going out into the community to bring hope, love and joy

2 months ago Eric and I went to a worshipnight at Walibi Beach. Someone was preaching there and said: Use the things(talents,seeds) God has given to you to go out, use them for His Glory, rather then to look on the things you don't have and what you think you need.
The Next morning I talked it over with the kids and said to them: lets write all the things down in your notebook. So they were busy writing and Lois draw the things she could do. Then I asked them to circle 1 thing they could use today to encourage someone else. So Aron decided to bake a cake, Hannah to write cards to people and bake cookies, Naomi offered to help the whole day and Lois wanted to say her memory verse.
I had a family on my heart to go to and bring al these things to.
The next morning we went to them. The Lady of the house,Eunich, was very surprised to get visitors and was full of joy to see that cake(with a cross on it and the letters: God loves)made for them. We prayed together and especially for her grandson, who had a difficult time. No friends, nothing to do, drinking. Lois said her bibleverses. Uenich saidI am so happy that you came,you have brought us joy and the love in this house! Praise God, it was He that laid it on our hearts!

Later Eunich told me that her grandson is doing well, not drinking anymore! And she asked us to come back.

So we went back to them to "water the seeds".

The kids had made a play of the predical son and we made an easter cake and brought party food like the father gave a party to his son in that story.The kids did so well, Eunich and her grandson, Dwuane loved it every minute. We talked about God and that he loves us so much, so Lois had another verse:For God so loved the world that He gave his one and only Son, so whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life, John 3:16

I asked him if He found it hard to believe and he said: no, easy, I love Jesus!! So pray for him for a living relationship and that he will become a follower of Jesus.

Dwuene wants to teach Aron how to make a spear and to fish, really exciting!

We ended our visit with in prayer and Lois prayed: Dear Lord, thank you for this family of Eunich, that you made them so special and that we can have a good night, amen.

Invited

Eric had a day off on Friday. In the afternoon I got a phonecall from Vanessa. She invited us to come and join them for the baby ceremony. So we decided to come.

First we had to collect some wood in the bush to make a fire on the sand. Eric and Gerard collect some wet sand to put beside the fire to warm up.

This is their babyboy.

The ceremony is to get them walk.

It's more like a traditional celabration.

They put the warm sand onto his toplegs

and back and massage it.

To celebrate it they make demper. A sort bread, with only flour and milk. They put it in foil and cook it in the hot sand.

Don't mind the sand in the demper :)

They cut it and share it and dip it in sweet condensed milk or honey.

The kids so enjoyed it on the beach and they had a swim in the water, played with sticks and crabs.

This place is called Noll. It's private land of Gerard and Vanessa. They lived here till beginning last year, when the cyclone blow their house down.

Now they live on Birijimi 25 km away. Gerard got a vision from the Lord, one day they will live there again.
It's a beautiful peaceful place with beautiful people!

Demper is ready. Now time to cook the fishes the same way as the demper, in foil and in the hot sand.First we had to clean them.

We learned some new words: guya looka= eating fish, natta=food, go rali marrtji=come here, ga=thank you. We thanked God for this precious time we had together!

Boyracer in Yirrkala

Friday night chase in Yirrkala results in Yolngu dramatic salvation

Friday night 11.15 Eric and I just wanted to go to bed as we heard and saw a car racing, turning and spinning through the streets of Yirrkala. We heard a lot of people yelling.
We started praying over the people in the car, as we didn't know what else to do. It was to dangerous to go outside and do something.

Because we are living on the corner of two streets on the edge of Yirrkala we could see a lot. The police came and went after him, but couldn't stop him. Another police car came and after 1,5 hours of racing, they crashed him. The police took the boy quickly and put him in the car, as the Yolgnu wanted to spear him. Praise God no one was hurt.
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Sunday afternoon we received this news written by and MAF pilot:

