English Blog
Sustainable Partnership – Duurzaam partnerschap
Sustainable Partnership Next year October the International Wholistic Missions Conference will be held in Durres, Albania. This is very special, because up till now this was always in the United States. This conference is a great opportunity for CHE workers from...
Powerless
Powerless, that was how I felt when I saw her lying on the ground in her apartment and she sent the ambulance people away. I felt powerless when they told me that she was yet going to stay alone. In my opinion that was by long no option anymore. I felt powerless when...
Goodness of God
Achoo! We 're back in Hungary, and that goes along with sneezing and nose blowing because of an allergy to some plant that blooms here in this time of year. More than half of the population is allergic to it, and pharmacists do great business with all their sniffs and...
Five Egyptians in the car
The church that we are involved in in Debrecen is an international church. It was founded a couple of years ago by American friends of ours, and over the years many international students have found the way to this church. In all those years we have built up quite...
Hoe great thou art!
First generation Christians; I had to think about it for a while. It was mentioned in the testimony of our three Albanian CHE colleagues. Although with a muslim background they had come to faith at a young age already and discovered what it means to surrender your...
Cooperation
JThis is our first news flash, which is the successor of our news letters and blogs. With this we intend to keep you up to date every month of what is hapening in our mission work among people who live in poverty. In the beginning of April we had our Easter meeting in...
So am I now born again?
So am I now born again? This was the question of a Roma guy, after we had prayed with him a prayer of personal surrender to the Lord Jesus. He lives in one of the communities where we are working as a CHE team. Actually my colleague and I came to talk to him and his...
Screening
Bij mid October I was in Prilep in North-Macedonia. The local CHE team has been working there in two Roma communities. Together with a team of American doctors they did a medical screening among the children there. These two communities are next to each other at the...
Trauma and handicaps
Just got back from a round trip through Central Europe. Together with the CHE director ofHungary we visited the teams in North-Macedonia and Kosovo. It is encouraging and inspiringto see how God works there through the CHE teams, and also nice that we can be...
Powder keg
’Tomorrow we will travel on to Serbia’, I said in my innocence, when during our Balkans trip we visited Kosovo. There is an enthusiastic CHE team at work there; in one of their villages they got to use a building next to a school. There they sell snacks during...
One big family
'Thank you so much for your patience’, I say in advance to the neighbor who is going to make our family picture, because this ‘Let ’s quickly make a family picture!’ is of course very optimistic. With over fifty people we were together for a midweek to celebrate my...
Funeral
Robi’s father has passed away. Robi is the Roma, with whom I went to the Netherlands three years ago to buy him a car for his ministry as evangelist. This was possible thanks to a successful crowdfunding, to which many of you also contributed. Perhaps that therefore...
Jesus was here
’There is a man sleeping down there!’ Upset Christy came back up again, after she had gone down to get her bike from the shed in the basement of our apartment. She was about to go to church to help the technical team. I went down with her, and indeed there we found a...
Mission trip
The last two weeks I 've made my first trip as CHE-coordinator. We visited teams and their projects in three different countries on the Balkans: in Serbia, in North-Macedonia and in Kosovo. https://youtu.be/LdFuyVlJq20 As coordinator it is my job to keep oversight...
Bulgaria
In the beginning of October we had a CHE training in Bulgaria: something we had been praying for for a long time. These trainings are always quite some events: with trainers from different countries we come together with a group of participants for five days for a...
Home
I also want to be a missionary! Those were my sister's words when she came in our nice dwelling for three weeks during our furlough. The neigbors of my other sister went on vacation and during that time we could stay in their house. It was a lovely place to be and...
Verhuizing
Those were quite some hours waiting at the office, but now it 's official: we have moved! We have our new address cards, new car papers and a parking card, so we can park the car at our new address. We are living in the city again, and of course we need to get used to...
Ukraine
Last week we went to the Hungarian-Ukrainian border with the CHE team. There are five border crossings there, and every day huge numbers of refugees arrive there to flee the war. We went to all five places to check and see how we can help and what the needs are. Some...
Gratitude in the snow
1 Thessalonians 5, 16-18: “Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus”. Snow again? This morning I was startled when everything was completely white again. It 's a great sight, but the last couple...
Sweet 15?
Hessel’s eyes keep resting upon our 15 year old daughter, after he has told about what he experienced today, and he sighs: ‘What a huge difference it makes where you are being born’. We are sitting at the table together for our evening meal and Hessel has told about...
Borders and connection
Two years ago I wrote a blog about our conference in Albania and what I had learned there. Last year this conference could not be held, but this year we could have one - albeit with all kinds of tests. At first, the conference was going to be in Hungary, but at the...
Furlough
For our furlough in Holland this year we got a beautiful place in an empty house in Urk. With thanks to our HomeFrontTeam and our relatives the house has been furnished and made inhabitable. It ‘s lovely to be able to stay in one place for the whole time of our...
Febe’s ballagás
On June 15th, which is the last school day here, there are official celebrations all over Hungary, that are called ballagás. It means that on that day you say goodbye to your kindergarten, your elementary school or secondary school. Parents and grandparents are...
Happy family
Finally, the time was there: for two lovely weeks we were complete again as a family. The table was set for six again, we sang together, we played games, but also just enjoyed being home, teasing little sisters or just hanging on the couch with a cell phone. For eight...
Pray and work
Last year I had gone to Holland together with pastor Robi to buy a car with him. Perhaps you ‘ve also contributed to this special project at that time. At forehand we had agreed that the maintainance of the car would be his responsibility. And of course, in december...
Unexpected
Here in Hungary the health care insurance is part of the tax agency. A lot of people here are afraid of this agency, because they sometimes can operate rather rudely. A couple of months ago they came raiding our neighbors with an entire police raid team, because they...
