The move to the other end of Europe.

Published Categorized as english

Jelle and Janneke Huisman

With Marijke, Judith and Femke and Laurens

moved from the Knoppersweg in Randwijk to:

Cvjetkova ul. 32
31000 Osijek
Kroatië

The move to the other end of Europe.
Last week we moved from the tiny village Randwijk to the other end of Europe to the city of Osijek in Eastern Croatia, close to Hungary, Serbia, and Bosnia.

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We are clearly not finished yet….

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Jelle did most of the packing.

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We had a nice break in Linz, halfway our journey

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Judith shining as always.

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You know that I love laundry-lines, and look at these socks hanging in order! That must be Germany, Austria or the Netherlands…It is near Linz, Austria.

While travelling through the beautiful Alps on a late Octoberday, and enjoying it, we were painfully reminded of the differences in this world. While we were hardly able to pack our belongings and sort out everything, (we could bring a few square metres of stuff to Osijek). While we crossed the border of Austria and Slovenia we saw hundreds and hundreds refugees outside a big tent camp waiting for what is next. It hit us, to see it with your own eyes. We just cross easily through the biggest part of Europe in a couple of days, and this situation is so extremely complicated. It is a big issue here in Croatia and the winter is coming. No easy answers, that is for sure. Please don’t stop remembering these people in your prayers, also the ones who stayed in their home countries and are drifted.
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Femke with a fluffy Minion at a gas station somewhere in Austria.

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Happy Laurens.

But we arrived safely and so did our friends:
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We had a nice evening of unpacking and ate good food at a local place here nearby. Lovely conversations. Thank you so much Jan and Jan and also your families!!! And not at least the company who offered to use the van freely for this move to support the work among the Roma.
Homeschooling
We started the home-schooling this week and I have to say: the girls are teaching me how to teach. We got a wonderful schedule from the school, the girls are able to work independently and I am there for guidance and explanation. Laurens is playing around and we even found a local girl from here who is playing with Laurens a couple of hours when I do the home-schooling.Jelle works in the office and takes Marijke with him, around coffee we talk about the leftover questions and in the afternoon we finish what is still left to do and do different things like making a nice meal or baking.
Today I went with our friend and colleague to visit families in the village to do bible-study. The need for language study for me is pretty obvious, but we are setting this up soon. It is lovely to just jump in into another community and we are so glad that we’ve been here before. The people at the market place even remembered me!  Such a joy to do local shopping and buy a bag of hand peeled walnuts, by a woman who is begging to give some attention to her little stall. That definitely adds to the joy of baking!
So far… the move went very smooth and it is lovely to be so much together as a family.
We feel very blessed. It was a week of thanksgiving here, and there is so much to be thankful for. Everyone who helped us with the move and here to welcome us in settling in and setting up language and music lessons.
Thanks for reading, blessings to you.

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