As it turns out, I use it quite a bit.  (Ok, I’ll be honest and say that I don’t use it as much as most Dutch people, but I’m way beyond what an American does.)  I usually take my bike to the grocery store, and I also take it to Grace’s swim lessons.  I’ve met up in the city with friends and gone to people’s homes to visit with it.  I’ve also done things like take meals to people on my bike and gone to Bible study, church and church meetings.

Bikes here are so much more convenient than cars sometimes.  You can go down paths that are shortcuts or that cars are not allowed on.  It’s actually faster to go to our church with a bike than with a car.  Another beauty of using a bike, besides the general healthier factor, is the money that you save using them.  I mentioned something about gasoline.  I just figured out what I paid for gasoline with the last conversion rate we used.  We’re happy because the conversion rate is actually down at the moment.  Still, we pay about $8.40 per gallon.  Crazy, huh?!  Imagine how much money we save by taking our bikes over the car.  Plus, with a bike, you don’t have to pay for parking.  In my head, I’m hearing the sound of a cash register adding up all the savings from riding a bike.

So, do you want to check out my glorious new ride?  Here she is in all of her splendour:

The new ride

Do you want to know how much better this is than my old bike (which I will actually be giving to a friend who needs a bike)?  This bike has a kick stand.  When there’s no good place to park your bike, you realize how important that is.  The brakes work really well.  That’s kind of important.  I can change gears.  The frame is sturdy enough to haul quite a bit.  My seat is complete and doesn’t have holes that take in water like a sponge.  (Again, rainy weather here really doesn’t help that problem!) My wheels aren’t rusted, and the spokes are all attached.  Yes, those are some of the things that are better about my new bike.  With my old bike the way it was, you might wonder why I’m giving it to a friend.  Hers was stolen, and her husband can do some repairs to the old bike.

You’ll notice that there isn’t a picture of me with the bike.  I took it for it’s first spin to the grocery store.  It was sprinkling a little when I left, but if you wait for it to stop raining here to do something, you might never do anything.  So, I went.  It proceeded to rain harder and then hail.  In case you’ve never cycled in the hail, you might want to know that it isn’t the most pleasant experience.  In fact, it’s a bit painful.  I was going to have Mike take a picture of me when I got back with the bike.  I looked like a drowned rat, so that photo shoot was out.  Maybe tomorrow.

I have to say a big thank you to North Texas Youth Ministries who gave money through Speed the Light to help me get my new bike.  There are kids who sacrificed for me, and I don’t take that lightly!  I can remember giving when I was a teenager for Speed the Light.  I thought it was a pretty awesome program then, and I think it’s even more awesome now! ]]> http://www.mikeandanita.com/family/cycling-in-style/feed/ 0 http://www.mikeandanita.com/ministry/coming-soon-new-church-in-hoofddorp/#utm_source=feed&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=feed http://www.mikeandanita.com/ministry/coming-soon-new-church-in-hoofddorp/#comments Thu, 20 Oct 2011 13:39:33 +0000 Anita http://www.mikeandanita.com/?p=347 We feel that God is leading us to start a new church in the city of Hoofddorp. We’ll be starting it with some friends of ours, Sietse and Vanessa Houtman. We’re really excited about being used by God in this new way.

Sietse & Vanessa

If you’re wondering if we will still do children’s ministry, the answer is yes but not as much.  We are still doing training and teaching, but when we start the new church, it won’t be our only focus.  We will be doing children’s ministry though.  When you start a new church, you end up doing a lot!

We have a facebook group, Pray for Hoofddorp.  If you’d like to get updates about what is happening or how to pray for us, follow this link, ask to be a part of the group and join us in this new adventure!  http://www.facebook.com/groups/159364030812216/

We also had a few Zuper Zondags during the series. We’ve got an incredible lady who comes up with crafts for us. Here are a few of her ideas for the kids.

Fruit tree

Fruit mouse

Of course, the kids were creative and made things in their own way.

Kid's fruit mouse

For our last lesson, we talked about good fruit vs bad fruit. Mike offered bad fruit first to the kids and then gave out good fruit.  It was a good visual for the kids and adults as well. The apple was so gross! Mike put it in a plastic bag and simply pushed on it causing it to explode. I definitely want to have good fruit in my life!

Good fruit vs bad fruit

Yesterday, I stopped and realized that I need to thank God for the gray ones too.  If nothing else, they make me appreciate the blue skies when they’re here.  I started to think about my life.  Do I sit and complain about the hard times or do they help me appreciate when things are easier for me.  Or, do I only focus on my problems and not thank God when things are smooth sailing?

It made me think of Philippians 4:12.  Paul said, “I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.”

When I observe her, I see some differences in her from most American kids.  First of all, she only understands temperature in Celsius.  We were Skyping with my family, they mentioned that the weather had been in the 70s.  I looked at Grace and asked her if she  knew what that meant.  She didn’t, so I told her that it was about 20 degrees.  She immediately knew what that was.

She also has an odd mix of vocabulary and spelling.  She is taught English on a British curriculum, so she writes about how many metres it is to the centre of town.

Grace can also compare the voices of cartoons in English versus Dutch.  She said that Spongebob is weird to hear in Dutch because they don’t sound too much like their English counterparts.  Mickey Mouse, however, sounds exactly the same – except for the fact that he’s speaking another language.

