Away for a while
I'm away for a while. In the meantime might visit:- Borna's blog, a young Bahá'í and footballplayer
- John Barbaras' blog, a Bahá'í and blog-expert
- Wendi's blog, a travelling blog by a Bahá'í (Bahá'ís tend to travel a lot)
- Travelstart/Openjet, the company where I buy our trips (easy to find the cheapest)
- Majnún to google between aproved Bahá'í related sites
- André van Duyn to have a laugh.
And if you wonder where I am, have a look here.
Travellingsheets
I'm packing our suitcase for our pilgrimage to Haifa and Akká in Israel. One of the items in our suitcase will be our silk travelling sheets because we will have to sleep over with friends on the way home. These sheets look like sleepingbags, with a pocket for the pillow. They're one of the products I am more than100 % satisfied with. It saves friends or relatives we stay over with a lot of laundry, they dry in an instant which is practical when they get moisty on a boat, they save money when we stay in a guesthouse where you have to pay extra for sheets, they weigh almost nothing, take just a little space, are 100 % natural and they can be machine washed. We have one each, everyone in a different colour. I saw that they sell double sheets too, might be something to buy for my husband and me later on.Teenagers
are funny creatures. Our daughter (13), who is going on her own from Sweden to the Czech Republic, to participate in the Transformation for Peace course, did not dare to go to the dentist by herself yesterday. So .... I went with her.The Bahá'í Marriage
is not founded on the spouses' promises to each other. The Bahá'í marriage is closed by both saying the words: "We will all, verily, abide by the will of God". Giving a promise to God in stead of to each other, makes the marriage much stronger. One breaks not so easily a promise to God, namely. Abiding by the will of God -within a marriage- means for Bahá'ís: to nourish the marriage, making it develop, being a comfort to each other and to get children. My husband and I married 15 years ago and a lot has happened in those years: we've lived in three countries, got two children and still every day is new. We are looking forward to the future! See the pictures below.15 Years later ....
Sweden, two children and some kilo's more ...
17th of June 1992
Gouda, the Netherlands
Country Collection
This blog doesn't really get MANY visitors (about two per day), but they come from spread out over the world. As up to today I've got a collection of 29 nationalities: Austria, Australia, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Faroe-Islands, Finland, France, Germany, India, Iran, Israel, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Moldova, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Russia, Sweden, Surinam, Turkey, United Kingdom, USA: 14% of the world's 193 countries!
Preparing
Got our suitcase out of the cellar, which will be packed over next week. Every time I think of something to take I put it in. My family is used to travel with extreme light packing. We take only the neccesary, have all products in small containers and bring some washing-liquid in stead of a lot of clothes. We might be able to travel with one suitcase for the four of us, besides the handluggage. Last year when we were in the Czech Republic, we bought a beautiful christal lamp in Prague, which we sent home by ordinary mail, in stead of carrying it around. This year we're going on Bahá'í pilgrimage to the Holy Land. We will pray a lot there. I've got a whole list in my prayerbook for things and persons to pray for. Prayers said in the Holy Shrines are much more powerful than in otherwise. Believe it or not.Elderseason
Today I'll make elder flower lemonade. Other once-a-year use-the-nature productmaking I do are: goutweed salad, nettlesoup, fried giant hogweed (the juice can be poisonous to the skin, but you can eat fried leavestems cut in small pieces) and we pick blueberries and blackberries.
A peony in our garden ...
This is the same flower photographed in a period of some weeks. The last 4 pictures are taken within 24 hours.Pilgrimage!
Our pilgrimage to the Holy Land is approaching fast. Right now it's hotter here in Sweden than in Haifa, so we will be well aclimatized when we arrive. A Bahá'í pilgrimage is not an ordinary holidaytrip. It's a soulpenetrating, lifechanging experience which Bahá'is are supposed to do at least once in their lifetime. For me it will be the second time. And about life-changing: before I left for my first pilgrimage I was a 32-year old 'spinster', living in my own house in the Netherlands and having a good job. Everything as steady as it could be. Then I went on pilgrimage and 1,5 years afterwards I lived with my Swedish husband and our sweet babygirl in a studentroom (which we shared with mice and fleas) in Latvia. And happier than ever! What will happen after this pilgrimage?It always comes back
Country Collection
This blog doesn't really get MANY visitors (about two per day), but they come from spread out over the world. As up to today I've got a collection of 27 nationalities: Australia, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Faroe-Islands, Finland, France, Germany, India, Iran, Israel, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Moldova, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Russia, Sweden, Surinam, Turkey, United Kingdom, USA: almost 14% of the world's 193 countries!
