CRWM Kicks off Celebration with Stories

Andrew VanderWagen was a young, iconoclastic Christian Reformed World Missions missionary who rode across the New Mexican desert in the late 1800s on his horse “John the Flyer” and encountered the Zunis, an Indian tribe that he ended up working with for the rest of his life.

"He was an incredible person who couldn't get along with the people in Grand Rapids (home of the mission board)," said James Schaap, a novelist, biographer and emeritus professor of English at Dordt College in Sioux Center, Iowa.

"VanderWagen was hellfire and brimstone. He took one look at the Zunis and said, 'You are going to Hell'."

Schaap told the story of VanderWagen to more than 300 former missionaries and friends of missions who attended a ceremony on Thursday night, Sept. 26, that celebrated the 125th anniversary  of CRWM.

A similar celebration was held on Saturday, Sept. 28 at Trinity Christian College in Palos Heights, Ill. Other 125th celebrations are set for October in Bellflower, Calif. and Ripon, Calif.

CRWM’s history will be the chief focus of a mission fest on Nov. 2 in Orange City, Iowa.  On May 3, 2014, CRWM will hold a celebration in the greater Hamilton, Ontario area.

“We have been imagining and preparing for 18 months for these special events to celebrate all that God has done for the last 125 years through Christian Reformed World Missions,” said Steve  Van Zanen, CRWM’s director for missions education and engagement and a coordinator of the celebration.

Having served in many countries all over the world, the CRWM missionaries had a chance to mingle and share memories in a conference room at the Prince Center on the campus of Calvin College on the evening of Sept. 26. Once the program began, they sat at tables to watch videos and listen to the stories.

Preaching to the Zunis

VanderWagen, said Schaap, made little headway among the Zunis until a terrible flu epidemic broke out. His wife, a nurse, was able to treat many sick Zunis.

This created goodwill and the CRC was deeded land on which it built the Zuni mission. Even then, though, there were very few conversions and baptisms.

 “The Zuni mission has always been precarious for the last 125 years, in part because the people, in practicing their ancestral religion, are so profoundly religious. For them, all of life is their religion,” said Schaap, who been doing research on CRWM’s early efforts among the Zuni.

As he spoke, a large screen showed PowerPoint images of missionaries, Native Americans and landscapes.

From novelist to novelist

Schaap also told the story of missionary novelist Casey Kuipers who worked in New Mexico and wrote three Depression-era novels featuring the interaction between missionaries and Zunis.

While his novels—Roaring Waters, Deep Snow and Chant of the Night—portray white people in a favorable light, they also show that “he cared about the people who he was working with. He loved the people he was talking about.”

One novel chronicles the coming of age story of a young Zuni who “must choose between Christianity and the traditional  ways.”

Kuipers “shows incredible empathy” for the main character, says Schaap, in the course of the novel.

Hiking into the Wilds

And then there was the story of Rev. Eugene Rubingh, CRWM’s former executive director who recalled his early days as a missionary trekking into the far country of Nigeria.

“I would trek many miles and when I met the people, they would ask me to sit down. Then they would say, ‘White man, tell us about God’.”

Rubingh, who served as executive director from 1975-85, recalls being busy. "Our name changed, our budget doubled, and we saw a huge expansion,” he said.

He also remembers one of the challenging issues his agency confronted had to do with how the CRC should best address “its word and deed ministries.”

In 1985, synod decided to make changes, placing CRWM, the agency focusing on the Word, and World Renew, the one doing many of the deeds, under a synodical board called the Christian Reformed Board of World Ministries.

Walking Beside Workers in El Salvador

Seeds of a New Creation is a 150,000-member congregation in El Salvador that is a CRWM partner.

“This church has 90 pastors who are training leaders of care groups, who in turn teach other members to reach out to their communities to live out their faith,” said Joel Hogan, CRWM’s director of international ministries.

“This church is touching and changing lives throughout San Salvador. It is amazing. It is a privilege to walk beside them.”

Hogan also spoke of a woman who is a teacher in Kenya and who had become very discouraged and wanted to quit. She believed another career would be more fulfilling.

But then she met with Mwaya Wa Kitavi, the East and Southern Africa regional leader for CRWM, who was able to speak to her about the significance of remaining a teacher and of how there is "not one square inch in the world that does not belong to God."

She stayed teaching.

Then there was a woman in Mexico who had a "history of messy relationships, and was always at odds with her family." She attended a two-day seminar put on by CRWM missionaries and, said Hogan, experienced "deep changes and transformation. Instead of bringing grief and pain into her home, she is now bringing happiness and laughter."

Looking ahead

Taking a broad view of the night’s celebration, Hogan said: “As we celebrate 125 years as a CRC denominational agency, we must remember those who went before.”

"In doing this, we see that our history reflects the ongoing changes in our agency, denomination and world.”

Looking ahead, he said, CRWM finds that the context for doing missions has gone through, and is undergoing, monumental changes. In 1980, for example, the majority of Christians in the world were living in Europe and North America.

But now the majority of Christians are living elsewhere in the world. Several countries are, in fact, now sending their own missionaries to Europe and North America.

"CRWM has worked hard, especially in the last decade, to change and adapt to these new realities. We have been able to partner with spirited churches around the world. The impact of God is being felt, lives are being changed, and we praise God for it all,” said Hogan.