Archive for 2010

Some good news

Rodney
Nov 16 |10:52

Us together with Janneke

We have some good news. We have found someone who would like to accompany us for the first 7 weeks to be a teacher for Lisa (and also a little bit for Sarah). Her name is Janneke (“Yanukka”) and has been staff here at Heidebeek for several years. Also, before she went into missions, she was a teacher. That means we’re getting some real “professional help”.

Janneke will be joining us on January 2nd and will start homeschooling Lisa the 3rd. She will be with us until February 19th when Lisa has a week’s vacation.

We are still looking for someone who will homeschool Lisa for the last 8 weeks, from February 28th until April 22nd. Lisa and Sarah have two weeks of vacation starting at Easter and we plan on being back in Holland sometime in the first week of May. Lisa and Sarah start back to school in Holland on May 9th.

Departure Date

We have decided to leave the girls in school here in Holland until Christmas break. That’s why we have decided to delay our departure until December 18th. That way, when we arrive in Budapest, the girls will have two weeks to settle in and get used to their new surroundings instead of having to dive right into homeschooling.

One other thing that helped us decide to push the date back a little was the fact that Carmelita, with whom I will be working in Budapest, will be out of the country until December 17th.

Wanted: partners!

In our last update (in the beginning of November) we wrote to you that we would like to find more people to partner with us financially. Before we leave for Budapest we would like to increase our monthly income by about $500, and we would like to see at least 40 new sponsors join us in the coming year. For example, that could mean 40 people supporting us monthly with $15 or 20 people with $25. We already have one new sponsor supporting us for €20 a month!

We hope that some of you have been considering partnering with us. If so, please drop us a line at blevins@ywam.nl.

This coming Sunday, we will be “joining” the River of Life for both services via a Skype video call. We hope to use this time to re-connect with the church and that there will be people present in the services to whom God would speak to partner with us. We hope to “see” you there!

Address in Budapest

We would also like to send along our address in Budapest…I’m sure Lisa and Sarah would enjoy getting a card as would their Mommy and Daddy.

Sarah will also be celebrating her birthday on December 27th.

Tücsökdomb utca 9
2141 Csömör
Hungary

Csömör is the village in which we will be living

As soon as there is any news, we will update you. While we’re in Budapest, we will hopefully be communication more often on our blog(s) or by email.

 

It’s the final countdown

Rodney
Oct 29 |19:47

It’s the Final Countdown…

As the time draws near for us to leave for Budapest, we have finally set ourselves a date for when we want to leave, and the Final Countdown can begin…(cue synthesizers and electric guitars). We’ll share more about that at the end of the update.

YWAM 50th Celebration in Harpenden, England

Jolanda symbolically putting a "sticky" on Budapest with our names and ministries on it

As we wrote previously, YWAM is celebrating it’s 50th anniversary this year. Loren and Darlene Cunningham, the founders of YWAM, are traveling around the globe visiting various locations as they celebrate knowing God… His everlasting faithfulness, goodness, power and love.

From September 19th to the 21st, Jolanda, along with 70 other staff from Heidebeek attended the celebration at the YWAM base in Harpenden, England, just north of London. It was her turn to finally take a trip away from home and I stayed behind with the girls.

About 700 YWAMers from various Western European countries came together to thank God for what He has done and were challenged to hear His voice for the future and even symbolically place a sticky on a very large map on the place they think God is calling them to within the next 5 years. It was a blessed time and even the weather was great, which is saying a lot considering this was England!

New Staff!

Jolanda, along with the Staff Care and Development (SCAD) team (in collaboration with the personnel department of Heidebeek) welcomed 13 new staff people in September. Her team arranges accommodation, a host or hostess upon arrival and several orientation days for our new staff.

In September they had a whole day together with our new colleagues introducing them to the leadership team, acquainting them with the ins and outs of living and working within our community, teaching on culture shock, YWAM’s history and vision, giving a guided tour and introducing them to the rest of the staff. With the addition of these new staff members, Heidebeek now has more than 100 staff members that live and minister here!

The Heidebeek Staff

The pastoral team and the Staff Care and Development team meet together weekly. She also continues to have both official and unofficial “mentor talks” with staff and students.

Jolanda and I, Rodney, unfortunately can not mentor any students this fall from the DTS and the School of Biblical Studies, since we will be leaving for Budapest before their lecture phase has ended.

