Category: Updates

Hello everyone,

We’re back with a written update. This update covers many of the activities we’re currently working on, but first of all: fortunately, Hanneke is doing a little better. She tripped and fell a few weeks ago, suffering a concussion, so she needs to take things a bit easier for a while. However, we are very happy to see that the rest is truly helping and that she is slowly recovering. Fortunately, she felt well enough to record the update for you—something we’re really pleased about, as it had been quite a while since the last one.

Celebration
Over the past few months, we have celebrated several special occasions. First of all, Erik’s parents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. What a tremendous blessing to be able to celebrate that. Especially given the brokenness we encounter daily in Aruba, we are incredibly grateful for the example our parents have set—and continue to set—for us. We have parents on both sides who stand firmly behind us, pray for us, model the way for us, and share in our lives; it was wonderful that Erik was able to travel to the Netherlands to celebrate this occasion with the family.

Two other occasions for celebration were Jorian completing his Discipleship Training School (DTS) and Hielke finishing his preparatory program to return to school. We are incredibly proud of our boys and grateful for these wonderful achievements. Jorian is already halfway through his next course—the Discipleship Bible School (DBS)—where he is working his way through the entire Bible; he is really enjoying it. Meanwhile, Hielke held his first holiday job during the Summer break and has since started his studies at Deltion. So, the next steps have already been taken.

It is good to know that Jorian plans to engage in missionary work for the upcoming time. If you would like to follow his journey, you can do so via his dedicated page on this website; he also has a WhatsApp group if that is more convenient for you. He could certainly use some additional monthly financial support for his adventure with God, so if you would like to invest some of your abundance in the Kingdom, please feel free to contact him (or us).

The latest milestone we’ve celebrated is that we have now been living in Aruba for seven years. We always mark the occasion with mixed feelings. We are deeply grateful to be here and to witness firsthand how God is at work in Aruba. At the same time, of course, we miss our family and friends in the Netherlands. And even though we have made a home here in Aruba—and that is a good thing—that sense of missing everyone never quite goes away, simply because we love you all and cannot be present for many events in the Netherlands that we would have loved to attend.

Taxes
As most of you already know, we have recently faced quite a bit of trouble regarding income tax. The Aruban tax authorities had issued us a substantial tax bill, and although we knew the law was on our side, our initial appeal was unsuccessful. Consequently, the matter went to court. Fortunately, the tax authorities reversed their decision; we were suddenly vindicated, allowing us to withdraw the lawsuit. We are very happy about this—not only for ourselves but, above all, for all the future missionaries coming to Aruba to do volunteer work. Hopefully, they will no longer encounter problems with the tax authorities.

Red Cross Collaboration
We are still looking for a venue for La Sala. Although it is challenging to sustain this ministry effectively without a dedicated space, we are certain that we must continue. We are seeing wonderful results, reaching around 30 to 40 women each week—something for which we are very grateful. Fortunately, there is now a ray of hope regarding the coffee afternoons. Following our earlier collaboration on food distribution for the homeless, addicts, and the elderly in San Nicolas, the Red Cross has now offered us temporary use of a space in their building for the coffee afternoons aimed at women involved in prostitution. We are deeply grateful for this and see how God continues to provide for this ministry along the way.

Ministries
Speaking of ministries, we continue to see significant growth and wonderful fruit in our work. First of all, the food distribution and La Sala programs are running smoothly. Beyond that, we maintain ongoing contact with various families. Although we cannot provide them with food every time, many of these connections endure and are having a long-term impact. One example is a family that previously relied solely on welfare benefits but whose father has now started his own small business. We are seeing this family’s circumstances gradually improve. It involves ups and downs and certainly doesn’t happen automatically, but we are very grateful that they are able to take positive steps forward. Furthermore, we remain busy with counseling; we organized another beach day for the women of La Sala and a “couples night”; we are helping to relaunch a youth group; Erik is serving on staff for the online Advanced Family Studies (AFS) course offered by the Family College of the University of the Nations (UofN); and many other wonderful things are happening along the way.

One of the highlights was running into the Prime Minister of Aruba (Mike Eman) on the street. This gave us the chance to raise the issue of the permits with him directly (conversations on this are ongoing). It also led us to discover that, every Saturday, he paints the homes of families in San Nicolas alongside a team of volunteers. Since we had some visiting volunteers from the Netherlands (the Freerks family) who were enthusiastic about the idea, we were able to jump right in and join a team to help out. It turned out to be a special and truly enjoyable experience—especially seeing the gratitude of the families who are unable to do this work themselves.

Many guests, much help
In addition to various families who came over to visit and help, Tanny also visited us to explore how she—through her foundation, Together We Stand—could organize volunteer teams to come to Aruba to help with the ministry work. If you have an idea about bringing a team here to help out for a week or a few weeks, please let us know; we would be happy to put you in touch with Tanny to arrange the details.
We also received a visit from the Hart voor de Wereld team from our church in the Netherlands. It was a truly special week, during which they gained a better understanding of the work we actually do here. We were able to share a great deal with one another, and they saw with their own eyes how God is at work among the people of Aruba.

