Dear friends and family,

The summer holidays are just over, and we can already see the first Christmas ornaments in the stores! How can time move so fast? A year ago Jonathan and I were still in Greece, where we were working on the ‘Invisible Heroes’ documentary project about refugees. A year ago our girls were practicing Christmas plays at their english school and grandma was taking care of them while enjoying the occasional english scone. 😊

But now, a year later, we could never have imagined that England would still be so present in our minds… i’ll say something about this later in the letter. But first….

Coffee!!

Uhh, coffee? Yes! For me a synonym of coziness and energy! Coffee is also one of the factors that bring us together our communication team. We are a lively young group of people, where Jonathan and I are the oldest 😳… but I enjoy being able to work, learn and to have a shared passion to want to see Gods Kingdom spread through visual communication! At the office everyone does something else, photography, film, social media, webdesign and graphic design. We support missionary projects in and outside our base, and are always seeking to help each other and to learn new skills. I am happy and proud to be a part of this!

Should we stay or should we go?

This is a question we’ve been asking ourselves a lot these past few months. This was also one of the subjects we talked about during our debriefing in Holland. In our last newsletter we talked a little about our uncertainty when it comes to the education of our girls. This was only a trigger to start thinking about our future and where we see ourselves on the long run. Where would our girls receive good education, but also, where can Jonathan and I keep on working on what we believe God has for us? Where can we keep growing and developing? England has found a way into our hearts and not left our thoughts. A few months ago we started thinking and praying seriously about a possible …big …change. That’s when we received and official invitation from YWAM Harpenden (in England, where we have been twice in the last few years) with the proposal to help lead part of the communication team and to expand training in the area of communication. We also still feel connected with the refugee cause and the base in Harpenden would be a good location to go from and support different projects in and outside of Europe with film material, be that about refugees or another needs.

At this moment we are seriously thinking and praying about the next step for us as a family. For us this is a great opportunity, and also something that has our heart. We have the chance to continue building and to work in a communication team with a lot of potential. If we leave Piratininga, we are leaving a healthy communication team behind, with new leaders for the ‘School of Design’. If we would move, now would be a good time.

Like you may have noticed in the scenario described above, this is something that we would be inclined to do. These last weeks we have been talking to our homefront and leadership and praying with them, we have weighed the ‘pros and cons’ a thousand times! Right at this moment we are still in this process, but we believe we will be coming to a decision soon. Should we stay or should we go… to be continued. 

Would you be willing to pray with us? That God may give us peace and clarity about what His will is.

Iara doesn’t want do dance anymore

For a few months already we noticed that Iara din’t have the same passion anymore when she went to her usual ballet classes, and it took a while for her to have the courage to say: “mom and dad, I don’t want to dance anymore.” Whoever knows her a little would have been as chocked as we were to hear this 😱! She can dance so well, she has always done it with so much passion and surrender! What happened? We didn’t want her to give up, but Iara seemed determined in her decision to stop dancing. With a lot of persuasion we convinced her (read – forced) to participate in an art school that was happening here at our base. It is a school for missionaries that want to learn more about art and culture. The mornings are filled with theoretical classes, but the afternoons were all practical, with lessons like, Contemporary Ballet, Hip-Hop dance, Circus, Theater and Capoeira. This school is for adults of course, but Iara was invited to participate in the afternoons. She really loved it and discovered a new passion for dancing. She found out how she transform creativity into dance, and sometimes she just can’t stop dancing! Here are a few pictures of her at a local event in town.

Costa Rica

In september Jonathan went to Costa Rica for two weeks to participate in two conferences of the ‘University of the Nations’. For a couple of years he has been part of the ‘College of Communications’ committee so he has some specific tasks during those events.

The first event was a big conference with about 700 YWAM missionaries from all over the world. The theme was the Lords Prayer. Together they were able to discover how we, as a missionary organisation and university are able to put this into practice, with the question, ‘how do we bring Gods Kingdom here?’ God’s Kingdom comes when God acts, and His will is done when we act. He invites us to partnership! And that is how we will see Gods Kingdom on earth as it is in Heaven.

During this event, Jonathan was part of the media team and helped with the “livestream” and short interviews. This was watched by thousands of missionaries at home, including me 😀

The second event is called ‘Uniquip’ and the word already says it: University + equip. Jonathan was part of the ‘Resource team’, the practical side of the organisation of the event. This workshop is focused on staff workers that work at the different schools of the ‘University of the Nations’ and has as a goal to equip them on a practical way, like ‘How do you register a school’, ‘How do you develop a new school?’, ‘How do you evaluate students?’ But also on a personal way. One of the things that we see is that so many people are hurt because of the education they have received. Normal education is so focused on doing that it looses its focus on being. In Gods Kingdom we can be first and the doing will flow from that. This principle is something we want to pass on to our students, that when they do a school or training, they will have an encounter with their Creator and discover who they are in Him, something that will influence in what they do.

This is the end…

Wow… this was a long letter, big applause for the ones that have made it this far, haha 😄! I also wanted to thank you for coming along side us and supporting us, this means a lot to us. May God bless you and keep you!

Lots of love,

Jonathan and Johanneke