Category: Updates

We have good news; we are moving to a new location in Aruba. We already dropped a little hint in our Christmas picture…

‘How did this come about?’, we hear you ask. Let us explain.

When we first got to Aruba, for our 7-week scouting trip, we were very privileged to find housing in Savaneta. During our time there, it became clear that we would be able to rent that house for a longer period, so when we got here in august 2019, and we started renting this big house. It was only the four of us, but we wanted to be able to host people who would come to Aruba to help. More importantly, we wanted space to have staff live with us in the house, so we could work as a community.

A big house comes with a big rent, but we were expecting people to come and help us with the work and the rent. Then Covid happened and everything changed.

In the past two and a half years we have been able to host different people. We had Sean live with us, we had mission builders coming to our house, we had friends and family coming over, we had an outreach team here for 12 weeks, and currently we are hosting 10 people in our house who are also here to help. They all chipped in for the time they were here, but most of the time it was just the four or three of us.

We rented this house with growth in mind, but the growth didn’t happen yet. Neither in the number of people sharing this house with us, nor in our finances. So, we kept running out of money and something needed to change. We have asked God many times to send more people, but since that didn’t happen so far, we started to ask what He wanted us to do. Not only with the house, but also with the way we were building up this YWAM base, with this location in mind. And it became more and more clear that we had to scale down. 

As a pioneering base you have two options. Start big and have everything ready for growth or start small and grow from there. We chose the first option since we were under impression that this was what God wanted us to do. We anticipated growth so we rented big, which was a risk, and it turned out to not be sustainable for a longer period. So, we went back to God, and now we are changing our strategy; we are continuing with small. Don’t get us wrong, we are still anticipating growth, but the way in which that growth will happen will be different.

These thoughts and conclusions led to the re-evaluation of our entire way of doing things for YWAM Aruba. We have spent all our time building this base and ministries, and we are very thankful for everything we were able to accomplish. But the downside of this is our working hours and our ‘private time’ were completely intertwined with each other, which led to unhealthy situations. Besides this, we want to be a ministry focused base and all the work that needed to be done in and around the house kept us from spending more time in actual ministry work. This gave us an increasing feeling of dissatisfaction, something needed to change. But how?

With this in mind, we re-evaluated our housing situation and we concluded that a smaller house would have several advantages:

– more time for ministry
– a place to find rest as a family 
– a healthier balance between work and free time
– a smaller financial burden (which means less financial shortage per month).

So, instead of having a location waiting for people to come to, we are now going to work from our own house. People who join us will also be living in their own house or apartment, and we will work together within the YWAM Aruba foundation. If, in a couple of years, we will be a bigger base, we will again start looking for a location, where we can live and work together and have space for ministry activities. In the meantime, we will rent a location for activities, when needed. Obviously, the community living will be different, but we will still be spending a lot of time together, work together, and have meals, worship, and intercession together.

Now, about the new location. We have purchased a small house (2 beds, 1 bath, 1550 sqft.) in a very central location of the island. It is in a quiet neighborhood, and it has a beautiful view. There is a bit of property land around it, so we will have space to possibly build an apartment or an office. 

Here are some pictures of the house:

This house will be our own, we are buying it. We have been extremely blessed with family who is willing to lend us the money. It feels a little strange to buy a house when you live of support, but in the end, this is a much more sustainable way of investing money than with renting. Here is a simplified overview of our monthly finances in the old and new situation:

With all this changing, it is good to know that our mission and vision still stand strong and therefore remain the same. 

Our mission: To help restore God’s love in families.

Our vision: Healthy and strong families in Aruba.

We are so thankful for God’s faithfulness in all that is happening. His love and provision made it possible for us to live and work in Aruba and make a difference in the lives of people that need His love. With buying this piece of property land we realise that this is a big step forward in the promises that God has, not only for us, but for the Arubians and for country of Aruba. 

We also want to give a big shout out to you all. You guys are our ministry partners, and we wouldn’t be able to do this work in God’s kingdom if it weren’t for you guys. Thank you for all your help, your prayers, your support in any way. We are grateful for you guys!

In the upcoming couple of months, we will spend time to create our personal home base, so that we are able to do ministries work in a more effective way after that. We’ll keep you updated!

Please contact us if you have any questions about this new situation. We are more than happy to explain more and answer any questions you might have. 

Blessings,

Erik & Hanneke

It has been four years since Hanneke and I started this mission adventure. We could not have imagined how this turned out. We stepped in it with the faith that God would provide for us, but also with complete uncertainty of what that would look like in everyday life. So, in embarking on this adventure, we implicitly made the choice to surrender completely to what God would gradually reveal to us. Living in dependence on Him is not an easy thing to do. I already said that when I was still ‘earning my own living’. But in the last four years I have really come to understand the deeper meaning of this.

We are deeply grateful for all the support we have received during all this time. Living in faith on support seemed horrible to us, but God has given us something that we couldn’t have arranged ourselves. He has provided for us even though we didn’t deserve it. Wat a blessing! Every time I make a budget at the beginning of the year, it turns out that only about half of the necessary donations have been promised. And every time at the end of the year everything is paid for. It is impossible, but it happened four years in a row. And in the meantime, we are able to bless those who partner with us by giving them the opportunity to be part of the great commission, a calling Jesus gave us all.

In today’s world keeping control over our own lives has become normal. You should earn your own money. This is not only culture in the United States and the Netherlands, but also here in Aruba, and even in most places in the mission world. Viewed from that perspective, we regularly receive all kinds of well-intentioned advice about how we should approach things to get a better result in missions. We should profile ourselves more clearly, we should showcase our results better, we should approach fundraising differently, we should communicate more, we should…

When God called Hanneke and me to Aruba, He called us separately in the same week. He told me on Tuesday that we had to go to Aruba to start a YWAM base there and work with families. But He also said that I was not allowed to tell Hanneke. On Wednesday, He Himself told Hanneke that we had to go to Aruba. When I asked Him the following Friday if I could tell Hanneke, I got the impression that this was okay. When I told her, I was stunned to find out that God was calling us both separately to Aruba.

The calling we got meant working through YWAM. And because missionary workers in YWAM do not receive a salary, this also meant that we would live of donations. You can disagree with that (we did first), but because of God’s clear instructions, we had no choice. I am now happy with it. Every day I am confronted with the facts. God shows again and again that He is the Commissioner of this project, and I am not. And so, we follow Kingdom principles: God speaks, we listen. We do what He says, and we keep going. He takes care of us, so we don’t lack anything. Nice huh? In this way we learn that we do not have to keep everything under control ourselves and we receive deeply gratefully what we could not have arranged ourselves. Will you join us? We pray God’s indispensable blessings over you for this year.