Hello everyone,
We’re back with a written update. This update covers many of the activities we’re currently working on, but first of all: fortunately, Hanneke is doing a little better. She tripped and fell a few weeks ago, suffering a concussion, so she needs to take things a bit easier for a while. However, we are very happy to see that the rest is truly helping and that she is slowly recovering. Fortunately, she felt well enough to record the update for you—something we’re really pleased about, as it had been quite a while since the last one.
Celebration
Over the past few months, we have celebrated several special occasions. First of all, Erik’s parents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. What a tremendous blessing to be able to celebrate that. Especially given the brokenness we encounter daily in Aruba, we are incredibly grateful for the example our parents have set—and continue to set—for us. We have parents on both sides who stand firmly behind us, pray for us, model the way for us, and share in our lives; it was wonderful that Erik was able to travel to the Netherlands to celebrate this occasion with the family.
Two other occasions for celebration were Jorian completing his Discipleship Training School (DTS) and Hielke finishing his preparatory program to return to school. We are incredibly proud of our boys and grateful for these wonderful achievements. Jorian is already halfway through his next course—the Discipleship Bible School (DBS)—where he is working his way through the entire Bible; he is really enjoying it. Meanwhile, Hielke held his first holiday job during the Summer break and has since started his studies at Deltion. So, the next steps have already been taken.
It is good to know that Jorian plans to engage in missionary work for the upcoming time. If you would like to follow his journey, you can do so via his dedicated page on this website; he also has a WhatsApp group if that is more convenient for you. He could certainly use some additional monthly financial support for his adventure with God, so if you would like to invest some of your abundance in the Kingdom, please feel free to contact him (or us).
The latest milestone we’ve celebrated is that we have now been living in Aruba for seven years. We always mark the occasion with mixed feelings. We are deeply grateful to be here and to witness firsthand how God is at work in Aruba. At the same time, of course, we miss our family and friends in the Netherlands. And even though we have made a home here in Aruba—and that is a good thing—that sense of missing everyone never quite goes away, simply because we love you all and cannot be present for many events in the Netherlands that we would have loved to attend.
Taxes
As most of you already know, we have recently faced quite a bit of trouble regarding income tax. The Aruban tax authorities had issued us a substantial tax bill, and although we knew the law was on our side, our initial appeal was unsuccessful. Consequently, the matter went to court. Fortunately, the tax authorities reversed their decision; we were suddenly vindicated, allowing us to withdraw the lawsuit. We are very happy about this—not only for ourselves but, above all, for all the future missionaries coming to Aruba to do volunteer work. Hopefully, they will no longer encounter problems with the tax authorities.
Red Cross Collaboration
We are still looking for a venue for La Sala. Although it is challenging to sustain this ministry effectively without a dedicated space, we are certain that we must continue. We are seeing wonderful results, reaching around 30 to 40 women each week—something for which we are very grateful. Fortunately, there is now a ray of hope regarding the coffee afternoons. Following our earlier collaboration on food distribution for the homeless, addicts, and the elderly in San Nicolas, the Red Cross has now offered us temporary use of a space in their building for the coffee afternoons aimed at women involved in prostitution. We are deeply grateful for this and see how God continues to provide for this ministry along the way.
Ministries
Speaking of ministries, we continue to see significant growth and wonderful fruit in our work. First of all, the food distribution and La Sala programs are running smoothly. Beyond that, we maintain ongoing contact with various families. Although we cannot provide them with food every time, many of these connections endure and are having a long-term impact. One example is a family that previously relied solely on welfare benefits but whose father has now started his own small business. We are seeing this family’s circumstances gradually improve. It involves ups and downs and certainly doesn’t happen automatically, but we are very grateful that they are able to take positive steps forward. Furthermore, we remain busy with counseling; we organized another beach day for the women of La Sala and a “couples night”; we are helping to relaunch a youth group; Erik is serving on staff for the online Advanced Family Studies (AFS) course offered by the Family College of the University of the Nations (UofN); and many other wonderful things are happening along the way.
One of the highlights was running into the Prime Minister of Aruba (Mike Eman) on the street. This gave us the chance to raise the issue of the permits with him directly (conversations on this are ongoing). It also led us to discover that, every Saturday, he paints the homes of families in San Nicolas alongside a team of volunteers. Since we had some visiting volunteers from the Netherlands (the Freerks family) who were enthusiastic about the idea, we were able to jump right in and join a team to help out. It turned out to be a special and truly enjoyable experience—especially seeing the gratitude of the families who are unable to do this work themselves.
Many guests, much help
In addition to various families who came over to visit and help, Tanny also visited us to explore how she—through her foundation, Together We Stand—could organize volunteer teams to come to Aruba to help with the ministry work. If you have an idea about bringing a team here to help out for a week or a few weeks, please let us know; we would be happy to put you in touch with Tanny to arrange the details.
We also received a visit from the Hart voor de Wereld team from our church in the Netherlands. It was a truly special week, during which they gained a better understanding of the work we actually do here. We were able to share a great deal with one another, and they saw with their own eyes how God is at work among the people of Aruba.
We are absolutely delighted with everyone who has come to Aruba recently to help us. It would be impossible to mention everyone by name here, but thanks to their arrival, we are able to carry out more ministry work, further renovate our base, professionalize the foundation’s operations, and get input on the topic of social media. Praise God, we are now ready to start hosting teams. What a blessing!
That’s all for now! All in all, we see God’s goodness here, and we are very grateful for that. We hope you are all doing well. Lots of love and a big hug from us!
