I can remember taking a train from east to west across the United States when I was almost eleven years old. As we crossed Colorado, the Rocky Mountains cropped up in the distance, but it seemed like forever for them to come into clearer relief. But once we got close, they seemed to rush at us all at once: first the foothills, and then up through the passes. The agonizingly long wait gave way to the excitement of approaching the continental divide – and beyond.
I’ve been reflecting on these memories because they’re akin to what our family has been undergoing, and so also to what we will soon be experiencing in just a few months. It’s been almost a year since Tyndale Seminary Europe extended a call to serve on their faculty, and like those mountains off in the distance, we have had our eyes trained on that future vocation, even if it seemed so far away – after all, I need to finish my degree here at Wycliffe College and the University of Toronto, and we need to raise the additional support required to support life and ministry in the Netherlands. For a while now, we have been able to discern our family’s movement forward more by what has been whirling past us – all the things we have been doing to prepare – even while the goal seemed both real and beyond reach.
But this has begun to change. I now have a complete draft of my dissertation, and with my supervisor’s approval I am beginning the process of copy editing – that is, mostly checking for typos and other issues of style. In addition to the three longtime members of my supervisory committee, I now have a confirmed faculty person from the School of Graduate Studies to sit on the examining committee, and inquiries are presently being made for an external examiner as well. All this is to say that I am on track to submit my dissertation in June, with a defense likely happening in the fall. After three years of research and writing, this project is finally coming to an end. We can start to make out clearly what has for long only been in the distance.
Oddly enough, this does not leave us room for relaxation: on the contrary, we are now in frantic movement as a family, as we begin envisioning what comes next with missionary support raising. We have notified Wycliffe that we will be vacating our apartment here by the end of August in preparation for a return to the United States, as we look for new partners in ministry. And that means that we are beginning to disassemble what has been our home for the last four years. Books are disappearing as boxes are filled up and taped. We are selling or (more frequently) giving away toys and utensils and furnishings, with plans for more the closer we get. Mary Beth has been calling shipping companies to get quotes and estimates, and although there are still three months before we leave Toronto, it hardly feels like we have enough time to get everything done. Those of you who have moved a family like this know, I am sure, exactly what this all feels like.
There are other odds and ends as well. I’m trying to take advantage of being around the University of Toronto libraries as long as I can, in preparation both to defend my dissertation, and also to finish up some other writing that I have on my docket. We hope to visit some churches and other potential ministry partners in Canada as well, and to do that we also need to redo much of our print material – prayer cards, fliers, business cards, etc.
And somehow Mary Beth has been engaged in all of this while still juggling homeschooling the kids, her active involvement with Community Bible Study and other ministries. I cannot believe how much she has thrown herself into all of this, and how through her initiative it is all coming together. I’m so amazed at her heart and her competencies, and how the Lord is using her to keep us moving forward.
As we look forward, however, there are many unknowns for which we are asking your prayer. We still need to raise around 50% of our new mission budget before we can begin in the Netherlands. If we hope to move at the beginning of 2026, we estimate that before departing Toronto we will need to have increased our pledged support by around 30–40% of the remaining budget shortfall. In part, this is to keep us on schedule. In part, it is also to help cover the increase in expenses – health insurance, travel costs – that will be presenting themselves once we return to the United States for deputation. So as we approach the summer, please pray that the Lord would help us connect with new mission partners and regular donors – whether in Canada or in the United States – who will help us meet our target, both intermediate and longterm.
Please also pray as we look ahead to the other ways in which we need to prepare. We will need to begin anticipating the requirements of Dutch immigration paperwork – especially given the multiple countries in which our children were born – and the complex web of elections and decisions we will have to make regarding Dutch taxes, social insurance, etc. Similarly, please pray for us as we continue learning Dutch (we’ve begun Conversational Dutch II online!) and preparing our children for the culture shocks that lie ahead.
We also bid your prayers for our ministry partners in the Netherlands: for Tyndale as a seminary and as a community, for the Anglican churches alongside whom we anticipate serving, and for the new friends and relationships that we haven’t even begun to imagine or anticipate. We are so excited for this new step, and we cannot wait to begin the trek, as it were, up into the mountains that the Lord has in store for us. (And yes, I know, the metaphor is a strange one, given how “low” the Netherlands are!)
Thank you again for your support for our family: for your prayers, for your gifts, for your patience and persistence in accompanying us as we have been preparing for a new kind of ministry as missionaries. We can see the end of this period, and the beginning of the new, and we can’t wait to keep you updated as we get even closer in the months ahead!