Back in Armstrong!

Monday March 12th

It is Monday the 12th – laundry is done, the mail has been looked at – which means we are really home!!

At 01:30 a.m. we left Addis Abeba, Ethiopia on March 9th. We arrived one hour too early in London due to tail wind, and the captain announced that we were put on “a holding pattern” until the tower would give us permission to land. After 40 minutes of circling we were finally allowed to land.

We were in no rush, since we had to wait for 6 hours at the airport for our connecting flight on Air Canada to Vancouver. The flight was uneventful and hardly any turbulence for which I am always very grateful.

In Vancouver, we were met by our good friends Fred and Edel. Upon arrival at their home in Langley, we saw our little red car waiting for us, no scratches or any damage – all had been taken care of!! By the end of our very nice supper, both of us were almost falling off our chairs due to fatigue. We gladly dropped into bed and were sound asleep in less than 2 minutes!

The drive over the Coquihalla was great – all bare roads, not even snowy or slippery sections for which we were so grateful! (Those road conditions changed in the following days due to weather changes!)

It was nice, and strange at the same time, to walk into our home – soooo big, and clean! (It helps when the windows close properly and there are no sand storms!) A beautiful bouquet of flowers and a fruit basket were waiting for us – thank you!!!

It will take us a few days to get used to the idea that we are back in Canada. (As planned, Henk went back to work this morning.) I already did some baking since the AGM of the Armstrong Farmers’ Market is happening tonight and refreshments will be served. 

Our oldest son Tim and his fiancee Melanie gave us wonderful news by informing us of their plans to get married (May 12th, 2012 in High Level, AB.).

Our eyesight usually takes about 4 weeks to get back to normal – we have no idea why that is, but we suspect that it is due to the nutritional intake that we get when we are overseas (or its lack thereof).

Thank you so much, dear friend Margaret Crozier, for posting our blogs and pictures so faithfully and quickly!! It would be impossible to do that from where we were due to internet restrictions. Thank you Margaret!!!! (By the way: this will be our last blog to complete our work trip to Chad, Africa, 2012).

Thank you to those who checked our house on a regular basis – we appreciate you!

And then thank you to all who were part of our journey through your prayers, messages, and financial contributions. You were truly the most wonderful travel partners!!

May God continue to work through people who are willing and able to provide His Word to those who don’t have it yet.

With thankful hearts,
Your friends,
Henk and Margreet DenOudsten

In Addis Abeba

March 7, 2012

Addis Abeba: we had an uneventful flight from Chad: the plane left on time, no unexpected detours and best of all - with us aboard.

We got our luggage and visitors’ visa very quickly and thankfully Margreet had our Yellow Fever cards in her backpack as we had to show them.

Trying to find the couple (Mike and Gretchen Heaton) that was collecting us from the airport was a different story! One doesn’t just leave the terminal because you have to pay to get back in and go through security as well. Henk is inside with the luggage and Margreet is outside not being able to get back in! Finally we are able through an airport employee to use his cellphone and establish contact.

Cars can only be parked in the car park, where it is mayhem with tens of taxis, minibuses and hundreds of people waiting in line to be able to get into the terminal to greet arriving relatives. It took almost half an hour but meeting up we did!

Addis is definitely cooler than N D’Jamena. Thankfully we did have our ‘hoodies’ in our backpacks for instant use and for the first time in seven weeks we even needed a blanket! We had a restful night and in the morning our first WARM water shower since leaving home in January.

Mike, our host, is the Wycliffe Associates representative here and is supervising the construction of the new office building for the SIL/Wycliffe translators. He showed us around the building site and we are impressed by the quality of work that the Ethiopian workers deliver. After that we visited the existing offices and, yup, they sure could use a whole lot more space!

Ethiopian Workers at Wycliffe Building under Construction

Wycliffe Building Being Built in Addis Abeba

THANK YOU! -From SIL

Tuesday, March 6, 2012


Greetings from Chad,

As the Director of the Chad Branch, I would like to thank you for your part in sending Henk and Margreet to contribute to the work here with SIL Chad. Yesterday I saw a list of all the jobs that they accomplished and I was truly amazed. Their willingness to travel and to help as needed was a great blessing to us. I’ve included a word from one of our regional coordinators below which highlights some of the ways that the DenOudsten’s contributed during their stay with us.

