#8 - And so it goes on ...

From the moment we were being called to go to Pennsylvania, we wanted to take a trial-trip. It's a big deal to move your family to the other side of the Atlantic, so better be sure right? Ramon had a job that paid well and we were able to save up the money, so somewhere in April, we decided we would go the US of A somewhere in September that year! Yaaayyy!!

Or Naaayyy?! It was less than a week before we received a few letters in our mailbox. Apparently, something went wrong in the communication between us and the tax service, so they kindly, but firmly told us to pay them back €3500. Luckily we had some money saved and are pretty creative people, so we ran the numbers and were able to cough up the money we needed to pay. It would make it really difficult to still be able to pay for the plane tickets! We decided to do it this way and hoped we would be able to save enough money in time to book our tickets. 

April 27th, 2018. Kingsday in the Netherlands and Father-Son day for Ramon and Jeremiah. They would go to the Efteling together. Jeremiah was still free, we found a discount for Ramon, so the perfect day out for not too much money! They left and a little while later I put Ziva in the carrier and walked to my parent's house for a traditional pastry called 'Tompouce'. While I was doing some other groceries and was checking out my stuff, Ramon called me. I denied his call because it was my turn and I hate to call while being helped. He called me back immediately and that's when I knew something was wrong. I paid and picked up my phone to hear the news: Ramon had been part of a pile-up and our car was completely messed up. Our little Daihatsu wasn't worth that much money, so it was totaled instantly. Time to buy a new car. But how? And with what money? We just transferred all of our savings to the tax services!

We sent an email to my Agape partners and asked if they could keep an eye out for verrrryyy cheap cars. The number of responses was overwhelming. We had a loan-car in front of our house in no time, that we could use until at least Oktober and I received tons of emails with ideas for cheap cars. The biggest problems were temporarily solved, but we seriously started to ask ourselves if we should forget about our trial trip for a while. 

Within a week those questions were answered for us. We received a phone call that someone wanted to give us money to buy a new car. We couldn't be frugal, because it had to be safe enough for the kids. We found a second hand Opel Zafira that fit in the budget perfectly and we bought it the next week. We felt like kings in our car!

But the blessings didn't end there! Another few weeks late we received another phone call! This person heard about our tax service things and that our trial trip was now probably not going to happen. The person who called thought that that was no option! She believed in our calling and our vision and told us she'd like to give us €1000 to be able to pay for the tickets! How great is our God!?

We had a new, better car, our bills for the Tax Services could be paid ánd we got to go to the United States! And because of Ramon's job we were going to be able to save money. They told us they were severely short-handed and that they would definitely extend his contract. They might even prolong it indefinitely. 

It turned out a little different. The organization that paid Ramon's employer for the work they did, changed a couple of things. This led to Ramon's employer losing the assignment and consequently to Ramon losing his job. His contract would end on July 1st and they couldn't offer him any job. We started looking for another job, but since so many people lost their jobs at the same time, the market was temporarily over-saturated. But again, God intervened. A week before Ramon his contract ended, he got a big videography assignment, that gave him 3 months' worth of work. This gave us extra time to find a new job for him. 

And this is what we were doing, while we were preparing ourselves for a coming trip to America. And about that trip, you can read more next week! See you then :)