The smell of 
rapeseed is coming into my window. And when I look out of it I can just spot the top of the fields who are bringing this nice spring smell.
We are in France!
Our friends, offered us a holiday at their parents house, for a week. And it was amazingly nice! Not just the house, which is really beautifully rebuild, but the colour and taste is given by the people who live there. Years of hard work has made the run-down farm into a lovely home, the fine old pots, and jugs and jars and a fresh new painted look to the window frames makes that it all is a place where the old meets the new. We sensed a deep love and wonderful sensitive balance in removing what is going too far and letting be what can’t do any harm, adding and removing in a fine tuned way
It was quite a gift! We -as a family- are feeling more about our upcoming move and it starts to get a bit unsettling. Many of these days, half of me was thinking how to repay our friends and their parents for this lovely gift, but my other half wants to see it as a discipline to be able to receive. Very often we love to give, which is wonderful, but it is humbling to receive, in a way you go on your knees. So, finally I got over it, accepted and said: I am not going to give a big present, pay or whatever, but just enjoy their gift to us. It is a humbling process to depend on support by friends and family, with many wonderful surprises of goodness and faithfulness. One evening our friend took us out for dinner in the most special restaurant of the area. A total new experience of tastes and shapes and creativity with food. It was lovely! The kids playing together, the chats around the table, the bath times, the fun and the walks. And: Femke’s tenth Birthday!
Good memories to enjoy for a long time. Dear friends, thank you very much!
Steadfast love and faithfulness meet;
righteousness and peace kiss each other.
Faithfulness springs up from the ground,
and righteousness looks down from the sky.
(Psalm 85:10-11 ESV)
This is so lovely, your descriptions and pictures, and your thoughts on receiving. This comes at a good time for our family as well since we will be on the receiving end of things a lot very soon, like a home of anothers for 7 months! Thank you, and for the pictures of the children as well! More blessings as you continue to step out in faith, Pam
Thank you, Pam, Blessings as you prepare for your furlough soon, and thank you for caring for Jelle next week! You are at the giving side than… love and blessings.