 Thank you once again for helping to make it possible for Henk and Margreet to come to Chad!

 Larry Burke
 SIL Chad
 General Director

 ̰̰̰̰̰̰̰̰̰̰̰̰̰
 Message from Liz Williams, Guera Regional Coordinator
 Tuesday, March 06, 2012

It was a great blessing to have the Den Oudstens here and we are very grateful to them for coming, and to their church and friends in Canada who helped make it possible for them to be  here.

Our work in the Guera SIL team involves Bible translation, oral Bible storying and literacy work in multiple languages (literacy now in almost 20 languages).  Our SIL team is very busy, and now consists mostly of single women who are not all of them very gifted in construction and maintenance (to say the least!). 

So the visit of someone like the Denoudstens is a huge blessing.

The main task they carried out here was moving the water tower in the main house at our SIL base in Mongo, which was a major task.
 
They also did some electrical work in the office, and installed a ceiling in my house.  As temperatures in Mongo can reach 45-50 degC in the hot season, I am very grateful to have a ceiling to keep my house a little bit cooler during hot season.

Leaving Chad, 2012

Tuesday morning March 6

The suitcases are packed and Margreet has distributed the leftover staples from the kitchen. In two hours’ time we’ll be picked up to start our travels home. Seven weeks have come and gone quickly.

Monday morning Henk was picked up to visit a mission’s hospital on the other side of town. It is geared toward the Muslim patients and has a very good reputation with people travelling 200-300 km. As in so many countries here there has to be a strict policy of only one person staying with the patient when they have been admitted to the ward otherwise the custom dictates as many as twenty people per patient crowding the wards. The hospital is out ‘in the sticks’ and relies on the generator for electricity. 

Henk did a quick assessment for them to give the staff an idea of the feasibility and cost of using solar power. The house of the doctor had been already set up for solar, but some time ago the panels had been blown clear of the roof (remember us talking about those ferocious winds?). Last week somebody had mentioned that they had some panels for sale and Henk was able to get the two parties together.

One small project had come up last week and Henk discussed how to go about making a steel grate for the well (after scouring the center for available parts) . At the moment it has a piece of plywood across it, but that is too small and is deteriorating to the point of being a hazard especially for the small children here at the center.

Outside of town there is a large area with woodpiles like this one:

A few years back the president outlawed the making and selling of charcoal. People now depend on foraging for dead trees as no live trees are allowed to be cut down….out in the countryside not too much of a hardship, but in the sprawling capitol city it is a different story.

Saturday March 3^rd, 2012

How we are used to the internet! For almost two days nobody was able to get hooked up to the internet and it is at that point one realises how used we are to that ‘instant’ communication. Finally realizing that our service provider in Eastern Europe had changed ‘our’ IP address code it still took half a day and four experts of different organizations to get switched over, although still at a much slower speed.

So, everyone: thank you for your kind birthday wishes. We went out for dinner at the Cosmos – a small guesthouse that also serves food - to celebrate Margreet’s new milestone. A good meal and fun company! Margreet did wake up the next morning with an upset stomach.  She was planning to help proofread text but that had to be canceled. She had made banana cake in two large baking pans and they were enjoyed by everyone. Henk had taken a platter full to the participants of the Media workshop. 

They are here for almost a week representing eight languages to learn how to use their laptop computers to record Bible stories in their language to be duplicated on cassette and other media or even to be broadcast on regional radio stations.

The last of the coolers is up and running, hopefully no more trips to one of the attics. Good for the leg muscles but still tiring and hot trying to move around up there.  

We woke to a slightly cooler morning as another harmatan has started to blow, but the visibility is still better than last week. With the six of us we set off to the Patisserie (a bakery/coffee shop): one of the few nice places downtown NDjamena to sit and enjoy breakfast. While the ladies went off shopping Henk stayed behind with his coffee and a book. On the way back we did have to take a totally different route as quite a few of the main streets were blocked off in preparation for the President of Chad to be transported to the airport. 

After arriving back at the center Margreet didn’t feel too well again and Henk went for a short walk to the nearest ‘corner store’ to buy a bottle of Coke to settle her stomach.  Coca Cola seems to do “the trick”…..

To Margreet...

from all of us who love you and wish you God's richest blessings!