When it comes to traveling, Grace has more miles under her belt than most adults.  She’s flown over the Atlantic Ocean seven times.  When we go somewhere, she’s the one to remind us that we’ll need our passports.  While we’re in The Netherlands, we don’t travel all that often, but since countries are small and it’s easy to get from one place to the next, she’s been to quite a few countries.

Grace’s list of best friends changes often.  One friend in America has stayed on the top of the list since Grace was a baby though.  Some of her other best friends she’s had here have moved to places like Spain, Libya, Azerbaijan, and Bahrain.  Between that and being in an international school, Grace’s world geography knowledge is pretty good.

I often think about what an amazing opportunity it is for her to grow up in another culture while at the same time wondering what it’ll be like when she goes back to the States or where she’ll end up when she’s older.  I do my best to help her as a mom, but I have to leave most of that in God’s hands!

We have someone who demonstrates some recipe.  Then, we have a Bible study and prayer together.  Oh yeah!  We also sample the food.  In the past, we’ve had women from a few countries, so we’ve had a variety of food.

Tonight, we decided to just hang out together and watch Julie & Julia.  It’s a movie that is about a woman who cooks through Julia Child’s cookbook.  We loved it!  It’s about cooking, eating and relationships.  The woman who cooks through the cookbook writes a blog about it.  When the ladies were leaving, I thought, “This is a perfect time for me to write a blog about this group.”

I guess I have the summer to try out some new recipes before we start back.  Any ideas on what I should make?

Today is Koninginnedag, Queen’s Day.  It’s the day to celebrate the queen.  It’s supposed to be on her birthday, but since her birthday is in the winter and weather is bad, they kept the date as her mother’s birthday.  This is the only day that garage sales are allowed, so everyone goes into the center of the city to set up and sell their things.  Grace has asked for years to do this, and I finally gave in.  We got there at a little before 8:30.  It was rainy and cool.

Here is a timeline of how things went:

8:30 – It is raining.  Grace asks, “Has this thing started yet?”

8:45 – Nothing has sold.  It has at least stopped raining.  Grace asks if we can go home.

9:00 – It is raining again.  Still nothing has sold.  Grace asks again if we can go home.  We lower prices.  Grace says, “I hope we at least sell one thing.”

9:30 – Morning snack time.  The kid next to us asks if we have sold anything after he sells a few things.  I begin to not like that kid.  I try to convince Grace to call out to people and try to sell things.  She absolutely refuses.  It’s no longer cool.  It’s becoming cold.  Grace and I are shivering.

10:00 – We sell our first item.  Grace is more optimistic about the day.  More people are starting to come.  It’s raining off and on.

10:30 – The people by us leave, so we move to their better location.  We sell a few more things.

11:00 – Grace gets her second morning snack.  It has started to rain harder.  Yuck!

11:30 – Grace and I are ready to go.  Grace has started picking up certain items and shouting their price.  She even goes so far as to get a Winnie the Pooh toy and have it wave at people as they go along.  I have to tell her to back up because she doesn’t need to get in their face quite so much.

11:45 – We call for Mike to come pick us up.  It has stopped raining, but we are pretty wet and cold.  Most of the people around us have left.

12:00 – We are home and get to go through our things.  Everything is wet and kind of gross.  Grace has made 8.25 today and is very happy.  We have cleaned out a lot from her room and it looks much better , so I am also happy.  Hot chocolate and hot tea make us both feel much better too.

I asked her if she wants to do this again next year, and I got a definite “NO” from her.  I tried not to be too obviously excited about her answer.  Today, I hope she realized how much I love her!  By the way, as I type this, it’s now 1:30, and the sun is coming out.  It looks like it will be a much better afternoon than morning.

Happy Queen’s Day to all!

We’ve gotten a new puppet stage from BGMC money.  We also were given funds by Dallas Dream Center to buy other equipment we needed such as sound equipment and banners.

Our new puppet stage courtesy of BGMC

Banner provided by the Dallas Dream Center

Besides the service, we break into clubs.  Mike taught puppets to some of the children while others made a sheep cupcake.  (We were talking about The Lost Sheep.)

Puppet club at Zuper Zondag

Cooking club at Zuper Zondag

We had 30 children for our first time, and we’re excited about reaching even more boys and girls in The Netherlands!

We’re able to put our videos on YouTube so our workers can see the videos that we’ll use in church.  If you’d like to see any of our videos, go to http://www.youtube.com/user/MikeAndAnita.

Last week we shot videos for the next set of lessons.  Tomorrow, I’ll start the process all over again.  The fun never ends!

The sickness kept me from editing videos.  I’ve finally started on it again today.  We are working on a curriculum for our church that has video segments.  It should make it much easier for the workers, but it does create much more work for us.  We converted our guest room into a studio of sorts.  We’ve shot the video for the first four weeks.  Now, I’m editing it all.  When I’m done with that, we’ve got to get subtitles on it.  Our church is international and it functions with two main languages: English and Dutch.  Het kost veel tijd om iets in twee talen te doen! (It takes a lot of time to do something in two languages!)

So, while I’m working on video editing today, Mike is at the VPE congress.  The VPE is the church organization we work with here in The Netherlands.  Today is their yearly meeting.  It actually started yesterday.  Mike went yesterday to teach a seminar on children’s ministry  It’s nice that we are a team and can keep working even when we’re apart.