Dear all,

Here’s the latest news from Darija & Xander in Holland. For our Dutch friends, we’ve decided to write this in English as we know you can read English and we know that some of our English friends can’t read Dutch. And I’m too lazy to translate it for you. Also for some of you, it has been quite a while since you've heard anything from us, and I sincerely apologise for this. Once again, I'm too lazy to keep in touch with everybody. But - there is light on the horizon - we are settling down a bit...As most of you probably know, we’ve closed the English and Indian chapter of our lives and have started back in square one – the Dutch chapter – which isn’t a bad thing at all, besides the fact that we now miss our Australian, South African, English AND Indian friends and family. We don't have that much "heart" left to leave behind....

Backtracking to coming back from India and London: We arrived in Groningen (biggest city up north of Holland) in September 2003 and have been actively looking for a job and a place to stay since. In October, Darija found a temporary job as a social worker for an adoption agency in The Hague (www.wereldkinderen.nl) till 1st of Jan and I had been sending my cv and cover letter to over 40 different recruitment agencies and companies first up north and later all over Holland. With no success. We spent a lot of time with the family and with our friends in Holland. But we didn’t have our own place to stay (we stayed with Darija’s parents) and our savings were quickly running out. I was also going crazy not having any work to do. We really needed to get back into the rat race.

Then on Monday 2nd February, Darija heard that she had been given a job she applied for as a Policy Officer in a place called Gorinchem (under Utrecht, about 2.5 hours south of Groningen). She was to start on the 9th of Feb. This is a great job for her as she deals with programs and policies relating to HIV/AIDS and how Christian development organisations can synergise to create a greater impact for developing nations. Although she has a lot of information to get through these first couple of weeks, she is really enjoying herself and knows that this is what she wants. Darija gets to make trips throughout the Netherlands and keep in touch with development work in the Netherlands.

On Tuesday and Wednesday (3rd & 4th ) we both scoured the internet for a place to rent in Gorinchem and on Thursday (5th ) we got the keys to a great 2 storey apartment in the old centre of Gorinchem on the water – beautiful and amazing doesn’t even begin to describe this “home” of ours. The interior is very dated, but it’s ours for now and that’s what counts. The kitchen is the first to go – that’s being renovated this weekend (21st) and then on to the downstairs bathroom.

It was in this house & job finding time our ever faithful “Albert” (an old Ford Sierra from 1987) decided that this was too much excitement for him and he gave his last. So on Friday (6th Feb) we called and visited a few car dealerships and on Saturday bought an Opel Astra Turbo Diesel from 1997 in great condition and started moving most of our stuff to Gorinchem. That’s what I call a busy week!

You might be asking “What about you Xander, don’t you have a job yet?” Well, we’ve been in this house for less than a week, and I just signed a contract to work for Go Telecom. I’ll be working as a Database Marketeer in their Dordrecht office (35 kms from Gorinchem)! As you can imagine from all this news, we feel that we are so blessed. We’re incredibly happy. Things just fell into place. It’s so great. For those that have been praying for us, thank you. And our biggest thank you goes to God for giving us these blessings.

All this is definitely a cause for celebration! So we’re holding a housewarming! The dates are every weekend in the months of February and March and basically the rest of the year is fine too, so you’re all more than welcome. We even have more than enough places to put people up (four bedrooms!) so if you want to stay for a couple of weeks or more, feel free. You bring the drinks, we take care of the rest. Give us a call if you want to come, we can pick you up from the train station (Gorinchem train station that is).

If you want to get in touch with us through email, Darija’s email address is d_kupers@hotmail.com and mine is xanderkupers@solcon.nl, so don’t be shy and tell us what you’re all up to.

All the best and hope to hear from you guys soon.

Love Darija and Xander