Global Communication Meetings

Rodney, Veronica (LatinCom) and Arun (SpiceCom, India)

Just a week-and-a-half later, I, Rodney got the chance to visit Harpenden as well. The occasion was the Global Communication Team (GCT) meeting called together by Lynn Green, YWAM’s International Chairman and the Effective Communication Workshop which we as EuroCom organized.

The GCT has been meeting together for several years now, but this time several new people, including myself were invited to join. That’s why most of the week was spent in hearing form each other what global initiatives there already are and how effective they have been.

We as a team (about 18 in total) are committed to global communications initiatives and that will be our focus in the future, both virtually and when we come together again. We are a group of people who, as stated in the invitation email: “have been nominated to attend because of your contributions and commitment to global communications efforts”.

Effective Communication Workshop

The Whole ECW Group

The Global Communication Team meeting ended on Friday afternoon, and we started the Effective Communication Workshop that evening.

We had 14 participants and 12 different nationalities representing 11 YWAM Locations around Europe. Most of the participants are involved locally in their communication departments, but there were a couple of base/ministry leaders and some of them are on the leadership team of their local base.

The purpose of the workshop was to introduce the participants to communication fundamentals such as writing, design, photography, etc. as well as help them get a historical and biblical understanding of communication. Communication is about heart, vision and skills, and we try to give the participants all three in this workshop.

We also made time for some fun

But the workshop can probably be best described in the words of some of the participants themselves:

“Attending the ECW workshop was the fulfillment of something that God has been laying in my heart for years. Sitting in that room and having input on COMMUNICATION, I just said ‘finally God, it is happening’. I was blessed out of my socks. I’m definitely not going to stop there, I will pursue what I felt the Lord is saying with communication, in my life, in my department, on the base and …who knows how far He will bring me.” – Florence (Cameroon), serving with YWAM Heidebeek, The Netherlands

For more testimonials, see our testimonial page.

Leaving for Budapest

The sticky on Budapest

We have finally decided that we will be leaving for Budapest on December 4th (my birthday). Even that date is not set in stone since there are still a couple of things that need to happen before we leave.

One of the things we are hoping for is to bring a Dutch teacher along with us to homeschool Lisa. We have cast our net out in several directions and have met a a couple of young ladies who are interested but no one has been able to give us a definite commitment yet. If absolutely necessary Jolanda could homeschool Lisa, but we both feel that that wouldn’t be the best long-term solution.

Another thing that we would like to see happen before we leave for Budapest is for more people to partner with us financially. We have been barely scraping by at times over the last two years and while, as we all well know, most things keep getting more expensive we haven’t seen any growth in our monthly support.

To this end, we will be starting a fundraising campaign this week. We will be sending out a sponsor letter and you might even get a personal email, Facebook message or even a phone call at some point.

Before we leave for Budapest we would like to increase our monthly income by about $500, and we would like to see at least 40 new sponsors join us in the coming year.

We hope you have enjoyed reading our update as much as we enjoyed putting it together. Thanks again for your time.

Blessings from The Netherlands,
Rodney, Jolanda, Lisa and Sarah

 

The Next Level…

Rodney
Aug 24 |13:14

View from the Fisherman's Bastion

The Next Level…

In our last update, we informed you of plans we had to move to Budapest and our idea to go on a 2-week trip to check things out. Our purpose for taking this trip was to “spy out the land” to see what the possibilities were and what God would speak to us while we were there in Budapest.

The trip was good and we feel confirmation that we are to proceed to the next level – to go to Budapest for a trial period of 6-7 months to see how things go with the girls’ schooling and with working and living there. We still need lots of wisdom on the timing, though. We had originally hoped to be leaving in November, but we need to raise up more partners who will stand beside us, supporting us in prayer and also financially before we go.

Since having more partners is crucial in us fulfilling our calling we want to give priority to this, so that will mean we will push our departure date back until sometime later this year or early next year.

Bus, Metro and Tram

The house in which we were staying is located just outside of Budapest proper in a little village called Csömör (click for a Google map). To get into Budapest by public transportation, we first had to take a 30-minute bus ride which cost a whopping $1.35 per person (and the kids could ride for free).

This bus took us to a shopping center with an Ikea and a relatively large mall where we could then catch a metro (also known as underground or subway) further into the center of town. The whole trip from the house to, say the YWAM office (another Google map) took about an hour, although it didn’t feel like it took that long.

Lisa and Sarah loved going by public transportation and even got mad at us one day when we decided to go somewhere by car.

YWAM Budapest

While in Budapest, we visited the offices of YWAM Budapest several times. We met there with Carmelita Clarke – the Central European director with whom we will be working – who has her office there. We also attended YWAM Budapest’s weekly staff meeting to share our vision, where they also prayed for us.

