Soon-to-be Missionary Talks of God’s ‘Abundance’

Tim Steen was not sure if he wanted to leave his job as a computer teacher in New Jersey and uproot his family to serve as a partner missionary with Christian Reformed World Missions (CRWM) in Tanzania.

But then, on a recent trip to the African country, he had a chance to visit a waterfall and saw huge amounts water cascading through a small opening in the rocks.

Astonished by the torrent of water, he had a strong sense of the great abundance of God, he told a group of missionaries undergoing orientation this week in the Grand Rapids office of the CRC.

“I asked myself, ‘How could I live my life in that abundance?,” he said during a session in which the CRWM missionaries and partner missionaries told the story of how they got the calling to serve overseas.

“This (sense of abundance) seemed to be coming from God who was telling us what he wanted us to do and we decided to take the plunge into that life of abundance.”

He and his wife, Stephanie, and their family will leave soon so they can work in Tanzania.

About 20 missionaries are attending the orientation that began on Tuesday morning as everyone shared their stories. They will go through a range of training sessions from dealing with security problems to understanding and honoring other cultures and from how to raise support for their work to addressing issues of worldview and spiritual warfare.

Many of the missionaries are partner missionaries, meaning they will be endorsed by CRWM but that they will be actually working for another organization such as a school. Others will serve as career missionaries.

As they introduced themselves and told their stories, many of the missionaries spoke of the trepidation they had felt, and some still feel, about leaving to work in a thoroughly new environment.

At the same time, they spoke about how they are excited to be following the will of God as best they can determine it.

“There are many unknowns. We see this as being a great experience in trust, knowing God will provide. He has already opened many doors for us,”  said Andrew Ippel, who will be serving with his wife, Ruth, as a teacher in Nicaragua.

Sosthene and Kara Maletoungou will be working in West Africa. Sosthene, who grew up an orphan, said he believes it “is a great honor to be serving the king of kings. I feel humble that I’m chosen to do this work.”

His wife said she has been dreaming for many years of being a foreign missionary and “feels excited to be part of momentum for kingdom change.”

Justin Van Zee was backpacking a few years ago in Cambodia when he looked around and strongly felt that that is where God wanted him. He will start language school and begin working in leadership development and discipleship in January.

Another woman said she was excited about the chance to teach English in Asia. Another woman will be teaching in Sierra Leone, and another woman will be doing marketplace ministry training in Kenya.

Yet another couple is also going to Tanzania.

“We talked before our marriage how God could use us. We considered a number of opportunities,” said Marc Driesenga.

Nothing seemed to fit. But then he and his wife, Gretchen, began to consider Tanzania.

As they did, he had reservations, thinking he is a teacher and not a missionary. “I wasn’t going to go to Africa. That was crazy,” he said.

But a short-term mission trip to the Dominican Republic changed his mind, convincing him that with God’s help he could teach so many miles away in a place so unlike North America.

Looking ahead to Tanzania, Gretchen Driesenga says they will both get to use their gifts — he is a teacher and will teach in a school and she is a youth minister and can work with the youth in the school and in the surrounding area.

After going through four days of orientation, the missionaries will attend a service on Friday afternoon in the CRC office in which they will be commissioned to do their work.