The past few weeks

Well as said yesterday in my post, I have not blogged much here lately so I thought I would catch everybody up on some news and such. A few weeks ago Ineke and I had an outing with the art history class we are in here at an art museum in the city. It was a very nice museum with some great paintings from such artists as Monet, Van Gogh, Rembrandt and others. Below you will find some pictures. Make sure to click on the pictures to enlarge them.

Well a few weeks ago I also started teaching English conversation twice a week for a few hours at the kid's school for grades 6-8. I get small groups for 20 minutes each to lead in English conversation exercises. So far it has been lots of fun and the kids all seem to enjoy it too. I have also found a great church here to be involved with on Sundays. It's called Church on the Way Rotterdam and it is a part of the four square denomination. The pretty much believe all of the same things I believe being raised as a Baptist but they are a little more charismatic. They always have good worship though and the messages are deep and theologically sound which is of major importance for me. They have a Dutch service at 10 AM and then the English service at 12:30.

Well the big news here is that after much thought and prayer I have decided to switch families after I return from the States on January 3. The main reason being that I just have not connected well with the kids here in the family I have been with. Although they are a great family, the two youngest are only four and five years old and I am finding that I work best with kids a few years older. Also three small kids have proven to be just more than I could handle at times. The new family I will be working for lives here in Rotterdam and although they also have three kids living at home the girl is 14, the middle son Joris is 12, and Coen is 7. This past Sunday I went over to their house and had a good time visiting with the family and getting a feel for what the new job would entail. The older kids pretty much take care of themselves so although I am sure we will all have fun together I think the seven year old will be my main responsibility.

After the New Year my friend Alex Harper is moving to London to au pair so hopefully I will have a friend to travel a bit around Europe with in the New Year! I hope to visit England, Ireland (again), a few parts of Italy, Germany, and maybe a few other places if I can fit them in. We will see. So all in all things are going well here in Europe and I am excited about what the New Year will bring with it.