I love you, Grandma!
Laurens had been homesick. The change to his new school was a big one. And, for a few weeks, he cried every night that he wanted to see grandma and grandpa and play in the garden. Now, thanks to my parents—I told them this, and they said, “It is time for a good hug!” So,…
The world around my table
Finally: The blog title Here he goes! But What Do We Call This? was a question I asked a few weeks ago when we finished our blog course. It took me a while to find a good title for this blog. It went from: Between the Laundry Lines (too female-only) to: Table Talk (with a wink…
Elvira, a woman with vision
The temperature in Osijek has dropped about 28 degrees in the last few days. Last Friday, we sensed it coming and dove one more time into the Drava river and kissed it goodbye for the winter. Now, we are inside, long-sleeves are found again, and Elvira and I enjoyed some time together over a cup…
Here we go, but how do we call this?
Yay! We FINISHED! Last year, for Christmas, Jelle gave me a blog course by Jeff Goins. And this summer we have been working on it in the wee hours of the day. Hiding from the heat, outside, working on the blog course, inside. We learned a lot, Jelle fixed everything behind the scenes. Thank you, Jelle!…
A new season, a new rhythm
Here we go: September has arrived. Laurens went for the first time to the Croatian school, and we do school at home with the girls, online. We are pretty proud of Laurens, speaking three languages fluently, while we are still struggling when conversations get more complicated. Also, we are a bit impressed by the girls’…
Rejected at your work: how would you respond?
One of our Roma friends talks about being rejected: When I graduated I was employed at the state hospital at the intensive care unit, everything was fine until the moment (..) they found out that I was a Roma. I noticed that they began to behave differently towards me, more negativity in the sense that they…
Summerjobs for the girls
Marijke and Judith both found lovely opportunities for summer jobs in the Netherlands. It was their first time flying together. Jelle brought the girls to the Budapest airport, and Jelle’s dad received them in Eindhoven (NL). Judith worked at a blueberry farm, and Marijke worked with granddad at the Free University of Amsterdam. It was…
An open conversation about motherhood, home and writing
As you might remember, Fanny Bernitez, and I hosted the last silence/writing retreat in Hungary two months ago. We got to know each other last year at the conference in Germany, and we do have a few things in common, like a love for our homes as well as being a mom and having a…
The day adventure found us…
“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Blaise Pascal This is one of Jelle’s favorite quotes. No wonder: He loves doing just that. So, that is how we spent our first day of holiday. The next day, though, we traveled from Szentistvan to the South of Slovakia…
Light in two Roma villages
“This week changed my perspective on missions forever!¨ was the reply from one of our guests last week. We had a team of more than 30 people of quite a few nationalities: a lovely group of young Americans, a few Serbs, Croats, Roma, and us, the Dutch family. We did Una Bible Club in two…