On our way to the UK

From Phoebe: Well, its time to say goodbye to our beautiful, lovely Holland family and friends, and make our way across the channel to the UK. Its a weird feeling, having just slipped into a groove with all things Dutch, and made beautiful connections with the family. Now I'm really gonna miss them!!! On Sunday night we had a big family dinner and there was...17 people, i think! I wasn't sure which conversation to follow! But I have some wonderful new brothers and sisters who have become very dear to me in such a short time.

So, Wednesday night we fly in to London in time for dinner with Ann & Jason Leitch (and Amielle) from Australia, and then on to our accomodation for conference. We'll spend the next few days smiling and ushering (sorry, hosting) a few thousand people and experiencing church London style, saying hello to old friends, and basically help make the first ever Hillsong Conference Europe amazing. Well, i'm sure it would be amazing without us, but...we'll do our bit!

Then we jump in the car with our old friend Todd to drive up to Wales Saturday night. Crazy, I know. Its about 5 hours drive to the tip of Wales and Trearrdur Bay, Holyhead, where Todd lives. Then its a quick change, off to church, Welsh style, and home for a nap and to rest our feet.
From then on...quiet. And probably some long chats into the wee hours and lots of catching up. We are there for one week and catch the train down to Ellel on Friday 6th October.

October 7 is my 31st birthday (i know!) and the intake for Ellel. New year, new season, new country, new accent, new place to live, new room, new sights, sounds and...well, you get the picture. Basically, everything NEW.

Isaiah 43:18 "Forget the former things. Do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing in your midst. Do you not perceive it?"

We will set up email and post to the blog as soon as we can, and have updated our address details (just in case you want to send us Cadburys, Promite, the ingredients for Lemon Lime Bitters, or all the clothes i should have packed!) in our profile. Keep us in your prayers...its very scary, and my tummy has been a washing machine for days from pure nerves.

Thanks for your prayers so far for my health- I am getting better after completely losing my voice and feeling generally blurgh- and i finished one painting and the other will be finished today. We have you in our prayers, and in our hearts.

Love, Phoebe

The last word is always Gods

Well. Its been a while, and it was kind of left hanging last time, on the nasty little man from the embassy. You will be pleased to hear that there is a way around him, and his power trip! My course is also registered as training, not just study, and i am able to visit the UK for the duration of the training (ten weeks for one term), which means no visa needed. At the end of the term we fly back to Holland for Christmas and then back to the Uk for term 2, done the same way. It was a pretty obvious solution, but you know what its like when you get tunnel vision?
I've (Phoebe) been painting, which has been fun and invigorating, watching it all come together. The paintings are for my mother in law and my sister in law, Anita. Will post them when they are finished, which is hopefully today. I'm pretty low on energy, still battling insomnia for the last two years. Last night i managed to get off to sleep around 6am (wait-that would make it today) and thankfully could stay in bed. Thats not possible when my course starts, so will you please pray that I get sleep breakthrough? Thank you. I also need prayer for my health in general as my throat swelled up on Saturday and hasnt really gone down and i'm also fighting another infection. Have been fighting that since we arrived 8 weeks ago, so am really over it now! If you could stand with us for healing that would be amazing. The enemy knows that he cannot stop us getting to Ellel, but he will try to wear me down so i miss it when i'm there, and i intend to get everything that God has for me at Ellel. I haven't left everything behind to stay in bed all day and be too weak to enjoy it!

Things that make you go Hmmmmmm...

On Tuesday we drove (!) to Amsterdam for an apointment with the British Embassy and plans to make a day of it.. Before we left Australia we found out that instead of a Visa for the UK I (Phoebe) qualified for a Family Permit through the European Union. We checked it out on their website and discovered that because Tim is Dutch he qualifies, and can travel, work, live etc anywhere in UK. Great, we thought! We emailled to see if we could apply for it while in Holland as we would be here for about 2 months. Yes, they said. So I went in to pick it up (i thought) and got quite a shock. Aside from the drab surroundings and high security, the British Embassy is staffed by decendents of Nazi Germany. I was treated like a criminal and told I had to go back to Australia, and that there was nothing that could be done for me and that i fell through the cracks of each different kind of visa. What?!?!? Initially he said we dont qualify because Tim is not "employed" according to their terms, even though at Ellel he'd work a 40 hour week, but then he started a rant about me, and what was I doing there, trying to use my Dutch husband to get in the country, and even said he didnt recognise my marriage certificate, so doubted if i was even married! I drew the line there. He pointed at me and said, "YOU dont qualify for anything", even laughed when he said, "Look, i've ruined your life!...bet this isnt the news you were hoping for!" "umm...no. Not really." The only thing he said i could do was visit the UK, but not to study or live or work or anything else. Of course, all this is fine, IF they had made all this clear before hand when we asked about it specifically. He said he didnt recognise my course even though its registered on their website, didnt recognise that Tim was Dutch even though he was holding Tims Passport in his hand, didnt recognise that I was married to him, despite my certificate being there, declared i was 'without country' and had no relevance to him, no right to even be there, and how had i even gotten an appointment...
One sentence he made sure he said over and over was, "There is just NO way".
Hmmmm.
Before committing to this journey we had 2 words from God about it: "I see no obstacles" and, "He will make a way where there seems to be no way".

So instead of panicking (my first reaction), we drove out of Amsterdam (I couldn't see its beauty anymore), and i briefed Tim on what had happened. We pulled into IKEA to distract ourselves from all the inner turmoil and for 2 hours did some retail therapy. Except that we didnt buy anything but lunch. Love IKEA food. They have some cool stuff which i dont think is in Australia yet, so that was fun to see.

On Wednesday I received the official acceptance letter for the course at Ellel.
Its Friday today and i still cant find it in me to panic or get stressed (or maybe thats all on some unconcious level!) because over and over God has said He will perform a new thing with us.

So there you go. Thats where we are right now.

Exploring the low lands...(part I)

August 2006 officially goes into the history books as the wettest ever recorded here in Holland, July on the other hand was one of the hottest ever recorded! Sadly enough we weren't here to experience the heat, but finally it seems like the rains have come and gone and the season of singing has arrived! So last week we headed out to the beautiful city of Leiden, the birthplace of Rembrandt van Rijn, one of the famous Dutch painters. This year they are celebrating his 400th birthday, I don't think he's still alive though. We really enjoyed exploring this place, the architecture, the rain, the canals, the pushbikes, the boats, little bridges, heaps more pushbikes, some more rain, poems on the walls of buildings, many shops, some dutch treats, more rain, a wall of books, and yes even more pushbikes! And not to forget... a bit more rain! Here are some pics we took:
Top left: The time difference between Sydney & Leiden, it's actually 8 hours difference at the moment. Sometimes it's 10 hours like on the picture depending on daylight savings.

2nd & 3rd picture: I've figured out where all the water is...Holland, which explains the amount of boats you see when traveling.
4th picture: Here you can see Phoebe before a wall of books made out of old wineboxes stacked on top of each other. This stack of books was about 30 metres long! Phoebe is in book heaven!