Blog nr. 11 back in the Netherlands

At the start of this outreach I never would have thought that I would fly home to the Netherlands. But, with the coronavirus it took a different turn.

Because of all the news and Norway shutting their borders for non-Norwegian people, was decided that we all should fly back to our home countries. For me that meant the Netherlands. From that moment on it was decided we should fly as soon as possible. Which meant one day for us. Whilst in Brazil you hardly noticed anything about the coronavirus.

Luckily everyone arrived home save and we still had an awesome last two weeks in Rio de Janeiro.

In Rio we did a lot of street evangelism. We prayed in front of hospitals for the people that were waiting, on the streets we handed out free hugs, prayers and encouraging words, we tld people who were waiting for a traffic light that Jesus loves them, we played dodgeball with youth from the street, so we just did a lot to encourage people.

We also got the opportunities to share in the churches where we stayed. Both times I got the chance to share something. The first time a short testimony about what God showed me in relation to my question if God is all-knowing and the second time about how important it is to have different generation in the church. God is good!

On the first Friday we got the opportunity to be the ultimate tourist. First we went to the Christ the Redeemer statue, than to Escadaria Selarón (famous stairs in Rio), to the biggest wall art in the worls (painted for the different cultures during the Olympics) and we went to a beach. It was a day of joy, happiness and bonding and just being together as a group!

The second week we also did a lot of street evangelism, shared about the goodness of God and a lot of stress (for me). The whole week different persons of the group where sick, also me. Than we also heard that we probably would fly back because the Norwegian government was calling everyone, who lives in Norway, back to Norway. Than within one day it changed to that only Norwegian people could come back in to Norway. This made that each one of us was sent back to their home countries. The two Canadians flew first and everyone else flew the next day.

So we had to say goodbye to each other sooner than we expected and not knowing when we will meet again. This means that our DTS is postponed until we can be together again in Norway and start DTS. When this will be we don’t know but, we hope it will be soon and we trust in God.

For now all of us are home save and we hope to see each other very soon!

Love,

Leonieke

Prayerpoints

- That the debriefs will go well

- That we will see each other soon again and the DTS can continue again

- That we may find our ways back home with our families, especially in this situation

- Our financial situation when we cannot really work but, also don’t know how long this will take

- For the whole situation

- For wisdom for us as DTS and for the base in Norway