Sunday, 20 November 2011

Miracles happening!


Praise God, on Monday the 14th of November Eric got his Australian Licence!!

This means he can start his flight training here in Arnhemland. He had a checkflight yesterday(21 nov), which was really hard again.
Today he is gone to Elcho Island for the rest of the week to do further training ICUS(flying under supervision).
It will not be easy for him but also for us for the coming 6 months. The flying will take probably all his energie. This morning as he was gone I felt really weak, and realized again that I had to rely on God's strenght and not my own.



Last week I had tummy muscle pain, and I really didn't know where I got that from. But than I started to knead the bread again and thought: Oh.. thats where the muscle pain is from...funny.
I'm baking all the bread myself now as bread is really expensive in Nhulunbuy and I love the smell and the taste of warm bread. I found a good internetsite
http://www.uitdekeukenvanarden.blogspot.com/
But another miracle happened: on our way to town we alway have a look at the tip. And there Eric found a breadmaker. We took it home, prayed over it:) and the next morning we had a lovely bread out of the breadmaker...it's working perfectly!!

















Ruben loves to do colouring-in. This was one of his first Dutch words: euen(which means kleuren)


This picture I hang up on the fridge and when dad came home and we had our dinner, Ruben saw his picture on the fridge and started telling dad what he made today!!




Lois loves doing her schoolwork too. She is concentrating on her job and does it needly.At the moment we are she is learning the numbers. She can almost write the numbers 0-10.But also she can bake them!



























Shopping and cleaning, how do we all make it work together:




Normally shopping with 5 kids isn't that easy and fun. Especially Nhulunbuy as it is so small. But we have found a fantastic way to do it:


I bought 5 little note books. I first write all my groceries down on my own shoppinglist, than the day before we go shopping I divide them into 4 on the little notebooks. This will be a shoppinglist for each child. When we are in the shop we put 1 trolly in the most quiet ayl. We take 2 shoppingbaskets and the kids will work together. Naomi with Lois, and Aron with Hannah.


They look also for the prices and specials. I go around with Ruben in the stroller and see what else there is and if the kids need some help. I hardly have to help them and they love it too, they are not walking in the way and feel useful.

I really needed someone to help me with cleaning. I thought maybe a cleaner for 2 hours and pay her. But as I thought further I got another idea: once a week we plan a reading and cleaning day. I have made lists for every room in the house how to clean them. I have explained how to clean with our enjo cleaning products. And so every week the kids can choose a room to clean and they get some pocket money as reward. We did it for the first time, but amazing how hard they worked and how clean it all was!!
























NAOMI'S BIRTHDAY ON THE 15th OF NOVEMBER




It was sad for Naomi as


half of the family was sick on her birthday, we are planning to give a party on another day.




Naomi loves baking and
cooking, so she was really happy with her presents.
She made her own brownies and also hamburgers.




























This is a very brief yet exciting update from Kids Club in Yirrkala.
Over the past few weeks the Kids Club team has been focusing on the topic of the Holy Spirit.
The children have been generally listening very well, answering and asking questions, which has been encouraging.
This past weeks kids club night was one that the team wont forget. The night began as normal with games and dances before gathering into the separate boys and girls groups.
No one really expected that this would be a different night from the others however God had a different agenda.
Near the end of talking the question was asked: Who wants to follow Jesus? Immediately hands shot up.
The question was again asked in both Yolngu Matha and English with the same result. The group then discussed what it meant to be a Christian, a follower of Jesus.
A simply worded sinners prayer was prayed by 17 boys and 13 girls. The boys then huddled in a group, linking arms praying for each other. What a special moment!
Praise God for the miracle of Salvation.
It was an important reminder that these young boys and girls are the future of Yirrkala and surrounding areas. They may be young and beginners in the faith, yet we all once were in the same place.
Please pray for these boys and girls who gave their lives to Jesus. Pray that their hearts would be protected. Pray that they would be able to grow in their faith.
Be encouraged :)

Sunday, 13 November 2011

Exciting week!

And thanks to God who provided us a car!!What an answer to prayer, thank you all for your prayers aswell! And I will tell how God provided:


Eric was working with Charlie and he knew a friend who might sell their car. So they went there and had a look and a talk. What a perfect car it would be for here in AL and for our big family. The car had been waiting for a year for a good new owner...but now how are we going to pay this. It wasn't expensive at all! But still a lot of money that we simply didn't have. So I decided to have a look on our bankaccounts and also on the website for childsupport, as we were waiting for an answer from them. When I looked, there was a email from them that said that in a few days they would transfer money into our bankaccount. Together with the money from our bankaccount, it was exactly the right amount of money , we thanked God for this amazing provision!! On Saturday we picked up the car.


It has been an exciting week! Because of the heat we have to take it easy, so once a week the kids don't have their schoolbooks but just reading books.


