A family who loves to travel

Hi, here I'm again, ready for a new four-week trip to the US.  But I'm not the only one crossing the planet 😉 Here's the latest: Peter is exploring Thailand for eight weeks, with Sanne set to join him next week. Jesse is gearing up for a two-month trip right after we're all back home. Lotte's already living the beach life—though she might deny it (just kidding, Lot!).

What's the plan this time: staying in LA; spending three weeks with Lotte and Ryan and his family/ staying with tante Wil and Jacky & Monica for a few days. Finally, I'll wrap it up by attending the Catch the Fire conference in Raleigh (NC) for the last week. Exciting times ahead!

New job

Hope you all are enjoying this holiday season, slowing down a bit. I feel I definitely need that! The last months were crazy. After my Bulgaria trip, I began my new job as NT2 teacher on Wednesdays and Fridays. Even though they're just half-day classes, it took me weeks  to get to know the group, the teaching methods, and sorting out the admin side as a "ZZP-er." It still takes me too long to prepare my lessons, but I love this new challenge, working with adults from different nations. Last Friday, closing off the year, I'd invited them to bring "iets lekkers" to share during our 10:30 AM coffee break as to involve them in our Dutch culture. I explained that this could be like cake, cookies or candies. Well, it turned out I was having a coffee, going along with a pasta salad, rice, chicken and home made Arabic bread. And no one liked my "schuim kerstkransjes" hahaha. However, they know how to cook and to make "iets lekkers";)

Another new job

After teaching on Friday mornings I switch to my ministry job: meeting Noah at Seats2Meet in Amersfoort where we start off with a free lunch!  We're updating each other and ending up with a new to-do-list for the rest of the week. We've been leading a team-meeting last month, checked out buildings to rent for the event in April, we did a photo shoot and worked on the new website. It's quite doable, except for the plan that changed three times.. Noah is the kind of type, you know, happily going with the flow. I'm NOT. I start figuring out what went wrong and how to prevent us from more changes or miscommunication. Not Noah. He's okay with however it goes, he's focussing on his dreams and sticks with what he heard from God, it doesn't matter how we get there. We get there. Yet, I'm the planner, trying to communicate clearly to a big group of people. I want us to be very structured. You see, this job is a challenge as well;)  

The fruit business job

On Saturdays I transition to job nr. 3: preparing routes for our drivers and Mondays are marked by packing fruit-boxes. Oh, on Tuesdays there's my volunteer work that's actually combining ministry and NT2 teaching: telling bible stories to another group of Dutch adult language learners. I genuinely love all these roles, but I'm also thrilled about this extended break. Yay!

Lost a dear friend

On Dec. 11th we were startled by the sad news that one of our close friends unexpectedly passed away at the age of 54. Suddenly life gets overshadowed and nothing feels really important anymore as only to be together and to be still. We were preparing for a happy Christmas party with our fruit-team but instead we went to a funeral. Despite the tears, it was a beautiful and heartwarming gathering. Afterwards there was only three days left for Peter to focus on his big trip. I think we both need time to process, during the next weeks.

Christmas dinner?

I'm on the plane, flying directly. Eleven hours sticked to my seat but today I don't mind, I'm tired enough, I love sitting;)  I just noticed KLM wasn't very creative with the Christmas dinner options; no duck with cranberry sauce or haricot verts with bacon in sight. Nope, it was the classic "chicken or pasta?" as usual. :)

To be continued! Thanks for joining me again, enjoy family and friends, make good memories,

Love, Marieke