It’s nearly summer here in Toronto, and after so much time has passed since posting our last update, it is high time that we share our biggest news and needs with you all – and this time, there is a lot! Make sure to read until the very end.
A New Missionary Placement:
The Netherlands
Most importantly for us, and for you who have partnered with us: we are thrilled to report that God is calling our family to go as missionaries to Europe, serving at a theological institution with a decades-long mission to train future leaders for the global church of Jesus Christ. Tyndale Theological Seminary is an interdenominational college located in Badhoevedorp (a suburb of Amsterdam) that offers English-language graduate degrees in Christian ministry and practical theology, with a special focus on training students coming from the Majority World, particularly Africa and Asia. Because all of its core faculty members are missionaries who raise their own support, the school is able to offer students from developing countries a full scholarship – tuition, room, board, and a stipend – while they pursue an MDiv (Master of Divinity) or MET (Master of Evangelical Theology) at Tyndale. This means that roughly 75% of the school’s 60 full-time students are not only from places like Cameroon, Pakistan, or Hong Kong, but that they are also living in community and practicing mutual ministry on-site at the seminary.
Our Discernment Process with Tyndale
My appointment to teach Systematic and Historical Theology at Tyndale is the end of a lengthy process of prayerful discernment that has involved multiple stakeholders invested in this ministry. It was two years ago now, in June 2022, that our mission director with SAMS-USA mentioned that Tyndale might be a good fit for us as a missionary family. Despite our long-time interest in serving in Latin America and the Caribbean, she was aware of what the school was doing because two missionary families connected with SAMS through IATW, our companion Canadian mission society, were already serving at Tyndale. What’s more, two other SAMS missionary couples were also serving Anglican chaplaincies nearby in Amsterdam and Heiloo, and they were able to vouch for the spiritual needs on the ground in the Netherlands. At the time however there were no faculty openings at Tyndale, and so we mostly put it out of our minds as we looked into other ministry possibilities elsewhere.
A map of the countries that Tyndale students come from.
However, in April of the following year our friends in Heiloo alerted me that Tyndale was advertising for a faculty opening in precisely my area of theology, looking for someone with a background in philosophy and experience in pastoral and missionary service. After talking with Mary Beth, I decided to send in my CV and see where God might take things. My interest in the position led to a Zoom interview with the seminary’s Academic Dean, and then in June a visit to the school’s campus in Badhoevedorp while on my way to Germany, along with a friendly chat with another professor on the hiring committee. This process continued throughout last fall, as I submitted essays on my teaching philosophy and personal goals and mission and met again with faculty over Zoom.
Finally last March both Mary Beth and I flew to Tyndale for a week of meeting students and spending time with the other missionary families teaching there. I was asked to preach in chapel and give a lecture as part of the course on Christology, and at the week’s end the faculty took a vote on whether or not to recommend me for the open spot on their team of theological educators. Throughout that week, we were impressed by the academic caliber, unity of vision, and sense of community that the faculty demonstrated, and we were even more struck by the spiritual maturity, passion, and talent of the students we met during our brief time there. Needless to say, as overwhelming as it all ways, I was grateful for their affirmative vote on our last Friday there, and we left the Netherlands with the sense that, if Tyndale’s board were to appoint me, we would take this as God’s leading our family in this direction.
There is so much more that played a part in this discernment process as well: discussions with our leadership at SAMS and IATW, with the faculty here at Wycliffe College, with friends here in Toronto who have spent years living in Amsterdam, with members of our extended family who remain so vitally and integrally a part of our life. All this is to say, there has been a collective sense that this is where God is leading our family next, and we are so excited to follow that lead.
Our Purpose in Heading to the Netherlands
Mary Beth and I have been praying for years that God would lead us to the place where our family’s gifts and callings would bring greatest glory to Jesus Christ and most effectively build up his church, and our conviction has been that this would occur through training new leaders – that is, through theological education and ministry development. Our passion has been to equip and prepare lay and ordained believers for ministry to the entire church, especially for ministry in those areas of the “Global South” where theological education remains difficult to access. However, we have also as a couple become increasingly aware of the real need for faithful Christian witness in the historic “West” of Europe, North America, and Australasia, places and cultures wrestling with fundamental questions in the wake of the atrophying scourge of secularism – nations and cities moreover to which the world is now increasingly immigrating. North Holland, one of the least religious areas in Western Europe with one of the highest population densities and immigration rates in the world, is precisely one of those areas that desperately needs the faithful Christian witness of families willing to integrate fully into and contribute socially within its communities.
In moving our family to the Netherlands to teach at Tyndale, our purpose is therefore twofold: 1) as before when we were serving in Belize and elsewhere in Latin America, we still seek to train and equip leaders for ministry in the church around the world, particularly for churches in marginalized regions; and 2) we now also seek to be a family that makes faithful, compelling Christian witness in Western Europe an essential part of our life and ministry. We believe that serving with Tyndale affords us an opportunity to do both, and we could not be happier that God has led us on this path.
Our Timeline for Relocating to the Netherlands
I wish we could tell you specifically when we expect to move our family to the Netherlands, but I can’t: there are several questions that will need to be answered first. For many practical reasons, I will however essentially need to finish my thesis before we relocate (more on my progress below). I am hoping to finish writing and start defending within the next calendar year (by the end of 2024), but I am not quite far enough along to be able to say one way or another if this will occur. After that, we will need time to raise the rest of the financial support needed for our family’s ministry and life in the Netherlands before we can leave (again, more on this support below). If we can raise support locally in Ontario, and virtually around North America while I am still finishing my dissertation, we will be able to shorten our time raising support after I am finished and arrive at Tyndale sooner, rather than later.
