Introducing Our New Host . . . Again?

Many things are new. 

• We have a new host for our Davar: Bridging to Literacy videos. 
  
• We have a new, updated version of Blog-spot. 
• And we have people who looked at this Blog-spot last week and came away with new questions. Like, why wasn't there anything in this blog post???

Because of the new, updated version of Blog-spot. If I have managed to learn something new, this post will now contain a photo of our new puppet host. And if it doesn't, I still have new things to learn!

“Remember not the former things,
    nor consider the things of old.
19 Behold, I am doing a new thing;
    now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?"

(Isaiah 43: 18-19, very badly taken out of context!)

Seeing and Hearing through the smoke . . .

Keith & Mary with some of the Papiamentu "voices"

Did you know God could work through cigarettes? I sure didn’t. Last Saturday it was my turn to do yardwork around the church building in Arnhem, the Netherlands. A fellowship of mainly immigrants meets in the building on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. One of Christian sisters who was waiting for that service to begin came out for a cigarette break while I was finishing up. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have gotten into a conversation. She had a warm, open personality. I soon learned that she was originally from Curacao. Last summer my husband Keith Holmes and I spent two months in Curacao recording the New Testament in this sister’s first language, Papiamentu. She knew nothing about the recording. When Keith showed up, he showed her how to find it on Internet. The audio recording has been put into a video of the Gospel of Mark. She was amazed and delighted to see it. “I’m going to look at that at home!” she said. “I’m going to show it to my children!” I’m not saying God wants people to smoke cigarettes. But He can use even a nicotine additional for good. Hallelujah!

With Fur On

The puppet continues to develop. 

It now has a name (Albert or Alberta, depending on the voice of the narrator) AND fur.

We are hoping to have some DAVAR instructional  videos completed in the next week or so.

They will be available in several languages, beginning with English, Dutch, and Romanian.

Beginnings (without puppet) available here: DAVAR GAMES on YouTube.

(Videos, and video plans, also continue to develop.)

AN UNEXPECTED DEVELOPMENT--PUPPETS!

What have you found yourself doing this summer that you never expected to do last summer? Or even last winter? 

Our list includes: 
~working with two student interns through CBF's Student.Go program;
~making instructional videos of DAVAR: Bridging to Literacy games (with said student interns);
~working with a puppet made by one of these interns for use in the instructional videos.

The Student.Go interns couldn't go anywhere this summer. However, we had a couple of media projects that they could do long distance. 

When everyone was on lock down, we started making videos so families could do DAVAR games at home. This evolved into making instructional videos with the added goal of having people from an oral culture background easily learn to lead the games for groups.

Someone suggested using a puppet in the videos. One of the interns responded enthusiastically. 

He wrote: I would like to say i am loving this program and process and i think potentially growing these videos would be a fantastic experience and definitely beautiful for a resume. Thank you for letting me do this.

Here's some photos of the puppet in progress. 

Stay tuned to see what God will do with this next!

Pentecost--All Year Through

The Sinti Romany churches in the Netherlands traditionally get together for a big tent meeting on the weekend of Pentecost. There will be preaching, singing, barbecuing, socializing, and baptizing. Services will be in at least two different languages so as many people as possible will be able to hear that Jesus can transform their lives and the Holy Spirit can dwell within them and among us to work out that transformation.
Of course, such a huge gathering, even in the open air, didn't happen this year. A lot of other things happened instead. For instance, the CBF field personnel in Europe made this video to share with you all. Thank you for making it possible for so many others to hear the Word of God in their own languages, not just on Pentecost, but all year through!

The 1.5 meter Community

We've been living 1.5 meters apart from everyone since mid-March.
There are lines taped on the floor of stores to remind you to stay 1.5 meters away from other shoppers. You are not allowed into a grocery store without a cart (makes you keep your distance). And only one person per family may go into a grocery store at a time. Or each person must have a cart. Grocery stores only put out a limited number of carts. If the store has too many people in it, you wait outside until a cart becomes available.

We started to have coffee with a couple of ladies from church every other month or so. They hated to miss it, so we arranged to meet in the open air (cafe closed, anyway) where we could keep 1.5 meters apart. There were signs posted in the park, just in case we forgot. We didn't drink any coffee, but we enjoyed our time together.

Oddly enough, staying apart has been bringing people together. We help each other, and not just by social distancing to limit the spread of the virus. One woman in our community sewed over 100 face masks for health-care workers. Another has no-questions-asked food bank in her little paved front yard. People bring food. People take food. People trade food they got from the official food bank (often exotic items the grocery store couldn't sell) for food from this neighborhood food bank.
How have you been living together . . . while safely staying apart?

(Teddy) Bear Hunt--Only Together

AllenSamen, ONLY TOGETHER or  solely by working together is a rough translation of the campaign to combat the corona virus. 
For example, shortly after Dutch schools closed, people started putting teddy bears in their windows. Children could still go outside, alone with family members. The whole country, though, worked together to lighten the mood for the children. While they are walking or biking from here to there, they can go on a bear hunt.
How many teddy bears in this block? Any new ones today?
It's fun to look for bears, no matter how old/young you are.
And it's encouraging to see how many households participate, no matter how young/old they are. Some houses have at least 3 bears in as many different windows! It's a small but significant way to be together, even when we need to stay apart.