The Kooijmans family

Tired...

2009-03-28T08:04:00.000-07:00

Sounds reasonable, but it is more than that. Yesterday morining Marcel came down with a bad mood and growled at everything that moved. After a week of hard work we see that this term was really hard on our family.
After study there is not much time for family and other things. The work is done, but...We are glad that we are going away for ten days. After the course we have some extra days off.

We think we will not have Internet from next Monday, After April 9th we are able to mail and skype again. Please pray for us that we will gain some energy and that we have a good course. It would be nice if you could pray especially for the children that this ten days will be a good time for them.

Thank you!

Isn't he sweet...

2009-03-21T15:08:00.001-07:00

Tobias Kooijmans
Yesterday afternoon my brother Robertjan and my sister in law Ilona got a son!
Via Skype we could see him today and he is so beautiful. The same srious looks as his father :) It is a shame we cannot drop by and hold Tobias.

Course
Yesterday we heard that we are going to do a ten-days course. We are going to a village nearby London and stay there in a house. The children where allowed to have some extra days off. This means that we are not going to visit Holland during easter.

Sumo wrestling
Trough this link a nice movie about sumo wrestling at Redcliffe.
http://iamtraining
formission.wordpress.com
/2009/03/19/
sumo-wrestling/
Enjoy! :)

Sun...

2009-03-16T06:27:00.000-07:00

The last few days it is beautiful weather! Sunday we had a picnic in our garden.

Workshop
Saturday we had a special day 'preparing families for living overseas'
More information about this day and a nice 'Harmen Squirrel-Movie’ on the student blog
click here

Head lice
At this moment we are fighting head lice. The first time we defeated them with special shampoo, but this morning we found another little army.
Again we went to ASDA for help and bought new shampoo and nit combs

Course
The end of March we probably go to the candidate course of OMF-international in Seven oaks. June 8th we travel back to Holland, the preparations already started.
We don't have information about our language study.

Essays ready...

2009-03-15T07:20:00.001-07:00

We had to work hard, but our essays where ready and handed in before the deadlines, now we hope we got good marks...Marcel started his placement two weeks ago. Two afternoons per week he is working with the Raikes children. Very nice place to be. Wednesday we have football club and every Friday we do something different (for those working in education, you will recognize these Friday afternoons :))

Wheelbarrow challenge at the Raikes-Centrum

Friday we played hide and seek at the bible college. 1 person searched for a nice hiding place and the others waited a minute or two and went searching. If you would find the person you joined him/her and hid together. he people who hid could also move to another place. We had a lot of fun. The next weeks we are also posting messages at the Redcliffe students blog. Brother Jaap did it the last six weeks and now we are invited to write some posts. he posts are different from our own blog, so it is worth it to take a look: iamtrainingformission Harmen Squirrel will show his own little movies under the name of: DBC...

Give me oil...

2009-03-06T04:39:00.000-08:00

No real news......but a funny experience! Stefan became ill yesterday evening.
That wasn't funny. A short stomach bug.
During the morning we saw Stefan was recovered already and he played with magnetix whole morning. In the afternoon the house was filled with a scream:
(if you know how loud Stefan can be...))

THE OIL TRUCK! THE OIL TRUCK! THE OIL TRUCK!
And yes, there it was parked in front of Redcliffe House.
The heating system uses oil and it needed a refill.
Stefan put on his jacket and his wellingtons. This was the best afternoon in weeks!

Sjoerd meets celebrities...

2009-02-28T06:08:00.000-08:00

Everyone one wanted to be on a picture with Sjoerd!:

This morning Sjoerd en Gerdine left to Holland, they arrived safely at Schiphol Airport and at the moment they walk around somewhere in The Netherlands. Probably there is not that much staring at him(tall guy) as in England.
Sjoerd probably took a picture of the Queen of England(We still need to blow up his pictures to prove it) and he met Postman Pat.
We enjoyed their stay very much!

Down here a few pictures of Sjoerd and Gerdine's visit to Gloucester and London:
Click at the picture for a bigger picture(and a chance to see the Queen)

Bey Bey

Visitors...

2009-02-26T04:04:00.000-08:00

Yesterday Sjoerd and Gerdine arrived.
Drinking coke and eating pringels we catched up.
Today Sjoerd and Gerdine explored Gloucester.
Of course they checked out the athedral, the local pub and the historic dogs ehhh.. docks. Thomas, Leon and Naomi where ill and at home, but they where treated with some nice presents!
Thursday and Friday Sjoerd and Gerdine are visiting London.

Happy Birthday...

2009-02-26T03:38:00.000-08:00

HURAY!

Today is Anoek's Birthday. 10 years old already!