What We Need to Serve in the Netherlands
Our needs as a family are quickly going to change as we head in this new ministry direction as a missionary family. For example, we soon expect to have a revised missionary budget that will include the cost of living in the Netherlands – including housing and taxes – together with the cost of relocating from Canada there. While we have not yet sat down with our supervisors at SAMS-USA to work out the details, we are in no doubt about the obvious need to raise a lot more support before being able to leave North America and begin teaching. In this regard, we need to ask you for several things:
Please pray that the Lord will supply our financial needs very quickly, so that we will not have to go through a long period of raising support in North America after I have finished my dissertation.
Please consider sharing our family’s vision and financial need with others! We only know so many people, but you may know someone who would be interested in partnering with a missionary family like ours: please consider passing along our information to them, or being the link between us in some other way. We would be so grateful to arrange a Zoom meeting, or meet in person, in the weeks and months ahead.
The same goes for you: we would love to meet with you in person or on Zoom to discuss this new direction more with you, and to explore ways that you could partner with us. Message us, and let us know if there is a best way for us to link up soon!
Finally, please prayerfully consider partnering with us financially in our family’s mission, whether on a regular, long-term basis, or even as a one-time gift. Despite a drop in giving, over the last four years the Lord has provided for our family – through COVID-19, through a relocation, and through these doctoral studies, and we are now asking you to consider joining with us again, or for the first time, in giving to our ministry.
Finally, we would ask for your encouragement and advice. If you have any kind words to send our way, or suggestions for us as we prepare to make this move in the next couple of years, please let us know! We would be grateful to hear from you, and we would love to hear more about how you are doing as well.
How Our Family Has Been Doing
The short answer is that we have been doing well, and the Lord has really been blessing us in so many ways! The longer answer is a little more complicated, but is going to echo the shorter as well.
First off, the children are doing wonderfully! Austin and Lily have now celebrated their fifth and second birthdays, respectively, and all three are growing up so quickly. The personality of each our three kids is burgeoning by the day, and we are so excited to see the people that they are turning into. Austin and James have been progressing in reading books, writing their letters, and counting on their numbers. Austin’s main challenge with reading is that his own imagination is so vivid, it is difficult to find books on his level that can capture his attention long enough to go through the process of sounding out words. But his intelligence is coming through, and we are amazed to see how he is learning and developing as a boy, and no longer a toddler. James is sensitive, compassionate, intelligent, and observant, and while being very much his own person, he is eager to catch up to his brother in almost every way. Lily on the other hand is charming, imposing, and very content to “do her own thing” in adorable ways, and we are constantly wondering where in the world this self-proclaimed ballerina-princess came from, and how God has placed her in our lives. They are amazing, our pride and joy, and we are so blessed to be their parents.
Mary Beth and I are also doing well, although we are coming off of a number of illnesses and medical procedures. In April I underwent surgery to repair a hernia, and while the recovery was longer and more painful than I was hoping (still, exactly like I had been warned), I am doing really well and gradually getting back into all the activities I was taking on before. Mary Beth has needed her own time for recovery as well, following her second lithotripsy procedure in eight months. But we are so happy to have one another, to be able to take the time to look after one another, and to do so occasionally with the help of relatives like our parents who have been close enough to visit.
Finally, we are both continuing in our various forms of ministry at school, church, and elsewhere here in Toronto. I am continuing to teach, preach, and lead services when asked at Christ the King, and Mary Beth has agreed to become a co-leader with the Community Bible Study group that she has been a part of for the last year. Our accompanying jobs at other churches continue as well, and they have been a blessing especially to our children who, although divvied up between the parents, are being well taught in Sunday School in the morning, as well as in the evening.
All that’s to say: thank you for your prayers! These have been busy, and sometimes trying months, but we are doing well, and we bless God for all that he is doing in our lives.
How My Research and Schoolwork Is Coming
My doctoral thesis is coming well … not quite where I was hoping it would be by now, but given the health issues and the missionary placement trips and interviews, not at a bad place either. This past weekend I sent in another chapter to my supervisor, and I should be able to get another chapter in within the next few weeks. (The chapter I have been working on for much of the past year was both too large and also too important, so it’s been divided into two – hence the quick turn around.) If I can get drafts of the remaining core chapters done by the end of the summer, I stand a chance at defending my dissertation early in the spring of 2025. Please pray that I am able to make that progress!
In the meantime, I have also been able to get a few papers I’ve written headed toward publication, most recently an article in the Scottish Journal of Theology on Milton’s theodicy and Protestant theology that should come out in print soon. It’s “Open Access,” so feel free to check it out! I hope to have a positive update or two on other publications that I currently have in peer review, so stay tuned to see if any become available in the coming months.
Finally, it looks like I will also officially be an adjunct faculty member at Wycliffe College in the fall, co-teaching the course on preaching for which I was a Teaching Assistant last fall. I am really looking forward to receiving more experience in the classroom at this early stage of my new calling as an educator, and to learning from my students in the process.
A Huge Thank You
This update has gone on long, but let me conclude by thanking all of you not only for reading up until this point, but for supporting us in our lives and ministry through your encouragement, prayer, and giving. We ask you please to continue and expand your support, let us know if you have any questions, and help us connect with others whom God might be calling to join us as partners and senders in this new season of missionary life and overseas ministry. Again, thank you, and may God richly bless you!