Going to Uganda in 2 weeks!

Wanna hear a cool story, listen to this!

In November I wanted to go to Uganda BAD. I wanted to help with 1moreChild and the new upcoming changes. BUT i just got a ticket for Januari, so my funds were LOW... very low.
As I prepared my flight for Januari, I remembered an old friend of mine, Margriet Hooiveld. She works as a steward for KLM, and flies to Uganda reguarly. I called her, and we chatted a bit about our projects in Uganda. THAN SHE SAID: "Ferdi, if you want, you could come with me in November of December! A few times a year I am allowed to take a personal passenger with me, and this year I still have one ticket left. You pay about 200 euro - WHAT YOU WANT TO DO?"
Uhh - DUHHH! I want to go! AND NOW I'M GOING! November 13th! So very exciting.
Funny thing about Margriet is, that I've never met her at her house :) Only in New York City, Uganda and at a national television station! And now 'at her job', 3000 miles up in the air!
This little trip give me some change to do something fun for the kids of 1moreChild.

Last year we did our encouragment day. that seems a bit too much for this trip, but I do want to invest in some encouragement gifts... Gonna have to think about that...

During last years encouragement day, we gave all our orphans a school bag with supplies.

Bunnies at the farm!

Went to the childrens-farm the other day... Fun Fun Fun!

'Lenster in Action' or 'My big brother at work'

This past week I went to see my brother on a seminar he's teaching at.
It's a dutch on-line community of a web-buisness-book - cutting edge in it's approach. Too bad you can't ever find out if you're not dutch (Meindert - you don't have to translate this
sentence).

Anyway - it was nice to see my big brother at work. As always he seems to be able to state his case in a 'light' but 'definite' way. 10 points.

Nice detail, the seminar was given at the training facilities of the Dutch Soccer team

. Nice to get a glimpse of that in the process.

Change seems great, but it often is a battle!

Tatiana and I are very excited about a church in North Carolina, Elevation Church. It's great! Their Pastor, Steven Furtick, wrote this piece on his blog. It's great.

1. Complacency
Change is hard. Positive change is just as hard as negative change. Sometimes it’s easier to stay stuck than to move forward. Often it’s more comfortable to stick with something that’s tolerable and familiar than to embrace something that’s preferable and unknown.

2. Regret
I really don’t know how to explain this, except to say that my regrets often overpower my ambitions, causing me to remain in a state of paralysis.

3. Distraction
It’s hard to tell how many major adjustments I’ve avoided making because I was busy tending to insignificant side items. It’s tempting to divert attention from the big thing that God wants me to change by slam dunking something that ultimately doesn’t matter at all.

I don’t want to stay stuck. I don’t want the storyline of my faith to be eclipsed by a shift I was unwilling to make.

If you’re feeling stuck, as I so often do, here’s a prayer to pray…if you dare:

God, help me move forward at the speed of your direction and intention,
no matter how painful the transition may be.

www.elevationchurch.org

steve harvey

I was surfing on the blog of one of our friends and came across this video...
Take a look



To HIM be ALL the Glory!!!

Common Out!

Diana Ross and Insideout

Great story about how things are coming around! Miranda Tollenaar, a friend from ywam got into gospel-music, because her dad, Wim Tollenaar, gave her an LP-albym of Diana Ross many years ago. It even got her to the point where she started her own 'black-gospel' choir (with a lot of white people:) ). That choir became really good - and yesterday that choir became the BACKGROUND choir for Diana Ross during her concerts in HOLLAND!! Now that's a story FULL circle - and who knows - one more circle to go!
www.insideoutmusic.org

Movie: Signing papers for Tjeko!

OK - mayb it;s not a big deal to you: BUT WE SIGNED THE OFFICIAL TJEKO PAPERS!

Thanks to all people that have cheered us on so far! There is still years to go, but hey: this is the first official step! Thank you God for getting us on this road so far with everybody!

Maëlle and Emeth

So - the chidken poxx (with double xx!) have invated Maëlle ... no fun. She's a strong one! She picked up a new hobby: Cooking with mommy.

And Emeth is starting to tell me all about his days. Here you see him debrief the fact that Maëlle has been showing him some new dance moves! Those kids!

Meeting at Ugandan Consulate in the Netherlands

Yesterday I went to meet Mirjam Blaak, minister of the ambasy of Brussels, with her office in Wassenaar, the Netherlands.
Miss Blaak is born Dutch, but now carries the ugandan nationality. She is the most light-skin Uganandan I've met up to date.
It was a great meeting, where we were able to share our vision and buisness idea of Tjeko Fun Village. For some of you the fact that we call it a buisness is still shocking. Mind you - Tjeko Fun Village will be source of income, out of UGANDAN profits! It's a buisness, where people will MAKE MONEY - MAKE A LIVING! Isn't that great? :) Mirjam Blaak's task is, to get investers and buisnesses linked-up. Promoting to invest in Uganda. Ofcourse a tricky job, because fact is: Uganda is not an investors paradise. It just isn't. But, as a good friend of us always used to say: It's not what it should be, but at least it's not what it used to be!

As I was talking to Mirjam Blaak, I got more on fire again about this God given idea. I am convinced that we will keep meeting the right people at the right time - no doubt!

Pray for Junior

Those of you that follow us for a while already - remember Junior? He got diagnosed with cancer a few days after his 6th birthday in 2004. He survived that. In 2007 it came back. He survived that one too.

A little while back I talked to George (the big guy on the right - he's an old teenager I mentored), and he told me that his little brother (Stanley Junior) is back in the hospital. At that time they didn't really know any of the details yet - but he told me he didn't want to believe it was the cancer again.

Yesterday I talked to their mom - the cancer came back. Junior is 11 years old now. He needs our prayers. Can you take a moment to pray for him, his family and the doctors? thanks.

Soowpictures for Pleisureworld

soowpictures078
Originally uploaded by Pleisureworld

The fun thing of working in a network is that you have to remember who is who, and who is doing what for who!

www.soowpictures.nl made these pictures for www.pleisureworld.nl.
And www.tjeko.info got to enjoy the nice shot!

Explaining what is a social-profit fun park...

EAS - presentation at X-periance

So we got to promote Tjeko in a fun way - in the X-factor / X-periance.
And the Tjeko Project won! We won ourself an article in World-Park (one of the leading magazines for the amusementpark industry!) Never know how a cow catches a rabit (dutch expresion).