This morning we woke her up by singing happy birthday and we put the'Birthday Princess' button on her.
We gave her some presents and then we were of to school.
Celebrating a birthday in an English school is different, but Anoek liked it. The children in her class song Happy Birthday and Anoek received a nice present from her friend Gloey.
This afternoon we enjoyed the home baked birthday-cake

This afternoon we got a real dutch pie from our 'Homefrontcommitee'

plus a nice book to read in every day.

Thomas became a real schoolcounseler today:
He had to say 'I promise' and then he got his schoolcounselor badge on.

One for all...

2009-02-26T01:44:00.000-08:00

We enjoy our visitors!
Yesterday we went to Wales. Stefan wish was to go to a castle.
But most castles are only open in the summer.
We where happy to found a nice castle/ruine in chepstow. We drove there trough the hills and had a good time.

On wednesday we visited the ASDA :)
While we visited the Cathedral, Mintje was ill and in bed.
The weather is good. Krijn and Anneleen explored Gloucester.
The kids played in the garden.

Few pictures of chepstow castle:

Easy Jet...

2009-02-26T01:34:00.000-08:00

Mother sits behind teh 15th window and Anneleen and Krijn you can see behind window 16 (smoke)!

Yesterday and today we worked hard on our essays, so we can have a relaxed time with our visitores. Monday Sijmen and Annelies baked some pancakes for us, so we had more time to work! We had a great time and we hope that Sijmen and Annelies will get a good rest now :)
Mum, Anneleen and Krijn just arrived. For Mum and my sister is was their first flight (brave heroes) They had a good flight, but the bus in Bristol stopped working. Better a bus that stops working than a plane...

Rain...

2009-02-09T03:54:00.001-08:00

A small update from Gloucester, to get a picture how things were here around Gloucestershire you can watch the small film:

The Dutch where not impressed but nevertheless the schools where closed, Except for Redcliffe of course. At this moment the rain beats the snow.
Today Thomas received a Kingsholm Star. Thanks to Sijmen and Annelies we could make a few pictures! Harmen Squirrels rugby movie is still under construction, so a little more patience.. Thomas and Anoek found themselves in the Thursday newspaper. It was a picture taken at the rugby game Saturday!

More snow...

2009-02-09T03:48:00.001-08:00

Today Leon, Anoek, Thomas and Stefan have a day off school. The schools are closed due to the snow. In England and in this area they don't experience this amounts of snow regularly! (Once in 20 years)
We will post some pictures later on :) Here they are:

Photo's : The Groetjes family and the last two:Redcliffe's website

Snow...

2009-02-09T03:40:00.000-08:00

England didn't saw this much snow in 20 years...
Mem and Folkje are afraid there flight will be cancelled as they cancelled all the flights at Bristol today.

Mem doesn't worry about it.
We enjoyed the snow, except Stefan, because he is sick.
We hope he is better by tomorrow. Mem and Folkje visited Asda today.
Folkje attended the lecture of Derek Foster, Primal Religions. Jokes about the Dutch and a snowball fight during the break. We are having a good time and it's warm inside.. is it?

We are going to fly! We just get into the plane :)

Photo's made possible by family Kort (Short)

Visitors...

2009-02-09T03:30:00.000-08:00

Saturday afternoon our visitors, Folkje and Mem arrived.
So we enjoyed Rugby and Beppe and Aunt Folkje. Wow!
The welcoming team of our church recognized Mintje’s mother! You've been here before! Do you like it here?
We had thee with the other family's Dutch vegetable soup and noodles! Trifle and pudding afterwards.

It is snowing and they say there is going to be some more snow! We shall see.
Tomorrow Folkje is going to attend a lecture en we will have lunch at the college
We shall see what we can do, cause time passes by so quickly!
Praise skype and hyves so we could chat with the people at home :)
From Gloucester: Jelle and Marice, Happy birthday to you!

De rugby game yesterday was fab!!
WE won the score was: 23-21 and our voices are broken.
Great experience, but to say that we get a grasp of the rules...
A good reason to go again!

Rugby rules...

2009-02-09T03:23:00.000-08:00

As a preparation for the match of today we tryed to find out more about rugby rules. We now think we know the basics...
"Our" team Gloucester plays against London Irish.
Read more about this team at: http://www.gloucesterrugby.co.uk/

Hows life?...

2009-02-05T01:55:00.000-08:00

Time flies! Everything is ok here.
Thomas is the school counseler of his class and wears an official badge.
Anoek attends singing club. Stefan learned to eat with chopsticks and he celebrated Chinese new-year.
Leon plays the keyboard surprisingly well. Naomi did her first pooh on the toilet! (And plays three instruments: flute, keyboard and jembee) Marcel started a new window painting and is busy with his essays and Mintje got a haircut.