On Wednesday at 8.30 am we had a powercut. So that means no aircondition(which we don't use) and no fans...I decided to take all our stuff and go to Shady beach. We sat under a tree, like the Yolnu people do. And the kids did there schoolwork. Ruben was happy playing in his porta cot and little pool that we brought. When we got home at 2.30 pm there was still no power. The kids just had a bath, and at 3 pm we had no water either... Now we had to improvise. We had just bought some gasbottles for our camping gascooker at a garagesale. We were really pleased with those, now we could cook dinner. And also last weekend I had bought a candle,which came handy too. When Eric came home from doing maintances on a roof the whole day, he really was looking forward for shower. We only could offer him a dirty bath left over from the kids, but he was happy. We invited the neighbors Peter and Tina for dinner, because they didn't have anything. Aron had the idea to make a fire, to make more light and we sat out on the deck with a candle,we had to eat all the icecream from the freezer, it was really good! In the evening we heard that there was one place in Yirrkala that suplied water. So Naomi, Aron, Hannah and I went for a walk with our drinking bottles, there was just a nice atmosphere, the yolnu people were sitting outside, as it was too hot inside. A lot of people decided to sleep on their decks.I think a evening like this the kids never forget. They loved it. Finally the next morning at 7.30 the power came back on. And the water took a little longer, 11.30, yeah!


On Saturday the 12th it was Aron's birthday. We had a party planned for in the afternoon at the playground/soccerfield in Yirrkala. But Jason and Kim had asked me, if we would like to come to the river this day too. I thought Aron would love that on his birthday. So Saturday morning we changed the party. We could use someone elses car and so we phoned Aron's 2 friends if they wanted to come to the river instead of the party in the afternoon. It was a special treat for all of us! It was just fantastic. It's a half an hour drive from Yirrkala. I made a cake quickly to take with us and lunch. It was so refreshing! Aron was a little bit worrying that he only had 2 friends and his present didn't arrive on time(we had ordered a bike for him). But I said, you will have the best birthday ever... And what happened on the way back from picking up our new car, we stopped at the dump to see if there was any good we could use.There was a BMX bike...wow.


We took it in the car and Aron and his dad fixed it at home. He was so excited about his birthday present!
















































































Last week I (Eric) had to work with Charles Stockley our MAF maintenance manager. We had to fly on Wednesday and Friday to Elcho Island to do some repair jobs on the house of 1 of the pilot-families there. The Pett's from the UK have 2 sons who are both homeschooled and use the ACE curriculum just like us!


Charles would do some plumbing, while I kept myself busy fixing the leaking roof before the coming wet season! What was thought to be a few patches here and there turned out into 2 full days on the roof for me in boiling hot temperatures and hardly any wind or shelter.


It was very rewarding to replace 5 sheets completely and have the roof "wet-season" proof!





























We were flying via Lake Evella outstation where several MAF staff are based, to drop off and pick-up some passengers. Because of the limited time we only had a quick look around at the airport. The green shed you can see on the photo behind MFA is the MAF office where the Yolnu can come and book the flights. From there we flew onwards to Elcho Island to do our work. At the moment it's very busy with flying as there are funerals and the Yolnu people fly up and down to attend their ceremonies, often MAF also flies coffins to the homelands.




At the moment Ruben is sick(fever, rash, throwing up) we would vallue your prayers for him!


This week the 15th of November it will be Naomi's birthday, please pray for her that she will have a really special day too.

Saturday, 5 November 2011

Ruben looking different with his haircut
























It has been a great week with new things happening. On Tuesday our Yolgnu neighbour came over, Dela.(the one we had the shared lunch with). She told she had been in hospital for a couple of days and someone prayed for her and she was better now. She told me that she wanted to know more about the bible.So I invited her to the thursday evening bible study at Nevin in Yirrkala.He has started a biblestudy for the yolgnu people. Usualy Eric is going to this but now I felt I had to go to pick her up. I walked over through the bush you can she on this photo to Dela's house. While I was waiting at her place, her family were singing songs and playing

the didgeridoo. They were releasing a body from their family. This week they will have a funeral.

Dela came with me to the biblestudy, and she loved it, especially the song: Create in me a clean heart, O God. Pray for her health and for her heart to reconnect with God and also for her family.

Dela wanted to learn how to make the Swiss bread, so she came over on Sunday morning to prepare the dough. After church we called her again and so she came over with her family. They said that they had given us Yolgnu names, so that means that they adopted us into their family!



















On Wednesdaymorning we went over to our homeschooling friends to homeschool together for the day. The kids loved it. I had a craft to do for Lois and Esther, so they made cards to send for Maf families in the homelands.
It is sad to hear that our Maf homeschooling friends are moving to Melbourne half December. They want to come back but not sure when. We will gonna miss them that's for sure.

Aron has been busy with his lego. He created his own house with kitchen and couch and barbeque etc. In details!!
































The kids are doing really well with their schoolwork! They are motivated and know what to do with their goalcards. Especially Hannah has worked really hard this year and can read and write well, the last two weeks I have been working on her maths, because she strugled with it. But after two weeks I can she her moving forwards, yeah!




Naomi and Aron are doing a project together about Vulcanoes and Anger and how it's

related. We're talking about how anger can build up inside of us if we allow it. And also how it works with vulcanoes.