For those of you who were praying for the young man in the car chase around and around and around the streets of Yirrkala you will be thrilled to know that he met Jesus that night in the prison cell.
I had noticed him attending the church over the last few weeks.
This is his story.
In his dark cell there was only light coming un...der the door.
He prayed to the Lord and asked for Him to save him.
Suddenly a light filled the room and he was converted and born again.
This morning he asked his mother's forgiveness, and this afternoon he is to ask the forgiveness of his father who owned the truck.
I was sitting around 15 paces from the man when he gave his testimony and publicly confesses his sin.
As he asked forgiveness, I smelt alcohol from that distance.
The church leadership asked me to pray for him.
He was immediately struck by the power of God (it's not often the men will fall under the power of God).
I could not smell any alcohol on his breath, so I knew that it was a spirit.
I asked him if he had been drinking that night.
He said he had, and was keen to be set free of the demon.
Once again he fell down as the spirit left him, but this time he was filled with the Holy Spirit in accordance with scripture (so he would not be 7x worse off.)
He immediately began speaking fervently in tongues. (I am convinced that tongues is God's antidote to every addiction).
There is more to his story that I cannot tell you on Facebook, as he has not given a statement as advised by his lawyer, ask me at work if you want.
Please pray for Jamie.

We were thrilled to hear this news and Praised God for what He is doing!

Outreach Baniyala Arnhemland

Last Friday Eric and I had the opportunity to go on an outreach to Baniyala(Yilpara).

Yirrkala bush and beach walk

What is the way to forget about your daily sorrows and to meet the local Yolgnu and to see more of Yirrkala?

Eric had a day of today and so after our cleaning and reading it was really time for us to go out and explore. This did us all so well! We found a new path through the bush that leaded us to the dunes. Hannah found it a little scared but at the same time exciting to go through the bush. She hold my hand when she felt scared,but let me go and run forward to Naomi and Aron when she got excited.

We immagined to put our tent up at the top and camp there.

The girls made drawings in the sand.

We watched the sea and breath,

We watched the clouds and what we saw in them.

We met Yolgnu people at shady beach and had a chat with them and found out that some were our family.

Aron climbed in a coconut tree, try to get a coconut, he made it to the top but couldn't get the coconut out.

So we loved, lived and laughed!!

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Homeschooling

We have had a really good brake from the schoolwork. The kids have had a good holiday. Although we didn't stop with having time with God! And we are continue with bible memorizing. For this year, we have challenged ourselves with the whole book of Collosians!!Mum is doing it too! It's fantastic how much Lois is picking up from this, I had different Bible verses for her, but she is learning the same scripture now as the older ones!
I have spent more time with the Lord. To ask Him for guidance for the coming year.

My verse is: Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
And amazing, God is so good, He has spoken to me a couple of times and He has already given me so many ideas and answers to prayers! My concern was Naomi: as she rather wanted to go to school than to be homeschooled. Although she is more than happy at home. I asked the Lord what to do and clearly His answer was perseverence, go on with it, I'm with you!
He has given me new ideas for Naomi for this year: Naomi wants to be a hairdresser, so one of the ideas was to go and asked in the hairsalon in town(20 km away) if it was possible for Naomi to learn there. What a great outcome: The owner was so possitive, has learned it the same way. Naomi was welcome and is already working there!! And the owner is so happy with Naomi and she wants to teach Naomi! I have already asked her about schooling for it. She would need University/aprentenship Darwin or somewhere else after her college.

The other Idea is: That Naomi can go to the homeland MAF families to help with the children homeschooling and with the little kids to entertain them, baking, cooking, games etc. for a few days a term. Naomi is a great helper at home, I will miss her here but see that she can be a blessing to other families and so this is her little missionary work. With these ideas it will be a exciting year for her and all of us.

Homeschooling is not the easiest thing to do, but I don't want to miss it. There are so many rewards!( Family bonding, teaching them Gods ways, God molding me the most maybe,one on one teaching)
The hardest thing I found is that we are nearly the only family here that are doing it.People don't really understand it, because why don't you send them to school, if their are schools?
Compared to New-Zealand it was so normal there, even when you were living close to schools.
It is against the flow, that makes it hard.

One day as I went for a walk to shady beach by myself and sat on a roch and cried it out to God for help, how than Lord? How can I teach, how can I love? Straight away He answered: Come to me. And than I remembered the rest of the verse: all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.(Matthew 11:28)
He gave me 3 words: Love (giving my everything), Live(go out and explore with them), Laugh(have fun together)

I know with Gods help we can do it! It was God Himself that layed it on my heart to homeschool. He gave me verses to confirm: Deuteronomy 6:6, Psalm 78:3-8
And so we go on, following His footsteps, not my will anymore, but His will be done!