I have to disappoint you all, because we don't have pictures of Mintje because our camera is broken. (Marcel did try to fix it, but with no result:() Marcel had a bad day and is still not ok..It’s just a camera... was a camera!
Sometimes we've got even time to play a game:

The Mongolian family moved out to a very nice apartment.
Monday we brought them there.

This weekend Folkje and Beppe are visiting.(Aunt and Grandma) and Saturday Leon, Anoek, Thomas and Marcel are going to visit a real rugby game!!!!
Thomas knows the rules because he plays rugby on Fridays
Before I forget: We saved the best for last:

This week we were accepted by World Team. Monday we received their letter.
Next questions:
When do we attend the OMF candidate course?
Which language school in Indonesia?
We are so thankfull!

Guests

2009-01-25T07:14:00.001-08:00

We had a very nice weekend with our guests!
We enjoyed the food, Dutch pea soup and apple-pie!

We were aible to go through a lot with Francis and Margreet. It was also very good to have Wigcher and Anja around.
They joined for our shared dinner at our house. Food from India! (Spicy)
We learned a new Indian game called "Mancala"
The Werstraete's oops.. Verstraete's are back in Holland when we write this.
Thank you for ever so much!! (Especially for the Dutch treats!)
We are ready for the next week
!

Saturday...

2009-01-23T06:39:00.000-08:00

We finished this week. Saturday is a day of rest for us.
Not that the kids stay in their bed longer than normal,
but we take turns to sleep :).
10 o 'clock to the ASDA for our weekly stock. Stefan is so tired that we try to get him to sleep after lunch. He doesn't want to go to bed, but we think he needs it. Marcel is going to lie next to him and when he is asleep Stefan climbs silently out of the bed.

After coffee Mintje is going to shop and then it's already time to pick up Margreet en Francis from OMF-NL from the train station.

They had a good journey and are brave enough to have dinner with us.
We eat pea-soup, a typical Dutch soup with Dutch peas! After dinner Margreet and Francis offered to do the washing up, so we had the time to bring the children to their beds. After their hard work we bring Margreet and Francis to their apartment for some rest :). Meanwhile Wigcher Calls from Idburry.
Wigcher and Anja stayed with their brother Anton and his family.
They arrive at 21:00 at Gloucester station.
The wind blows our car almost from the road...

Wonderfull to meet with Wigcher and Anja. After a nice chat we bring them to Redcliffe. Wigcher is back to his student time in Zwolle. I hope we shut down the Fry-pan.
Good night.
Tomorrow a new weeks starts again…

Friday...

2009-01-17T07:12:00.000-08:00

Stefan woke us up at six
So we enjoyed an early breakfast. Strange, but with more time we were later then we usually are...At the end everybody was at the right time at school.

Naomi goes to the crèche together with Harmen.
Because we woke up early, she may sleep at the crèche today.
Mintje and Marcel enjoy their weekly marathon lecture 'Between the Testaments'
Marcel had to do some research about the Sadducees.
He discovered that some of the sons of the High Priest had a surgery to restore the appearance of a foreskin, for gymnastic purposes.
You can understand that this is interesting stuff between the other things I read, but I could not figure it out. Sijmen could explain it to me the other morning. The Greek sported at that time naked, so this Jews didn't like to be different!
Again I have learned something here at Redcliffe!
After lunch we went to the ASDA for some shopping and after that we collected the children. We get the shock of or live as Thomas nearly escapes from a bad accident. A car stops just on time, he hits Thomas at his leg, but he is not harmed.
It is just the shock and we praise God for that!
You just realize that these things can happen every day. Daily live is a miracle!

In the afternoon we did nothing important. At five Tim Wray came along to eat some Dutch fries. Later we watched an Afrikaner movie which was fun.
We also watched BBC's 'around the world in 80 faiths'.
Bedtime. Tomorrow Saturday! Nothing!! I think I will find time to post this message..

Thursday...

2009-01-15T10:36:00.000-08:00

Every morning we feel like waking up the whole house by waking up ourselves. When our morning ritual is ready we are able to get some rest in the lecture hall at our lecture about 'The Biblical Basis of Mission' while our children are at school.

It is interesting to see that even in the Old Testament you can read a lot about
God's Mission to bring Salvation into this world. We learn a lot from the lectures.
This term it tends to be more work, but we enjoy taking the same classes.
Mintje passes for her essay about The Old Testament!

The children were looking forward to this day, especially Anoek and Leon because they had an art-project.
Thomas brought back his Kingsholm book home with all his work from term 1.
in Stefans classroom is a real beach with a surf board and water.
After our lectures we had some time to do our reading for the lectures tomorrow.