Handing out blessings
In Holland in the village Balloërveld you could pass by this summer by bike and have a cup of coffee there. It was called 'the resting point' in Balloërveld. You could also leave a gift there for our mission work in Hungary among Roma. All these gifts together...
Mud and angels
On Sunday I had to go to a Roma church in Uszka, a small village near the Ukrainian border. This is special place, because some 45 years ago a revival started here among the Gypsies. It was quite far off, but eventually it was definitly worth it. Because I met a...
Pastor Daniel
We would like to introduce you to Daniel. He is an enthousiastic Roma pastor in three Roma churches within the network of Gypsy Mission Foundation. Hessel met him this year through this foundation, and he was impressed by his enthouiasm and love for God....
Jungle
When we got back to our home in Hungary after a six week stay in Holland, it turned out that our garden had turned into a jungle. The grass was more than half a meter high, the street was overgrown with weeds and everywhere branches barred the way. The day after our...
Blessings from Hungary
In between all things that need to be arranged for our trip we even write a blog also.Next to packing, cleaning and arranging there is also a goodbye again. We say goodbye to our Dutch friends from Debrecen, who have to move back to the Netherlands again, we will miss...
Robi’s car
Just before the corona-crisis broke out and the borders were locked, Robi and I managed to get back into Hungary with the car that we had bought for him in Holland. To him the entire trip to Holland was as if he lived in a movie. He had never traveled by plane before,...
Screaming pigs and fresh vegetables
Saturday morning seven o' clock seems to be the best time to cut a pigs throat. I woke up and thought I heard a school class that tried to get to the high C, but soon I realised it was some pig in the village again, whose last hour had struck. It 's always a deafening...
Meet Robi
We would like to introduce you to Robi (Róbert) Várga, married and father of a big family. In the house of this Roma family gathers every week a house church, of which Robi is the pastor. A few years ago I met Robi at a CHE Vision Seminar, and ever since we stayed in...
Hopeless?
When for some ten lost minutes I park my car in a parking lot, I see from a distance some Roma women looking for something near the shopping carts. They draw my attention; when a car arrives to drop some bags of clothes in the containers, they run at it. After some...
CHE conference
CHE conferentie In the beginning of October we had the annual meeting of CHE workers in Eastern and Central Europe. These are always very encouraging and inspiring events: even the fact that we are together with so many people from very different countries, but all...
Cultural things
Being the oldest Gerrit many times has to try out new cultural things when it comes to school matters. Also this time. He is in his final year now, and here in Hungary that is being celebrated abundantly. At the beginning of the school year there is an official...
Back to Hungary
We are almost heading back to Hungary, but first we would like to share some precious moments from our furlough with you. Besides all presentations and meetings that are part of our work we also met a lot of friends and family. There were some surprises and parties...
From frustration to peace
In a nice guesthouse in Germany on our way to Holland I am quite able to see things in perspective... But last week in the waiting room at the dentist not so much. Two days defore our departure my last treatment was put inbetween two other patients. The dentist on...
Is there any use?
“Dad, has anything changed already after seven years?” After dinner, when we are still talking together, our youngest suddenly comes up with this question. Last Sunday we went to a baptism service with the whole family in one of the Roma churches that Hessel visits...
Easter
Sometimes it just suddenly is there, without anouncement: homesickness. For the tulip fields back home, for my family with Easter, for the church in Zuidlaren, for taking a stroll around the harbour in Urk....
I just want to tell you that I love you
In Hajdúböszörmény there is a small Roma church that we go to every Tuesday, as an outreach from our church in Debrecen. Usually we go with a team of five or six people, but this time we were only with three, including Imi, our Roma neighbor. We pray and sing...
Blessing Song
'Hessel, would you please play something on the piano, it always makes the children quiet!' The teachers at the After School Program have their hands full when the children are preparing to go home, usually they 're quite noisy. The piano in the hall brings relief,...
Fazant
Every Wednesday and Thursday I travel to Romania to teach English in the afternoon to a number of classes in the After School Programs the Christian Gypsymission Foundation is running there. In the evenings I move on to a nearby Roma church, where I do a weekly church...
Work project
Last month I spent a couple of days with a youth group from a Dutch secondary school. They had come to Romania to do a work project in a Roma community. They got there through the Christian Gypsymission Foundation and helped fixing the church building. Next to...
Car troubles
As you might have read in the previous blog I had an accident with the car in Romania in October last year. I crashed into a truck, and the front of the car was totally ruined. God however provided miraculously, not only in transportation home by means of a good...
Stranded
A Dutch mission organisation invited me to take part in a missions conference in Cluj-Napoca in Romania. Together with a worker of this organisation I made the trip of about four hours. The conference was about 'ownership in development': about the relationship...
From home to home
It was very quiet in the car that first day of our journey back to Hungary. What an intensive, but lovely time we 've had in Holland! But we did need some time to process all that. Never before did we experience Hungary and Holland so much as two totally different...
Kálmán in Holland
In the beginning of March I had the opportunity to go to Holland for a few days because of a presentation in a church there. When I booked my ticket I thought how nice it would be to take someone from the country itself with me to a presentation like this. So I...
Romania
In the beginning of April my American colleague had invited me to come with him to Romania for a couple of days. Hij had got into contact with a Romanian young woman, who gives training to youngsters. We could give some lessons to this group about micro enterprise....
TOT1
One of the most effective tools of CHE (Community Health Evangelism) are the trainings we keep. These are mostly one-week sessions, where people are completely out of their every day situation, so they can focus totally on the study material. The purpose of this is...
Praying in war time
Some time ago during a CHE-training we watched the movie 'War room' on a free evening. It 's a movie about the importance and the power of prayer. Definitly to be recommended for those who haven't seen it yet! This movie was an incentive for us as a team to start...