Hope’s first ‘Sinterklaasfeest’
Dear family and friends,
The month of festivities has started and on December 5th Hope celebrated her first Dutch “Sinterklaasfeest”. In the morning she found a gift in her tiny shoe…
Hope got a nice pair of pajamas. That really came in handy as she has completely grown out of her “Newborn” and 0-3 months clothes. Despite the fact that she is only 2 months old, I have already changed over her wardrobe to the 3-6 months collection as she is really getting tall. Because she has been growing so much she has also been sleeping really well at night. So now we readily enjoy a good night sleep from about 10 pm till about 4-6 am.
On December 6th we celebrated Sinterklaas with the Dutch remnant here on the campus and a few other friends. It was so much fun as we did the “exchange game” where you have to buy 2 gifts and then with dices you swap and pick gifts until the time runs out.
With the starting of the December month we had the privilege of receiving our friends Mark and Lois Bonasera here with us on campus. Some of you might remember that when we were on outreach in Fargo North Dakota last April that we met a wonderful couple in Grand Rapids Minnesota. I was pregnant at the time and when I was sick I stayed in their place and Lois, who is a nurse, took me to the hospital and then cared for me during the day. Well, after our outreach we spent a week of vacation in their Lake House. After that we invited them to come to Hawaii. They were super excited to see the baby and decided to book a vacation here. So now we are enjoying 10 days full of fun and fellowship. Hope is enjoying the trips to the beach where she felt the sand in her feet for the first time. Mark is an electrical engineer so Jackson is picking his brain about electricity in Calabar, Nigeria. Lois is a nurse, so Jackson is working with her on ideas for the hospital/medical center we want to establish. So us meeting them is totally a “God-thing” and we are sure these are friends for a lifetime.
I started working with Darlene again after 6 weeks of maternity leave when she was here shortly in between trips. It is so fun as I can bring Hope to the office with me and do the majority of the work in my own time as it is mostly e-mails, phone calls and talking with people. Now that Mark & Lois are here I am able to get my work done in between activities, so also thoroughly enjoying the Hawaiian sun for some time.
Jackson is almost finished with his SBS Outreach, his Hebrew studies are progressing rapidly and he is able to read quite a bit of Bible now. Very soon we will be rounding off the quarter for Christmas break which we are looking forward to.
And then we can start dreaming of 2012 where we are coming to visit Nigeria, Cameroon and Holland! We hope to spend a good amount of time with both our families as well as continue the foundations for the UofN in Nigeria. Our plans are a lot more precise now: Hope & I will be in Holland first week of April, then we will join Jackson in Nigeria & Cameroon until mid-May. From mid-May till July we will all be in Holland. The Homefront is setting our agenda for our time in Holland, please feel free to contact them through: thuisfrontja@gmail.com if you would like to schedule a time to visit/ have other suggestions.
Love and blessings,
Jackson & Anneke