After washing up duty we collected the children.
At half past three we drunk thee together.
Anoek had her keyboard lessons from Ju Hee.

Meanwhile Mintje prepared some 'hachee' and at half past five we could eat.
After that Naomi, Stefan and Thomas had a shower.
Mintje is going to a 'social' at the college.
After bringing the children to bed Marcel likes to play a silly game Bop IT Extreme!
Mintje comes back at nine and then Marcel has to go to the 'resource' room to do some printing. Tomorow it is Friday...
We hope to get some pictures from the crèche and of course our Fryer!

Wednesday...

2009-01-14T09:30:00.000-08:00

Yesterday evening we already prepared the
lunchboxes for today! All our children eat
lunch at Kingsholm primary school.
Mintje, Marcel and Naomi eat lunch at
Redcliffe College.
This morning the alarm clock
did go off!

We had enough time for a relaxed breakfast.
We walked to school together with the
Mongolian family. It takes us about ten
minutes to walk to school.
It is a good exercise in the morning!
The children are talking about so many things.
They also see the typical English busses driving by.

Naomi and Marcel cleaned the table and at 8:50 Naomi attended crèche.
A lecture about Post modernism was on the menu...
Rob Cook did a great job, because even Marcel could understand it :)
After this lecture of two hours we had our Redcliffe Devotions.
We had a visitor from Gloucester Prison and he shared about working with prisoners.
After that we had our weekly community group.
Adelina from the Ukraine shared her testimony.
Amazing how different life as a persecuted Christian family is!
It was encouraging to hear Gods work in her life.

After community group we had lunch at the college.
Today there was fish and potatoes.
At 15:10 we collected the children from school and we enjoyed an early thee at 17:00.
The children played together and watched a funny movie about a tribe in Africa.
This evening Marcel and Leon will play pool and after that there is still some reading we have to do for our lectures tomorrow.
eindstand 0-3

Tuesday...

2009-01-13T10:04:00.000-08:00

The Alarm clock did not go at 6:45,
but Stefan saved us by waking us up at 7:00!
Today we all go to school.
Naomi goes to the crèche and the other children are going to Kingsholm.
Thomas has a special day because he is going to the seaquarium in Weston!
He had a wonderful time!

Mintje and Marcel are going to the same lectures this term. Today it's wealth and poverty. We found out that affluence is not the opposite of influence :)
These lectures are good for us because it raises questions we need to answer in our future.

After this lecture we studied in the library on several subjects and after that we picked up Naomi.
Naomi was the only one so she had all the attention.
We had a nice lunch but we could not figure out what it was.
Marcel had to do the washing up and after that he fixed his bike.

At 15:10 we picked up the children from school.
We baked some pancakes and eat them at 17:00.

The children now have time to play before they go to bed.
At 20:00 Marcel and Mintje are going out for a run.
After a shower they are going to spend some hours studying.

Whats in a week?

2009-01-12T03:43:00.000-08:00

This week we post a message every day about our daily routines.
Sunday we started the week in Kendal Road, The church we join every Sunday. In the afternoon we had supper with the other families in our house. We had 'hutspot' en 'snert' and applepie as desert, easy to gues who prepared the food!

After supper we played some games. It is very special to live with different family's in one house.

In the evening we prayed and talked together about the advantages and disavandtages of living together in the same house. Funnie to see that the new family goes trough the same fases we went trough, also amazing to see how soon you forget about that.

It is Monday and the children are at school. Leon and Anoek have a visiting trip to the River Severn. They first go to a farm and then follow a whole program. It's raining here so we hope they will enjoy themselves!
Mintje just left to go on her placement with the Salvation Army. Naomi and Marcel stay home today.

After lunch Marcel has to do his cleaning duty and after that we pick up the children from school.

Snow...

2009-01-05T08:50:00.000-08:00

This year we got a good start: There was snow and the children where still free from school! For some children this was their first snow experience. Enjoy the short movie and the pictures.

After this one snowmorning we all started to study again. Mintje and Marcel have new interesting lectures and Leon, Anoek, Thomas and Stefan have started a new term at Kingsholm.
Naomi started her third term at Redcreche University.

Home again...

2009-01-04T12:57:00.000-08:00

I stole this picture off Redcliffe College from Marijn en Noortje's website:
www.marijnennoortje.nl.
We are back in England. Redcliffe House is still there although you can't see it on the picture. The new family from mongolie is already here. It is a new change in the house. We hope they enjoy it! This Monday the lectures on Redcliffe start. Kingsholm primary school starts on Wednesday. We are looking forward to the new term

The English version

2008-10-25T05:32:00.000-07:00

Hello,

we are trying to build our Englisch blog here.
To vist our Dutch version click here: www.familiekooijmans.nl