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.