We were also very blessed to be able to meet with a Hungarian staff lady, Gabi who was able to give us a lot of information and answer questions about schooling, and other aspects of life in Hungary.

Housing

The house in which we stayed was built by YWAMers who have moved away (they’re in Arizona now, oh the irony). They built it as a YWAM house to be able to house many people. If we feel like this is the place where we are supposed to stay, then we could probably move in tomorrow.

One drawback is that it takes an hour (one-way) to get in to the office by public transportation. This could also be seen as an advantage since it means when you’re home, you’re completely away from the office. It also means that if Jolanda is there alone with the kids, it makes it harder to “pop in” to the office or meet up somewhere for lunch from time-to-time.

There are plenty of other houses and apartments to be found on numerous websites, but most of them require a minimum of a one year contract which could present a problem if we go for only 6-7 months.

Why 6-7 months?

In Holland, we enjoy financial benefits from the government, such as child support and health-care subsidy. Altogether this amounts to more than $450 a month that we receive from the government. However, to enjoy these benefits, we have to be resident in the country no less than 4 months out of a 12 month period. That is one of the reasons we have chosen for a trial period of 6-7 months. That way we can go check things out without having to immediately give up that extra financial support.

We hope you have enjoyed reading our update as much as we enjoyed putting it together. Thanks again for your time.

Blessings from The Netherlands,
Rodney, Jolanda, Lisa and Sarah

 

Big Plans!

Rodney
Jul 1 |14:56

We are sending you this extra update this month to share some plans with you that we have been making and feel God has put on our hearts.These plans have to do with our future as a family in missions for the next season of our lives. We are writing this to you even though the plans are as of yet still in the early brainstoming and praying stage.

We are looking into the possibility of moving to Budapest, Hungary to move the EuroCom office there and to work with YWAM Budapest.

Even though it is early days yet, we are sharing with you to ask you to think and pray with us for this big decision we have to make.

Why Budapest?

Budapest by night

You may be wondering, “Why Budapest?” There is a YWAM presence there in Budapest, plus the Central European office is located there. The director of Central Europe, Carmelita Clarke is my contact with the European Leadership Team now that Jeff Fountain has stepped down as European director.

When I was there in April, there was a real click in my heart with Budapest. When Carmelita invited us to join her team there, I was very open to it.

EuroCom Office

I, Rodney now work 100% for EuroCom – on a European level – even though I am staff here at Heidebeek. When Jeff Fountain was director, I worked in the European office which was located just down the road from Heidebeek. Now that he has stepped down and there is no obvious replacement for him, he asked Carmelita to be EuroCom’s contact person on the European Leadership team. She is, in a very real way, my boss.

For me (and for EuroCom), it would be better for me to be closer to what is going on at a European level. Budapest is also a very international city with easy (and cheap) access by air which makes it easier to organize Europe-wide meetings. It will also make it easier to attract more international staff to come and work with me on the EuroCom team.

What about Jolanda?

Besides being a full-time mom, Jolanda is great at walking out her front door, meeting people and creating ministry opportunities. That’s one of the advantages of living someplace like Budapest. Although, she will be greatly missed here at Heidebeek by the people and ministries in which she is involved.

It will be a fun challenge to find the opportunities in Budapest for us to be involved together in ministry as a family (and I think there will be more of them, too).

Spying out the land

Another reason we are emailing this now is that we are leaving on Saturday, 3 July to take a 2-week “spying out the land” trip with the whole family to Budapest.

A glimpse of the house we will be staying in this Summer

We will be staying in a house built by YWAMers to be used as a YWAM base, which we are very excited about. This house is one of the many options for us for housing in Budapest. There is one disadvantage (or advantage depending on how you look at it): it is located in a village on the outskirts of Budapest, not very close to the YWAM office or other houses.

We will be looking into other options for renting something for ourselves.

We would appreciate your prayers very much in this time. If all goes well, we will look into moving to Budapest sometime later this year for a 6-8 month trial period. If we go for less than 8 months, we can still keep our Dutch insurance and all of the subsidies we receive from the Government.

Be sure and keep an eye on our website and Facebook profile pages for updates while we are there.
 

New Website (yet again)!

Rodney
Jun 8 |09:53

After almost 7 months of trial and error, we have finally been able to settle on a nice design for our website.

We think it’s pretty cool and we hope you like it too.

Let us know what you think in the comments below.