Thanksgiving and expectation

In this blog I would like to look back on the past year with thanksgiving. And look forward to what is coming (or I think might be coming) with joy and expectation. There are so many things in this past year to be grateful for! First of all the faithfulness and care of God to me. Thank You, Abba, Thank You is even too weak of an expression to really say what is in my heart.  

Give thanks to the Lord for He is good, for His lovingkindness endures forever!

I am also very grateful for the life that I was given in this past year and for getting to know myself better. It is more and more a joy for me to discover myself 😊. And I am amazingly grateful for so many precious people that I was able to encounter throughout this year, old friends and new friends. Without being able to mention you all by name, I hope and pray that you know who you are! 

Besides this I would like to give a bit of an overview of some of the highlights. Also here it is impossible to mention them all. So if the highlight that we shared together is not mentioned, that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t important for me. It just means that there isn’t enough space and time in this blog 😉. 

I started my year in Eindhoven with family and friends. A place that I know and where I am known, a place of great familiarity. It is good to have a place like that, that feels like home. In all my wandering I am learning more and more to have my home in Yeshua. But it is also a joy to have such a place, where also the surroundings feel like home. In the third week of February my journey began, off to Israel. The first two weeks together with Inge, to show her ‘my’ Israel and to discover more together with her. We’ve seen beauty and brokenness, walked in the footsteps of the beginnings of Israel and of what God is doing here in these days. As a highlight our time at the Gihon spring and in the prayer house in the City of David come to mind. And of course to celebrate my fiftieth birthday in Israel, in the Negev desert, surrounded by precious friends. Mid-march I went to Portugal for one month. In this month I was really able to see how God guides our steps, how He lead me from place to place for intercession and how He spoke to my heart. So many images pass before my eyes at this moment… I feel very privileged to have been able to be there for the commemoration day of the victims of the Inquisition and of the contacts God gave with some Catholics. Another highlight was for sure an outing with Vera to the sea shore and the beautiful wildflowers there, being able to lie down between wild irises!!!  

My next stop was back to Israel for the Pesach hike with Streams in the Desert, a time of Intercession with TJCII, and a time at the Fountain of Tears. The Pesach hike was for me physically extremely challenging, but because of the hike itself and the contacts also extremely enriching. Through it God healed in me my outlook on the difficulties of life and put them in the perspective of challenges on a hike in which so much beauty is to be discovered. The intercession time in Jerusalem was, once again, so rich! It is really such a blessing to come in God’s presence with brothers and sisters unity, there the Lord commands blessing (Ps 133:3). A fun and spontaneous encounter happened one evening walking alone through the Old City of Jerusalem. There was a young French woman in the street, speaking to a cat. I ‘entered the conversation’ with her and we continued our road together. A real moment of sharing was given and in the end this young woman joined us on the Now Generation meeting in July in France! I love to see how much humor God has! Then my time at the Fountain started, with always so many special encounters with friends, friends of friends and total strangers, but never leaving as strangers, always as friends. It culminated with the grace for me to be in Israel during the twelve day war with Iran, just being able to be there with Israel in her fear and pain and to pray. I had beautiful encounters with some neighbors, who have become precious friends.  

After this I stopped for a few days in Cyprus on my way to France. From Cyprus the beauty of God’s creation and many very meaningful conversations remain with me. In France I was able to join the Now Generation meeting and witness the sprouting of a new beginning for TJCII France, Hallelujah! I remained in France and was invited by some dear friends to the Cevennes. It was a time of sowing and resting, with close encounters with butterflies and bees, enjoying very much my times of worship behind an acoustic piano and learning about the history of the Huguenots. It ended with me attending an Israel themed conference, where it was so beautiful to see the Spirit work in unity. From here I went to Paray-le-Monial for family time with my sister and at the end also my mom. That time started with an amazing night of worship in the century old basilica, where I was able to dance. Another huge highlight was our 2 week trip in a camper car. From this time I want to mention the beautiful conversation I had with the owner of the camper car, before we left, the special close encounter with a deer one morning during my morning sports and the moment where the tumultuous sea almost became quiet after me reading Psalm 29 out loud and finishing with the words: And God blesses His people with shalom!  

Then it was back to Israel for some visiting and a time of intercession and meeting with TJCII. The most amazing part of this time was for sure having appendicitis and needing surgery. If you haven’t read my blog about that yet, I can REALLY encourage you to do so here. Thinking back I am still amazed at how diverse and full God’s presence and provision were in this whole story. Because of the operation I had I left Israel one month later than planned and traveled straight to Poland for a time at the Fountain of Tears in Brzezinka, Oświęcim, just 300 meters outside of the concentration camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau. It is a very special place and there is much to tell about this time, which I will do in a separate blog. I do want to mention the conference TJCII Poland organized in Krakow in the middle of Advent time. It was a joy to participate here, being able to help with some Hebrew singing and giving a workshop. I think the most special moment was when we were at the restaurant after the conference with the TJCII Poland team and the guest speaker, a Messianic Jew from Jerusalem. At some point I saw a special bound being birthed between him and the team here in Poland. It was such a God-filled moment! The last thing I want to mention is the lunch on the first day of Christmas with my dear friends Michał and Agnieszka. It was such a sweet time of good food, conversations and Christmas carols in different languages.  

At this moment I am for another week at the Fountain and will then travel to the Netherlands for some quality time with family and friends (and some practical things to attend to too 😉). Mid-February I plan on traveling to France where we have a re-birth meeting for TJCII France. After the meeting I will go with 2 friends from Toulouse for some days and from there will travel to Spain. It will be my first time in Spain and because of the history of the Inquisition I feel this might be important. I think to travel through Spain to Portugal to be there by the end of March to attend the commemoration of the victims of the Inquisition. After also celebrating Pesach I plan on traveling to Israel for an intercession time of TJCII and a wedding that I am invited to. For the rest I know that there is a possibility that I will be traveling to South America again this year, possibly to be part of a team for a diplomatic training course for the work of TJCII. The same kind of training will likely also be given again in Hainburg, Austria, where I am also invited to be part of the team. In October we have a big meeting planned for TJCII in Israel, so I expect to be there again for that. For all of this and for the rest: God knows! I have my ideas, but God can always change my plans, as He has done a few times in the past year. My life and my times are in His hands: the best place to be and also kind of adventurous 😊.  

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