Project Ethiopia

This is a photopresentation I made for a school in Holland, where my father-in-law teaches. This and some posters that I made are being used to inspire the students to raise a lot of money for the projects that are mentioned in the video. I'm thinking of translating it into english also. If you'd like me to do that, drop a comment.

BTW: a lot of things have happened since the last post. It's been crazy. From Karine being in the hospital in Switzerland to having a baby in Holland, I'll post this later. It's one of those things you know, where you know you should tell people about it and then more happens and more and the story becomes longer and longer and you keep postponing the emailing and blogging. Well... euhm... yeah soon, probably... I'll write some more. 

are we there yet?

Yes, we are here. Burtigny, Switzerland. Reunited with our own pillows and duvet, our guitar, our room... we are happy.. and tired. We had a good trip from Le Gault la Foret to here. As always on long drives we played our travelversion of Trivial Pursuit music from the nineties till now. Even though Johnny still wins, Karine is getting better and better. Maria Elisabeth slept a lot. The only bad part was that a certain road was closed and we had to follow a deviation that took like an hour extra. The scenery was nice though, it was just before we crossed the border to Switzerland. 

So, we're here and there's a lot of unpacking to do, painting, furnishing, etc, but it will be in the place where we will stay for at least three years! What a thrill after all the traveling we have done.

Finally Burtigny

Still no visa, but yes, according to our leaders in Burtigny, there is a new law or something, that enables us to come to Switzerland. We'll have to report our presence at the local commune office within 8 days, that's all.

So, after finishing up, cleaning etc. here we will leave for Switzerland next tuesday! We are looking forward to settling down in our own place, finally creating a home for the next years. 

At the same time we're a little sad about leaving this place here. It's been a good time and a good place to rest, work and learn French. Karine's parents have been spending a few days of their vacation with us here. With them watching Maria Elisabeth for a day, we had the opportunity to visit Paris again, this time as lovers in the city of love. We had a great day. Romance was in the air. It was a while after midnight that we came home, Maria Elisabeth was sleeping with Karine's parents. We will miss Paris a lot, one of our absolute favorite cities.

So, for now, let's trade Paris for Geneva and move to Switzerland.

hanging in there

Yep, we are still in France. 

We had a good weekend during the 30th anniversary of YWAM France. It was still difficult though to speak french. It takes a lot of time to learn a language well enough that you can have conversations. After the weekend we had two friends from Holland visiting, Jeftha en Pieter, who were on their way to the south of France. We all went into Paris on tuesday and had a good time. On the way back I got to practice my french again, since I got us a little lost. Getting into Paris without a map is one thing, but then getting out (and trying to take a faster road) is another. And I have to say, asking directions in french went pretty good, even though we still didn't get onto the right road untill I bought a map...

We're still waiting, hoping, praying that our visa will come soon. No news yet. 

Time for languagestudy,

later,

Johnny

Vive de la France

Well,

we have arrived in France, Le Gault - La Foret. Close to Sezanne, not too far from Paris. We continue to wait for our visa. This afternoon we sat in the grass behind the building here, studying french, playing with Maria Elisabeth on the swings. This weekend is the 30th anniversary of YWAM France, here at this very base. I will be making photos, while another guy will be shooting video-footage.

I, Johnny, made my wife a very nice meal tonight. A salad consisting of lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber and chicken. Some extra grilled/baked chicken and potatoes with cream and cheese from the oven. Why am I telling you this? Well... so you know I'm taking care of my beautiful wife. Where was Maria Elisabeth? Sleeping in her stroller. When she woke up she only wanted to eat some bread. We ate the whole meal outside, enjoying the nice weather and tall trees that surround our old French building. 

Tonight, we tried to watch the Holland-Romenia soccergame. At the same time France played Italy. Which pretty much means that every TV in the whole freakin' country is showing that game. Since there is no TV around here that has a satelite connected, to get us the right game, we tried to watch it on the internet. Not very succesfull either. The Dutch website that shows the game recognised us trying to watch from France and didn't allow it. So we tried to listen to the radio and eventually found some weird website that showed the game. It was heavily pixelated and behind, a minute or something. In the meantime Maria Elisabeth was giving us a hardtime, not wanting to sleep, but also not wanting to enjoy this game with us. Pfff.. what an evening. At least the Dutch boys did good and scored twice against the Romenians.

Italy won from France, so we are not really surrounded by verry happy people here. 

It's time for me to join my wife and child in bed.

Later, tater,

Johnny

breaking the silence

Allright,

after a few months of silence I want to give you a quick overview:

- I finished the school of photography. It was great.

- end of March we traded Hawaii for Holland, and with that warm for cold weather

- we were all sick for three weeks out of exhaustion

- we said goodbye to church, friends and family and then found out the day before that our visa still hadn't arrived

- we've been waiting for weeks now, living with my inlaws, frustration has grown to a new level

- we will continue to wait for our visa in France, on a YWAM-base called "Le Gault - La Foret", do some volunteering and work on our french

- we leave tomorrowmorning

- from now on the blogging wil continue and not stop! 

Johnny

Maria Elisabeth

A few weeks ago Johnny went on a 2-day fieldtrip. While he was gone, Karine made a little movie clip of Maria Elisabeth so Johnny could see what she'd been doing. We thought the grandparents might like it to...

Good news...

The school of photography is so good, Hawaii is beautiful and Maria Elisabeth is going to be a great big sister. Yes, I (Karine) am pregnant! We are very happy and excited about it. So far we think that he/she will be born in October. 

At the moment it's extremely busy here. Johnny is working on the 'final project' for which he has to take 40 color photos and 20 black/white. The assignment is due thuesday and friday the school will have an exhibition where all the students are going to show some of their best pictures. 

We'll keep you posted, 

Karine

around the island

Today is the 29th of february, that doesn't happen a lot, so let's use this occasion to blog. Last tuesday and wednesday all students and staff were packed into two big vans to drive around the island and shoot (a lot of) pictures. Drive for 30 minutes, get out and shoot for 30 minutes, drive 60 minutes, shoot 20 minutes, drive, shoot, drive, shoot, etc. On www.flickr.com/photos/johnnykoster I posted some of my favorites of this trip. I'll put one pic on here also, just to brighten the place up a little after posting those scary bald guy photos.

Johnny

before - after