We are absolutely delighted with everyone who has come to Aruba recently to help us. It would be impossible to mention everyone by name here, but thanks to their arrival, we are able to carry out more ministry work, further renovate our base, professionalize the foundation’s operations, and get input on the topic of social media. Praise God, we are now ready to start hosting teams. What a blessing!

That’s all for now! All in all, we see God’s goodness here, and we are very grateful for that. We hope you are all doing well. Lots of love and a big hug from us!

After being on the waiting list for just over two years, it’s finally happened: Kai has a place to live in Zwolle! Starting February 5th, he’ll be living at the RIBW on Kleimos in Stadshagen, Zwolle, a place for assisted living. It’s about a 20-minute bike ride from Ryan’s house and just a few minutes’ walk from his Grandpa and Grandma de Kievit!

We immediately started preparing for the move, and it’s quite a feat! Besides all the practicalities, there’s also an emotional side  to it that’s challenging, but also beneficial. Hielke is really ready to take the next step and is excited about living in the Netherlands. He also hopes to start his studies at Deltion College in September. That is quite something, but we’re confident that everything will work out. We all find peace in knowing that God is always with him, wherever he lives and whatever he does!

Hanneke is going to the Netherlands with Hielke to help him during his first few weeks. We’ll have to buy everything for his room, because Hielke doesn’t have anything in the Netherlands. Of course, we’ll bring things from here, but he simply doesn’t have winter clothes, for example. And he doesn’t have shoes either. He always goes barefoot or in slippers, so that will take some getting used to! Most of his electrical appliances are only compatible with the 110-volt network here. So we’ll have to buy those too so they connect to the 220-volt network in the Netherlands. And I haven’t even mentioned a bicycle, a bed, a desk, and other things like that. We’ve made a quick shopping list:

Since this is Kai’s time of moving out of his parents house, we’d like to give him a good start in his new home and give him the opportunity to furnish his room the way he wants. Because we rely on donations, and indirectly, he does too, we’re looking for people who are willing to support him financially. He’s saved up quite some money himself over the past few years and will contribute, but he can’t manage on his own. Hanneke will help Kai find the things he needs, but also the things he likes. If he wants a purple bike, he should be able to choose it within his budget. 🙂 This way, we truly hope to give him a fresh, new start so he feels comfortable and can live happily!

If you’d like to help Kai take this wonderful new step in the right direction, you can make a donation to his account in the Netherlands:

NL 56 RABO 0397351593

H.M. de Kievit

or through our PayPal account

https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/ErikenHanneke

Thank you in advance, also on behalf of Kai!

Soooo much is happening! We have to post a short update here, just to let you know about some major things!

1. We had the opening of our YWAM Aruba base! On the 17th of May we had a beautiful gathering with may brothers and sisters from Aruba and even one from Jamaica and one from the US. We worshipped God together, dedicated the base to God and had good fellowship. We did the official opening act, revealing the name plate on the front wall, with all YWAM-ers. All in all it was a tremendous blessing for everyone there!

2. Soon after this event we were able to buy a new car!! It is a 2019 Toyota Rav4 and we feel soo blessed with this car. God has provided every cent for it! If you were one of the people who was faithful and contributed towards this car, may God bless you abundantly! We are blown away and humbled at the same time and cannot drive this car without a big smile on our faces!

3. It didn’t end after this, because I, Hanneke, left Aruba for a week to go to Nevada, USA! We were invited to the wedding of Matthew and Marley. Matt was in our DTS and he is our ‘son’. It was such a wonderful time with awesome people, a beautiful wedding, great experiences and… Chick-Fil-A! 😉

4. We are now in full preparation before going to the Netherlands. Next Thursday, the 19th of June, we will get on a plane and we will spend some time there. We had some really good reasons for going. My parents are celebrating their 50 year anniversary, our dear, long term friends Christiaan en Tineke are celebrating their 25 year anniversary and Ryan is graduating his study! For his final project he made an 8 minute documentary about what goes on inside the head of a person with autism in social situations. It is awesome!
Next to these celebrations we will have a lot of get-togethers with people. We will also have a Meet&Greet on Sunday the 6th of July. Since we will only be in the Netherlands for 2.5 weeks we cannot possibly connect with everyone personally, so we hope to see our Dutch people then. On the 8th of July we hope to celebrate our 26 year anniversary and on that day we plan on driving to France for a 2 week vacation with our little tribe of four before we fly back to Aruba.

