Thursday, February 26, 2009

Tjeko development

Since a couple of weeks I’ve worked 2 days a week on our Tjeko project. As many of you know, we want to create a social profit Theme Park for all children of Jinja Uganda.
Tjeko embodies article 31 of the Convention on the rights of a child, which states that every child has the right to (1)rest and leisure, to engage in (2) play and recreational activities and to participate in (3) cultural life and the arts.

We want to create a 'community' of animals that will help children discover these areas. They are very important in a healthy childhood, but are often completely neglected. Childhood is hanging by a thread, because of extreme poverty, a HIV/AIDS pandemic and the ever lasting turmoil in the North.

So far we've created Tjeko and Tjeka, two monkeys who live in a tropical rainforest.

What we want to do is create 3 animals that represent these 3 area's of Article 31. These animals want to help kids understand the fun you can have with (1)rest and leisure, (2) play and recreational activities (sport and games) and (3) cultural life and the arts.

My question to you is: What kind of animals should we use, and what should their personalities be?!

Help us create these cartoons! Leave your comments or emails!

Thanks!

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Morning in the Zoo!

Love those few moments it's just Daddy and Maelle!

After a long week working at the convention, I took a morning to show Maelle the aquarium at the zoo! It was a lot of fun!



Friday, February 20, 2009

Kaars Koffie at the horticulture relationship days





Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday we presented Kaars Koffie on the horticulture relationship days.

In 3 days we talked to a whole lot of people about coffee! We gave out 5,000 stroopwafels, a famous dutch cookie from Gouda! It felt a bit like the Metro days - lot of long but fun-filled days!

Monday, February 16, 2009

And now...

Few minutes before my bedtime, but need to give a bit of an update on 'us'...
Life back in Holland is ... rich. It's weird! It feels really different than a year ago when we came back from NY. That was really a time of 'the unknown'. This time it's much more a feeling of 'the next phase'.
NY has become an 'amazing time in our lives', Tjeko is an 'amazing future project'. And 'now' is a time of building stucture. Structure for the future, for the family, for a place to live... For 'community in Holland'... It's a new season. And although we are flipping scared at times... we're also flipping excited about the idea that God has 'this' for us!
I was having coffee tonight with an old school-buddy. I knew Farid from the time I took business at the MBO. I had not seem him for 14 years, but the other day I walked into him in the local supermarket. After listening to him tonight, I was thankful for all the 'periods of time' I''ve had in my life, and the wide variety of friends He's given me over the years - even before I went to NY. Every period has been 'rich' in it's own way. Made me realize I have no regrets in life... or at least no major ones... That's a rich feeling!

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Quote of the day

This morning when I opened my IGoogle, I thought I was reading my daily bible verse.
Instead, it was the quote of the day!

In the beginning there was nothing. God said, 'Let there be light!' And there
was light. There was still nothing, but you could see it a whole lot
better. - Ellen DeGeneres


That's funny.

Friday, February 06, 2009

Newsletter Winter 2009


It's been a work in the making... wow. How do your cramb 4 months of Uganda experience on 2 pages, and then try to cramb our future vision on the other 2 pages?!? 
We tried our best. So it's with a sense of acomplishement that we present you our latest Newsletter.



Our newsletters are viewable in Adobe Reader. Feel free to print for yo
ur own records!

There is a 'bonus feature' to this newsletter :) It's a part of our journal. If you like getting all-up in somebodies buisness... click here.

Thursday, February 05, 2009

Children in Uganda...(video)

The children in Uganda have been robbed of so much...


Please take a minute to watch this video that Tatiana has put together...


We uploaded this video also to Google, but found the quality on Overstream much better.
Please feel free to use this video on any other webpage.

Monday, February 02, 2009

Maribel in North Irland sharing her lifestory...

Maribel Ortiz is a staff at Metro Ministries in Brooklyn NY. We worked together for 8 years. At some point, for one year and half Maribel was my roomate. We shared EVERYTHING! :-D She came to France for our wedding and was one of our bridemaids... (Maybe some of you can remember her "she had alot of rythm walking down tha aile")
Here is a picture of us from back in the days

Maribel shared her testimony to one of our friends church few days ago. Please take a minute to listen to it. For us it's quite amazing to realize again how so many kids grow up in crazy situations all around the world but then to also realize what Jesus can do...

Click on the link you will get her audio testimony

http://dundonaldelim.org/index.php?option=com_sermonspeaker&task=singlesermon&id=10138&Itemid=120

Maribel will come visit us as well next week and we are looking forward

Sunday, February 01, 2009

Google Reader

Wow! My life just got a whole lot easier! I (finaly) discovered Google Reader!

Every time one of our friends post a blog, I see them in a little list on my igoogle. But better than RSS feeds, it shows them until I read them, and then they disapear again! Amazing. Now I know what' going on with our friends, without having to go to all their blogs!
This tip came from our friend Craig Broterson. His blog?

Thanks for the tip Craig!
www.reader.google.com