Have a wonderful Christmas! May your holiday season be merry and bright!


Love Always, Jacoline

Vondelpark Jacoline in Lithuania



Here are some pics of me...










In the United States

Buy Chris' new cd!!! (Release: dec. 26, 2005) You can pre-order it on his website: www.christomlin.com























Hi, just a quick note: I'm on myspace also:-) I just made myself a new account!! :-)

Check it out: http://www.myspace.com/jacoline

Picture: That's me when I was little :-D
An awful experience...LOL:

Soul Survivor UK= great but the showers were awful!! I have this habit of showering every day, it's a bad habit, I know, but I have to end the day with a warm shower...but at Soul Survivor I showered every morning, my airbed was new and had a really bad smell...LOL, so when I woke up every morning I ran to the showers to get rid of that awful smell. But as I said the showers were awful, not to mention that there were only a few showers and that 80% of the showers were with cold water. Showering in freezing cold water in the morning is not the most enjoying thing in life. So after the first day I decided to go to the warm showers. Only after 7 am every morning it was so crowded that you had to wait for at least 1,5 hour to get a warm shower. And I didn't want to be late for the morning service...so I decided to take a shower at 5:30 am....I' m the kind of person who always wants to sleep in so you can imagine what I looked like at 5:30 am in the morning, It looked like I was walking in my sleep. So one morning when I was in the shower I thought to myself: what an awful smell !! The showers were near the toilets but that particular building smelled AWFUL! While I was thinking about the smell I heard voices that sounded not like female voices....so then I concluded that I was showering in the toilet/shower building of the males....OH OH!!! So I dressed myself very quickly and tried to leave the building as soon as possible...unfortunately I couldn't avoid the guys that were waiting to get into the shower after me....They looked at me if I was some sort of alien..hahaha...and one guy realised that I was a girl so he started laughing and said: you molester! Hahaha....I never felt so ashamed in my entire life..haha...But I must say: the men toilets are AWFUL! :-D


















In August 2005 I went to Soul Survivor UK. My best friend and I took an airplane to London Gatwick and a train to Castle Cary....On our last day we went to london to do some sightseeing...here are a few pics..
1st picture: Jolanda and I stayed in this little tent..LOL
2nd picture: Jolanda, Hannah and Rachel
3rd picture: Me at buckingham Palace with a policeman
4th picture: Hannah, me and Rachel. Rachel and Hannah are both British. Rachel and I have been friends for quite a while now. Together with my best friend Jolanda we spent a week at Soul Survivor UK!
Sinterklaas

My internship is over....It was an amazing internship and I loved working for television but it was hardworking and I worked more than 50 hours a week! And the lack of sleep was taking up my health. Last week I had to go to the doctor because I thought I had a throat and ear infection, well I did have a throat and ear infection and she gave me antibiotics. I had to stay for a week in bed...but I'm stubborn so the next day I went to work again. I managed to drag myself through the day. But now I'm still sick so next time I better listen to the doctor...LOL...
Well now I have three months of doing....nothing...well I have to do loads of homework but I haven't got a job for three months...the idea drives me nuts so I think I will try and find a job for 1 day in the week. Right now I am writing for several magazines but it's not like I am going to make money out of that.
Anyway today it is Sinterklaas, which is a dutch anual event.
All Dutch children know that Sinterklaas (the name is a corruption of Sint Nikolaas) lives in Spain. Exactly why he does remains a mystery, but that is what all the old songs and nursery rhymes say. Whatever the case may be, in Spain he spends most of the year recording the behaviour of all children in a big red book, while his helper Black Peter stocks up on presents for next December 5th. In the first weeks of November, Sinterklaas gets on his white horse, Peter ("Piet") swings a huge sack full of gifts over his shoulder, and the three of them board a steamship headed for the Netherlands. Around mid-November they arrive in a harbour town - a different one every year - where they are formally greeted by the Mayor and a delegation of citizens. Their parade through town is watched live on television by the whole country and marks the beginning of the "Sinterklaas season".
The Dutch are busy too - shopping for, and more importantly, making presents. Tradition demands that all packages be camouflaged in some imaginative way, and that every gift be accompanied by a fitting poem. This is the essence of Sinterklaas: lots of fun on a day when people are not only allowed, but expected, to make fun of each other in a friendly way. Children, parents, teachers, employers and employees, friends and co-workers tease each other and make fun of each others' habits and mannerisms. Another part of the fun is how presents are hidden or disguised. Recipients often have to go on a treasure hunt all over the house, aided by hints, to look for them. They must be prepared to dig their gifts out of the potato bin, to find them in a jello pudding, in a glove filled with wet sand, in some crazy dummy or doll. Working hard for your presents and working even harder to think up other peoples' presents and get them ready is what the fun is all about. (http://www.thehollandring.com/sinterklaas.shtml )