And these were just the highlights, people. We have had visitors, a large donation from the Women’s Club Aruba for the La Sala building we want to buy, beautiful meetings and connections with La Sala and the homeless and addicted people in San Nicolas, staffing the Advance Family Studies, setting up a Dutch foundation and more. God is doing sooo much and it is at times overwhelming to see all this happening around us. We are grateful that we can be here and want to ask you for your continued prayer for all that God is doing here. Thank you so much for being a part of this story! We love you all!

Erik & Hanneke

Hi everyone,

A new update for you after a busy season. The Lord has blessed us by allowing us to be a part of several events on the island, some of which we just participated in, and others that we organized ourselves. This is also one of the reasons why it took us a little longer than normal to provide you with a new update. We are grateful for all the blessings that God poured out on the people that we served, and we hope you will rejoice with us when you watch/read this update.

Mission Conference 
In July, one of the churches on the island organized a Mission Conference. Erik was invited to speak about YWAM and its presence in Aruba, and we were invited to participate in a forum together with other YWAM-ers on the island. Meet Jhon and Maria. We met with Jhon several years ago, but we didn’t know Maria before this conference at all. It was really good to connect with them (again). We plan to get to know them both better and see if we can organize things together. 

Creative Kids Camp
In August, we organized a Creative Kids Camp, together with Cas di Oracion, the church of Randy & Quilin. We had Liselle Joslyn, a Creative Psychotherapist from the UK, come over to organize a fitting program with Hanneke. Hanneke did an amazing job in bringing structure to the whole week. With an amazing team we hosted 25 kids and we shared the Gospel in a very creative and relational way. The result was special, several kids were led to the Lord and many got to know God better. We are grateful for the whole team and all those children visiting our Camp.

Volunteers Appreciation Evening
In September, we organized a Volunteers Appreciation Evening for the more than 75 volunteers that help us in the different ministries connected to ONE San Nicolas. More than 35 attended and we had a wonderful evening together with a presentation of our values, a High Tea, gifts, games and much appreciation for everyone. This was the second year that we hosted this event and we plan on organizing this every year. 

Beach Day Ambulanten
Another event we organized in September was the Beach Day for the homeless and addicted people in San Nicolas (Ambulanten). After 3 years of serving them in San Nicolas through our food distribution, we decided to treat this group with an outing. A bus was  rented for a reduced price, food and towels were donated, the fire department was willing to help us create a shower from one of their trucks, a BBQ setup was organized, and we were at the beach very early to claim a good spot. It all worked out amazing. 

In the weeks before this event, God stirred our coordinator Annelies and Erik to speak each Saturday to the group specifically about Gods plan for our lives, salvation, and baptism. Because of this, we knew that He wanted us to create the opportunity for people to get baptized during this event. During the day, three men were baptized, and good follow-up for these men was arranged. It was wonderful to see people enjoy this special day. Some of them told us that they had not been going to the beach for years and that this day made a real difference for them in the hopelessness of their daily life. We are thankful!

Vacation Bible School
In October, the Evangelical Church in San Nicolas organized a VBS. We were invited to teach this whole week to a group of ten children aged 8 and 9. Unfortunately, Hanneke was sick, so Erik taught the children with the help of another volunteer. Although it was certainly not an easy week, everything worked out fine in the end. Throughout the week, several of these children wanted to know more about the gospel and started to ask really good questions. It was amazing to see how hungry these kids were to hear more about God. The VBS was visited by 53 children aged 6 to 12, and the team of volunteers existed of more than 40 people. We felt honored to be part of this event.  

La Sala
The fundraising for La Sala is ongoing. Currently, we have fundraised little over 10% of the total amount for purchasing, renovating and furnishing the building. We have sent in applications for funding to many funds and commercial business, but so far mainly personal donations have come in. Since donations are still being made, we feel that God wants us to trust in Him in this process. We don’t know how, but we believe that God will come with an unexpected way of organizing the additional funds. We hold strong to the believe that it is not about this building or any other facilities that we would need, but that anything we do in or outside this process is about God and His Kingdom. Whatever happens, He deserves all the honor.
We would love it if you would help us raise funds for this project. Please feel free to contact us for information and materials. If you would like to partner with us in this project, you can find more information on https://ywamaruba.com/lasala/.

Our family
As a family we are all doing well. Ryan is in his last year of school, and enjoys his internship with a wonderful organization where he feels at home. He is also enjoying his time with a Christian student group, making new friends. Kai is still preparing for going to the Netherlands. Over time, we had some hiccups in the process, but it looks like they are solved now and he is on course again. Hanneke en Erik are both doing well. For us it is important to stay aware of keeping a good balance between home and work, which is not always easy. But over all we believe we are doing a good job.

In the upcoming months we have quite some events planned. We will post about these events real time in our Just To Let You Know Friends WhatsApp group. Let us know if you want to be part of that group. We are more than happy to welcome you there as well. Of course we will also continue to post overall updates over here.

Blessings from us!