Back to England, with my family this time

The YWAM Harpenden base.

What Marina is going to be doing

The tickets have been bought, it´s real. We are going to be in England from the 14th of April til the 30th of May. Marina has been accepted for the TESOL-course that we have been applying for since the end og last year. It´s going to be an exciting time for our family to be on a training-trip together for this one and a half month. It´s a little crazy to think that we have not been married for half a year, and we´re already travelling out together. Quite the YWAM missionary family.

TESOL is not just a YWAM-thing, it´s a internationally recognised method to train non-english speakers in speaking english (Wikipedia link). But english-teaching is in high demand in non-english speaking countries, as knowing english will potentially give people many more opportunities and advantages. Many of our missionary friends in the Middle-East and Central Asia have been involved with TESOL-training. It´s a great tool in missions to reach people.

Marina has for many years felt that God has been leading her to be a missionary by using english-teaching. The bible-passage that has been very central for her was from Ezekiel 3, where God calls the prophet that his mission is "not to people of a strange language".

What me and Ana are going to be doing

Ana will not be able to join an English public school while we are there. The application process is just impossible. So, our six-year old will hopefully be happy to mostly be with Marina in the classroom, and sometimes with me at the place where we are going to stay. There are several schools for Ana only a mile away, and I (as a Dutch dad) had been really looking forward to bicycling her to school and back every day, but that´s just not going to be working out. For most of the time I will be quite busy with the next issue of YWAM Norway´s magazine. Doing all the layout from across the North Sea.
It´s not the first time that we´re working this way, with me not being in Norway. It´s been done before two years ago, and I also was in England at that time. I was in London at that time for the Arts Internship.

Thank you to everyone that has been praying together with us in this step of our journey as a missionary-family. We really appreciate your prayers and support.