Moving

They say moving is as stressful as divorce. I guess that depends on the size of your house;)
But I cen tell you that it is not a party in the park. Even if everyone helps:
Sommige mensen zeggen dat verhuizen zo stressvol is als scheiden. Ik raad dat dat een beetje aan de groote van je huis ook ligt, maar in elk geval is het geen feestje, zelfs als iedereen helpt!

 Some to pack in.
Sommige om in te pakken....

Some to pack out.
....en sommige om uit te pakken.

We thank God that our belongings have now safely been moved to Pretoria. And our house is ready for handover. Our car is also almost gone. So soon we will be burdened only by one suitcase each. Glorious.
We danken God dat onze spullen nu veilig in pretoria zijn aangekomen, en dat ons huis schoon is om opgeleverdt te worden aan de volgende huurders.

But apart from STUFF, there are also the people, and this is the harder part. Our fairwell's from the adults and the children at Goeie Hoop have passed. And we were amazed by the effort people have gone to. Tonight we will still greet our cellgroup, that is the last goodbye 'party'. Then it is just a friend here and there.
Daarnast is het natuurlijk een tijd van afscheid nemen, dat is moeilijker. Van de kinderen en volwassenen bij Goeie hoop. We hadden een "feestje" met de volwassenen, een met de kinderen, een in de kerk en een van onze bijbelstudie groep en dan nog andere losse vrienden.

Carl showed the children a photo show- they loved seeing themselves!
Voor de kinderen had Carl een slideshow gemaakt met een heleboel foto's van de laatste drie jaar.

Then we had some cake:
En daarna hadden we cake en drinken

(someone is sitting ready to get any cake the little one's don't want)
(De jongen op de voorgrond zit al recht om de overblijfsel van de kleintjes over te nemen)

Our colleagues, keeping an eye on the children, while they did a little play:
Onze collega's houden de kinderen in de gaten terwijl die een drama stukje doen.

(Yes, the beautiful 'lady' is enacting Ilne, a very hysterical Ilne:))
Deze jonge dame speelt Ilne op een nogal dramatische manier

Here are our Dutch colleagues:
Samen met de Nederlandse vrijwilligers

and here the while Goeie Hoop clan (without the babies and the photographer):

En met de kinderen (zonder de babies)

While saying goodbye never is easy: we have one Hope. That as children of God, we will meet again.
Om tot ziens te zeggen is niet makkelijk, maar als we hoop hebben als kinderen van God dan zullen we weerzien.

Our new way of informing/ Onze nieuwe manier van informeren

Dear readers, From now on we will send less newsletters but more times the link from this blog with the newest information and pictures about our new direction of ministry and life in Zambia.

Beste lezers, Van nu af aan hopen we minder nieuwsbrieven te schrijven maar vaker the link door te sturen van deze blog om jullie op de hoogte te houden van de nieuwe bediening in zambia.

The Paalman family
De Paalman familie

Holland has a new king

So we celebrated with the rest of Holland from afar:

May you know the Real King!!

Simon

I did forget one important thing that did happen since I last wrote and that is that Simon turned one.

Happy birthday, little Simon. You are a true blessing to us- a blessing of joy and peace that we know is a gift from God's Hands. We want to intrust you back to Him. May He carry and keep you.
All our love, dad, mom, Rashelle en Tim

Rugby

We went to watch some rugby on Saturday, no not South Africa against Australia, but our little primary school boys from the school where one of the boys in the home goes.

I was so terribly proud of him, really screaming just as hard as the other moms. OK, maybe sometimes a bit harder, but that was just because..... I don't know.

Everynow and then I think of the fairwell, and my throat closes up, so then I stop thinking about it.

Carl took the older boys with, they ended up playing their own game next to the field with an empty cooldrink bottle. They are all inspired now.

They did loose unfortunately, next time, hey.

Spirit of fear

While we had a great weekend, God was also busy with us. We have been busy organizing our move to Zambia, but somewhere satan came in and he planted a seed of fear in my heart. And it started to grow.

I am very scared of snakes. God has always protected my, and in all our time in Liberia, and dozens of snakes on our property, I was never the one to come upon them. But in the 2-3 weeks before we went away, I twice foudn little snakes right infront of our house. And slowly this fear grew out of proportion. My fear is not so much for myself, but for my children, who may not always realize the danger.

Then we went on this breakaway weekend, and I took my fear with me. I kept checking everywhere if there were no snakes in little cracks or near our 'house'. We went into a national park, and I got out of the car to look from a viewpoint. And yes, you guest it.

And I could feel the fear take over all my logic. For the rest of the day, I kept thinking of the song: God's not given us a spirit of fear, but of love, power and a sound mind- based on the verse in 1 Tim 1:7. Yet, still I felt the fear.

 

Later that night we went to walk around the dam above where we lived, me checking the ground. And then God got me to look up, with the MOST beautiful sunset I have seen in a very long time.

 



And in that moment: I felt God ask me, that if He is the God that can create such beauty, such immense miracles daily, can I not trust Him to keep my foot safe where ever I may tread? And trust Him with my children?

And the Peace of God, came down over my heart. He is in control!

Nowhere

We broke away this past weekend and just went to NOWHERE. Seriously it is not even proberly mapped, leaving us unsure of where we were driving. No cellphone coverage. We had a blast. I had trouble picking photo's, so I'm gonna just throw a few out there, but there were so many more.

Yes, nowhere.

 

And I took pictures so you can remember the people that had the blast. Some of us don't change anymore, but some do.