Elzingas Reflect On First Part of Journey

Mike Elzinga was immediately struck by Egypt’s tall, sand-burnished buildings, many of them squeezed close together, some featuring domes and arches, and dating back centuries.

The mixture of people and the Arabic language also added to the strong impressions Egypt made on Elzinga, who recently returned with his wife, Claudia, from the first portion of a storytelling journey to more than 20 countries on behalf of Christian Reformed World Missions.

“Everything was new and different to me in Egypt,” he said of that stop which is featured along with everywhere else they have gone on their twocameras website.

“I was reminded of Egyptian history, and its history of strong women, and that Christianity is very old there.”

The Elzingas were in Egypt to help chronicle the visit that a CRC delegation made to visit a new CRWM ministry in Cairo and to meet with Christian leaders to discuss ways in which the CRC can create closer ties between it and Egyptian Christians.

“Right now, tourism is gone because of the (political) troubles they have been having in Egypt,” said Mike Elzinga.

Despite the uncertainty, he was impressed by what happened when they had a chance to speak with students at a large, evangelical seminary in Cairo.

“Even though everything is up in the air and it is hard to be a pastor in Egypt, all they wanted to talk about was Christianity,” he said.

The couple have many other memories and impressions from the trip they began late last year by visiting China, Nepal, the Philippines and Indonesia.

They also traveled to Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Eastern Europe and Africa. CRWM missionaries hosted them at most of their stops.

Mike Elzinga took video as they went from country to country as volunteers for CRWM, and his wife wrote, both in stories and blogs, about what they saw and experienced.

Besides doing work for CRWM, they have also reported other stories and taken footage for World Renew, Back to God Ministries International and the Timothy Leadership Training Institute.

“What we’ve done is very much a personal voice and very much from our point of view,” said Claudia Elzinga.

Mike Elzinga adds: “We imagine ourselves as normal CRC members in these incredible situations meeting incredible people.”

They are currently living in Caledonia, Mich., as they prepare to go out on a final, two-month leg of their journey, which will take them to India, back to Africa and to Central America.

“It has been such an amazing experience,” said Claudia Elzinga. “Every country was so different. The missionaries we stayed with were so wonderful. We were part of their families. We had the chance to see the missions struggles they face.”

Mike Elzinga is a videographer and Claudia is a writer. They decided to use their skills to help CRWM tell the story of the work it does — and as it turns out to do it in 2013, the 125th anniversary of CRWM.

As volunteers, they continue to raise funds to cover the cost of their trip.

Looking back over the last eight months, several experiences come to their minds. When they arrived in China at the start of their trip, they found it difficult to find their way around and then ended up flying out to Hong Kong a day late and missed their connecting flight. Fortunately, they had no trouble re-booking.

A visit to Cambodia, home to the notorious, Khmer Rouge killing fields, was deeply disturbing.

They arrived in Bangladesh about the time people in the country went on a general strike and they were confined for a while to the missionaries’ home, where Claudia says they would play with the missionary  couple’s children on the roof.

As they traveled, a highlight was “being able to talk to local people about their local experiences,” said Claudia Elzinga.