A knock on the door in the middle of the night

Please pray with us for our Yolgnu family:

Last weekend we woke up at 3 in the middle of the night from screaming. I said to Eric: it's like someone wants to make an end on his life. 5 min. later there was a knock on the door. It was our Yolgnu family and they asked if we wanted to search with them for their son. He left home angry and drunk. Praise God we found him alive soon and we could bring them all back home savely! 15 min. later they knocked on the door again and asked for some food for their son. So we invited them in and gave him some food and we prayed for them. They were all calmed down. The next day we went over to see them again, and they did well. But had a big fright from last night.

And I must say it had touched my heart deeply, when I thought of that scream, I cried.The next night I couldn't sleep very well. I had to bring it before the Lord.

Please pray for hope for their son and the people of Yirrkala. And thank God that their son was found again and alive!Pray that God will continues to use us.

Boys ceremony from our Yolngu family

We were invited by our Yolgnu family to the boys ceremony. We had asked around Maf people and Yolgnu Christians if this was ok. But the best way to find out is to go and find out yourself. We felt quite privelaged and decided to go. They had asked us to bring some bread and soup to share. So we went after church with warm soup and the bread. It was a big happening. The whole week there was clapping on sticks and dancing and the sound of the digeridoos. 4 boys would become a man...by circumcision. The boys were dressed up with a skirt and waiting to be picked up by the dancers.

Brought to a place where they got a painting on their stumich, a story of their family which took 3 hours!! While the Yolgnu man sat around the boys there was entertainment by music(clapsticks and didgeridoo) and singing and and dancing. Telling stories from baby to man.

We were still sitting on the ground on a bamboemat, while the soup got colder and the kids got bored and hungry. We decided to start eating and after that the kids had enough and decided to go home. I had to wait for the boy to finish, because than he could eat, before the real circumcision took place.
Done by the Yolgnu people themselves.
We didn't want to see this part and went home.

it was a privelage to be part of it although we didn't understand it at all. We were really welcome and part of the family.

Christmas and New yearseve

The last day of the schoolyear was a real surprise for the kids.

I had made certificates for each one with a personal writing on them. We started the day first in bible reading and prayers, praise and worship. Thanking God for this schoolyear! He has guided us through.
Then it was time to hand out the certificates, the kids were blown away! It was so fun to do this for them, as they had worked hard and done awesome work in this year of moving everywhere. This was not the only thing we had for them, we also surprised them with a meal at the Gove house!

And as the holidays started so did the rain. The temperature dropped by 10 degrees, we really enjoyed it, and the kids played even outside in the rain, they had lots of fun with their togs on, on their bikes going through puddles. There was a Cyclone coming our way, so we had to teach the children about it and what to do. We made a box with extra food and found out where to go if we had to move. We had some bad weather from the cyclone, but it didn't come towards us, but went south.

Christmas was different again: In a new envirement, culture, new friends, and without family, and with a different Christmas tree, a Jesse tree. We had focussed on the familytree of Jesus, from Genisis to Matthew, the birth of Jesus, that started the end of November. Every day we did a bible story and a devotion and the kids hang a symbol of the story in the tree, that they made themselves. It was waiting for something exciting to happen...Jesus birth, Jesus taking more place in our hearts, and now waitng for His return.

On Christmas eve we went to Yirrkala church, because the kids from kidsclub had practised some dances on Christmas Carols. The plan was to go out on the streets and sing songs, and dance, but it poored down with rain they had to do it in church.

We also had invited our Yolngu family for a Christmas dinner. I had cooked a meal and Eric had to pick them up, they forgot. Only our 'yapa'(sister) came with her 3 grandchildren.Usely they sit on the floor, but our kids had made the table so nicely.The conversation went a little bit hard, as yapa was sitting with her back towards me and didn't look at me when I asked or told her something. Once we were sitting on the couch, it went better and we had a nice conversation.

On Christmas day we came together with 5 new families, we enjoyed each others company.Everyone had prepared something.


Eric went fishing with 3 men, they enjoyed it al.

On New years eve we had invited everyone to our place to celebrate the new year. We had made the tradional oliebollen and some other snacks. We had fun by playing a game: spoons. Even the Paas family could still come. Aartje was already overdue. They put the girls to bed at our place. After 12 they took the youngest, Tamar with them home.

At 5.30 in the morning Arjan called that they had to go to hospital.So I rushed down to their house to babysit Tamar.

An hour later he called me already that they had a healthy baby boy: Ethan! What a joy to start the new year like that!!

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