they were to be learning more about God as their father, and about processing their trauma.
 

One of the Ukrainian ladies who participated, and a teenager. 

In Bulgarian and English

We heard so many harrowing stories during those weeks, but also saw how God is present, using international as well as local Christians to encourage and support the refugees. A small group of those Bulgarian Christians are participating in the online course we teach, which runs from April to November this year, so we can mentor the students over a longer period of time.

The Bulgarian students will have the lessons translated from English into Bulgarian. Also in that English-speaking group are over 30 students from a variety of Eastern European, African, Asian, and South American countries. They are generally young missionaries working with children in need.

And also in Portuguese…

And then every month we teach the same class two days later in Portuguese to over 80 students from Brazil, Mozambique, Angola, Guinea-Bissau and Sao Tome and Principe, all countries where Portuguese is the main language.

We can give this course to such a large group of international students because we have an amazing group of 30 staff members, spread around the world, all of whom have years of experience working with children in need. Each of these facilitators supervises a group of 4-8 students. They hold Zoom meetings with their students, have a WhatsApp group with them between meetings, make phone calls with them, send them messages, mentor and encourage them. How special to be able to work with such a large, diverse group of wonderful people!
 

Twice to England

Johan and I are quite busy with this course, but because these are online classes and online students, we can do our work anywhere there is internet service. That's why we have been able to travel to England twice this year. The first visit came about when our daughter Johanneke and her husband Jonathan invited us to record Johan's lessons in their studio, so that in addition to the Zoom life lessons, we can also offer them on an online platform. It was great fun to do, and it turned into a series of 13 lessons.
 

On our second visit we were in England to take care of our granddaughters while Johanneke and Jonathan went to India to make documentaries. We really enjoyed the time with our beautiful granddaughters there.
 

We were the weekend just before the coronation of King Charles in London

We also had the opportunity from England to address and teach (online) the staff of Youth with a Mission in Ukraine, who were holding a conference. A Ukrainian translator had just arrived in England at the base where we were staying, and they helped with translation. This was very special!
 

With our Ukrainian translator

And meanwhile, the online course is "just" running. We experience it as a blessing to be able to do this, to be able to pass on all kinds of principles that we learned during our 36 years in Brazil with our work among children in need, to a lot of young missionaries. What a privilege to be able to teach and encourage, together with our daughter Michele (one of the online facilitators) & others in her generation, the next young generation. Would you be willing to pray for these young online students? They often live in underdeveloped countries and work under difficult conditions. But they are so motivated to learn new things. We heard from one of the African students that he drives 50 km on a moped to get to the nearest village with internet. He then sits outside in a square, with all kinds of children running around, and participates in the online lessons!

Knee surgery

We have another prayer point: Davi, our youngest son, has had problems with his leg since the beginning of December. It started with wounds on his foot and a bacterial infection, but because he is paralyzed, he didn't feel it, and it quickly became a large deep wound on his knee. In March he had his first surgery, and this week he must go under the knife again, this time for a skin graft because the wound itself is not closing.
 

He very much hopes (and we with him) that he will be able to go to a huge conference here in the Netherlands, to camp there together with us. It is a conference that happens every year and normally has around 50.000 Christians participating and camping.

It is becoming more and more of a challenge to take Davi camping, because he also needs quite a lot of specialized care. It is handy that I used to be a nurse myself, so together with Johan I can take over his care for a few days. But this time with the surgery so close before Pentecost, it is an extra challenge.

Dilma and another group from the Pinnenburg, the ministry where Davi and Dilma both receive special residential care, also hope to go and camp there. And we've also invited our three grandchildren who live in the Netherlands to join us. That promises to be quite a celebration!
 

Thank you all so much for upholding us financially and in prayer. Thanks for your encouraging emails and messages. We wish everyone God's rich blessing!

Prayer points

• Pray for the Ukrainian mothers and their children in Bulgaria, but also in all the other countries they have fled to. May their faith in God be their support, hope and strength every day.
• Pray for peace, in Ukraine, in Myanmar, in Sudan, in Gaza, in the Congo, and in so many more places of unrest around the world.
• Thank God for all the students who want to learn more about working with children in need, and for the biblical principles behind this.
• Pray for recovery of Davi's knee, that it will heal well, and that he will regain his full energy.