Georgetown CRC’s Heart for Missions

The items from Uganda sitting on tables in the hall outside the office of Georgetown Christian Reformed Church, Hudsonville, Mich., are displayed by four missionaries — Tim and Angie Sliedrecht and Josh and Mandy Shaarda — who gathered them on the mission field to sell during this Christmas season.

This past week I had a chance to meet at Georgetown with Tim Sliedrecht, who has served in several capacities with Resonate Global Mission for over 15 years. My plan was to do a story about the various handcrafted gifts. But soon after I arrived, Diane Koning and Joy Vanden Bout, members of Georgetown’s outreach team, walked in.

As we began to talk, it became clear that Sliedrecht and the outreach team members had a bigger story to tell. They wanted to talk about how this suburban Grand Rapids church has quietly but with dedication over the years provided support to a range of missionaries. Although the items from Uganda on those tables are part of that story, I would learn more about them later.

To start, they wanted to tell me about the church in Hudsonville.

“This is a church that loves its missionaries,” said Sliedrecht, who oversees community development work in Buikwe, Uganda, for Good Shepherd's Fold. “This church is very actively involved in outreach — and I have a strong connection to Georgetown. My wife grew up in this church.”

Josh Shaarda’s wife, Mandy, also grew up at Georgetown, and Angie and Mandy are sisters. Meanwhile, Josh and Mandy are currently working in Soroti, Uganda. Some of the wares made by people involved in their ministry sat on one of the tables.

An example of Georgetown’s mission-mindedness, said Tim Sliedrecht, is evident right next door, where they’ve turned the former parsonage into a home where missionaries can stay when they are on home assignment in the United States.

“We have found it to be such a blessing to be able to live there when we return,” said Sliedrecht. “It is not easy for a missionary to find a home like that when they come back.”

A Long Commitment to Missions

Currently Georgetown supports more than a dozen missionaries, and over the decades many more men and women from this church have served on mission fields around the world.

Later, as I talked with Jack Dik, a pastor of the church about this, he said, “Georgetown’s life and ministry is centered on ‘Love God, love each other, and serve the world.’ We take each part of this very seriously . . . which is why this church has such a heart for reaching out to our community and to places beyond.”

Among other efforts, this church sends a team of 30-35 people to work in Guatemala every year — and after Hurricane Harvey hit Houston in 2017, the church sent two semi-trailer loads of goods and supplies to people in need.

Additionally, the church has sponsored several vision trips to connect members with their missionaries where they are serving.

It has also had a relatively large number of young adults who have served with Youth with a Mission in various countries around the world, and two young people from Georgetown are currently serving with it.

 “Our involvement in and support for missions has long been part of our DNA — and increasingly so in recent years,” Dik said.

Vision Trip to Uganda

As we stood outside the church office in Georgetown, Diane Koning and Joy Vanden Bout told me about a vision trip they made with three other women from the church last year to visit the Sliedrechts and Shaardas on the mission field.

“We can hear about the work and see pictures of what it is like, but that doesn’t do it justice,” said Joy Vanden Bout. “You get so much more when you meet people face to face, when you visit with them in their homes and eat their food.”

The two women recalled sitting together one night outside. Like every night, it was pitch dark, and the sky was packed with stars. And as they sat there, they could hear children singing nearby.

Koning, a retired nurse, also recalled seeing a woman dancing and singing and praying in a church in Soroti, Uganda, one Sunday morning — but then by that evening, she said, the woman was so ill with malaria that she had to be rushed to a nearby hospital. Josh Shaarda invited her to go with them.

“She was very sick. They gave the woman an IV,” she said, but otherwise the hospitality was poorly supplied.

In Uganda, as in many African countries, families have to bring their own bedsheets and medications as well as food and other items to the hospital, said Sliedrecht.

On the vision trip, Koning and Vanden Bout also visited a prison ministry meeting in a dirt courtyard under a mango tree; watched younger women spreading mulch on a farm field in the heat of the day as older women watched their children; and attended worship services full of life and prayer. They also recall being moved by the compassionate ways in which “the aunties,” the caregivers, tended to the needs of children living with disabilities in one of the homes at Good Shepherd’s Fold.

“I remember watching ‘the aunties’ at work, starting to cook as the sun rose, getting water, doing the wash” — all as part of a ministry aimed at bringing support and healing to these young people, said Koning.

The Christmas Gifts

Finally, we turned to the table displays, and Vanden Bout picked up and shook a long, slender metal box that had beads inside and that she said worshipers used as they danced and sang.

There were also rolled paper necklaces made by women in Buikwe, bags sewn from old sugar sacks, sandals crafted from old tires, and small packages of dried mango from a farm that, in his work, Sliedrecht partners with.

Sales from the Uganda gifts table will go to support the Ugandan artisans and the Shaardas’ and Sliedrechts’ partners and ministry work at Good Shepherd’s Fold in Uganda.

Community Development as a Ministry

As partner missionaries with Resonate, the Sliedrechts serve with World Outreach Ministries, International Teams Netherlands, and Global Outreach International. And the main emphasis of their work, Tim Sliedrecht said, is  in making disciples for and through community development.

As a community development director, Sliedrecht helps to provide and oversee food, housing, and medical relief; parenting, farming, health, and literacy training; water, sanitation, and hygiene services; and supervision of community centers for children with disabilities.

“We endeavor to equip, empower, edify, and engage our staff, church and community leaders, teachers and students, and parents, including the most vulnerable and under-resourced, to make disciple-makers of Jesus Christ in their families, communities, country, and beyond,” he said.

Uganda and the work he does is a long way from West Michigan, but the Sliedrechts return regularly to tell church members at Georgetown — as well as other churches — the story of what God is doing through their ministry work. “We have some deep roots and good friends here and deeply appreciate their help,” he said.

Reflecting again on Georgetown CRC, the missionary said the people here are very generous. They helped to pay for a woman to have a knee-replacement operation. And they have helped with needs on the mission field.

A few years ago, for example, said Sliedrecht, Josh and he were teaching at a Bible college in Uganda that needed a new roof.

Sliedrecht told members of Georgetown CRC about the situation. And as they have done so many times, they responded.

“People are very willing to give, but they need to be told about the opportunities,” he said. “In one offering, they received $18,000 to pay for the roof.”

Clearly, the people at Georgetown are willing to dig deep to help others. The story of Georgetown CRC’s heart for missions is inspirational.

At the same time, churches across the CRC support missionaries working with people living in some of the harshest circumstances — people such as those with whom the Shaardas and Sliedrechts have dedicated many years of their lives to befriend and to whom they have sought to share the transforming message of the gospel.