>>I posted this message in the chris tomlin log<<

Checking in again at the TomlinLog. I was away for a while. Have been very busy with work and stuff. I’m working for a national Christian TV company in Holland. Very cool, but hardworking.
Anyway have been away this past weekend to a mini festival of Soul Survivor. I was with 11 friends and it was AWESOME! I had a great time not to mention that we were all close to God. My friends and I were talking about worship leaders with the gift of spreading God’s word. My friends are huge fans of Jason Upton (they love Chris too, by the way;-)) So I asked them if it’s a good thing to love Jason Upton and by not being a fanatic but just loving his music because it’s God’s gift. I see loads of people who adore the artists and not the music. They told me that they were not a fanatic but loved his music and that they would love to see him again because he has a great gift of God. I was like yeah I want to see Chris Tomlin too someday, and they were like: yeah we would like to see him too. But I was like: it feels weird if he doesn’t come to Holland to go to another country to see him. They were like: No, why? If you want to see the gift that God has given him you should go and see him. I was like: yeah maybe I would, someday.
Anyway the theme of the festival was: we must go on. Which is true we must continue with our relationship with God. Sometimes it is hard because there’s always this lame excuse that we’re too busy. We also had to pray for things esp. your struggles. This year was very difficult for me: broken relationship, difficulties in college, my mom and dad are sometimes worried about my future (all parents have that problem;-)) It’s sometimes hard to convince my parents that everything goes alright. It’s hard for them that I kind of left the traditional Presbyterian church and became more evangelistic. I never left the traditional church for real but it’s just that I can’t find my path in it at the moment. And it is hard for them to realize that. I do want to learn more about God and about other ways to worship him. And hopefully I can come back later to my ‘old’ church and teach them other ways, to be a light. It’s hard to explain that to my parents. And I don’t want to disappoint them. I know I won’t but it’s hard for them to see that I’m not doing everything they want me to do. But they know that I’m a good girl. Anyway my friend Myrte prayed for me last weekend and I kind of broke down….tears were coming up. And I really felt that God was there for me. Sometimes you just don’t pay attention to the fact that God is really there for you, all the time!!!!
I will pray for a safe ending fo the tour! Love Always, Jacoline



Photo's of my work




Life as it is…

This is my last year of college. I’m studying journalism at the best (and one of the few) Christian colleges in the Netherlands (http://www.che.nl/)
I love to study journalism and right now I am working for a production company called Bijker productions. I’m not sure if this is really my thing. It’s hard to be a Christian journalist. because people judge you very quick and say that you aren’t objective. .And that’s so not true. Of course I’m a Christian and I try to be objective all the time. But can a Christian be a journalist esp. in Holland with abortion and gay marriage and drugs? I don’t know. It’s hard and that’s why I’m kind of searching for the path that God wants me to go on.
I’ve been to soul survivor this summer in the UK and it was awesome. I did the Passion for Your name week (a week for everyone who is in touch with worship music) One thing that came back the whole week was that we are the salt of the earth: "You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt has lost its flavour, with what will it be salted? It is then good for nothing, but to be cast out and trodden under the feet of men” Matthew 5:13
And that we don’t have to become missionaries or worship leaders to do God’s work. God needs Christians in almost every profession: teachers, nurses, journalists and so on…
But I just don’t see God’s goodness in the work I do, or at least for now. I’m trying to find my path in it, together with God.
I’m going to a mini festival weekend of soul survivor in November in Holland. I’m really excited to go and hopefully I will find more and more puzzle pieces to complete my path…

Thanks for reading! Love, Jacoline


A Life Poem
Life can seem ungrateful and not always kind. Life can pull at your heartstrings and play with your mind... Life can be blissful and happy and free... Life can put beauty in the things that you see... Life can place challenges right at your feet... Life can make good of the hardships we meet... Life can overwhelm you and make your head spin... Life can reward those determined to win... Life can be hurtful and not always fair... Life can surround you with people who care... Life clearly does offer its Up and its Downs... Life's days can bring you both smiles and frowns... Life teaches us to take the good with the bad... Life is a mixture of happy and sad...
So...
Take the Life that you have and give it your best... Think positive, be happy let God do the rest... Take the challenges that life has laid at your feet... Take pride and be thankful for each one you meet... To yourself give forgiveness if you stumble and fall... Take each day that is dealt you and give it your all... Take the love that you're given and return it with care... Have faith that when needed it will always be there... Take time to find the beauty in the things that you see... Take life's simple pleasures let them set your heart free... The idea here is simply to even the score... As you are met and faced with Life's Tug of War