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.