A brief overview of my live and ministry
Conversion:
I came to Christ in 1977. Escaped from drugs and Eastern Mysticism. In the years thereafter God called me and began to prepare me for the ministry. In 1979, I married my wife Antje. We have 5 children, two girls and tree boys.
In 1983, I was officially ordained in my home-church as a traveling evangelist.
Traveling extensively throughout the Netherlands and Europe was my main activity.
Then in 1985, I founded an association “De Heilbode” (Herald of the Good News).
Since then all ministry activities were done under the wings of this association.
Since 1985, I also traveled to over 50 nations since then, mostly in Third-World Countries like: Kenya, Tanzania, India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Singapore, Thailand, The Philippines, Uganda, Nigeria, Eastern Europe, The Balkan, the Caribbean, South America and Western Europe.
Although my main focus was first of all on evangelism, my strategy changed mostly into training leaders. In the last five years, it has become my main activity to speak in conferences and conventions to establish and train leadership, although I have never lost my burden for evangelism. It will always remain a vital part of my ministry.
In training leaders, I developed teaching series on subjects like:
The hidden man, Holiness, Spiritual Warfare, Blessing and curse,
Gods Mysteries, the anointing, New Wine, Faith, Fasting, Leadership,
Eschatology, Israel, the rapture etc.
I have always enjoyed writing, since 1988 I published over 25 books with titles like:
1988 1996 |
Escape from Hell* Ones a junk, always a junk? Preachers Proverbs (500) Surprised by Life * Pure Gold * New Wine * On the Wings of faith The power and the glory * Apostolic Fatherhood * Blown the trumpet * The Order of God* |
2000 2002 2003 2004 2006 2007 2008 2009 2013 2016 2017 |
Identity Back to the Future First Love Real Man* The coming of the King of Kings* Amazing Grace* The Apostle* Gods heart for widows & orphans Bought and paid for! Blood covenant Can these bones live* The mystery of the rapture* |
Books with a * are published in: Russian, Finish, Bahasa, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Hebrew and other translations.
In 1997, I wrote: ‘Blow the Trumpet’, a book about fasting. God used its message to inspire a national fast in
The Netherlands and Europe, Kenya, Uganda and a movement of fasting in India.
Our vision and mission
In 1977 after I came to Christ, I was soon asked to share about my miraculous deliverance from drugs. At the same time my testimony was published in various magazines and I had several interviews for radio and TV broadcasting. All the publicity I got, opened many doors for me to testify of my faith. As a result my local church acknowledge the call of God on my life for missions and they ordained me as a travelling minister in 1983. Although I used to preach in many churches in the Netherlands, my heart was mostly drawn to reach the unreached and to preach to the unreached. I discovered that I should have to travel the globe to really reach those people groups, mainly in developing countries.
1. Evangelism
In 1985 we registered our ministry and we called it: "Herald of the Good News" ("De Heilbode" in Dutch). Since then I have travelled around the world to over 45 nations, including countries like: Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, India, Pakistan, Uganda, Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Thailand, China, Cambodia, Singapore, Suriname, Trinidad, Aruba, Curacao, Trinidad, Suriname, the Virgin Islands, America, Russia, Ukraine, Ireland, Macedonia, Kosovo, Greece, Lebanon, Spain, France, Italy and many other countries. In most places, my focus was initially getting people saved. Evangelism was my thing, because my initial goal was to "Reach the unreached through Gospel Crusades. And so, we did in many countries. You find more information of our ministry at www.heilbode.nl
2. Training leaders
However, deep inside my heart I began to realize that to be more effective, I need to train leaders to catch the vision to reach their own nation for Christ. God opened a few doors to share my heart with leaders in the Philippines and Uganda. When I began to inspire, challenge and train local leaders, my heart got stirred with excitement. I was actually operating in the apostolic. However, in those days, nobody was aware or dared to use the word apostle to identify their ministry. I was no exemption to that. So, I just began to organize leaders-meetings, seminars and conferences and I developed teaching materials and write books to equip leaders to reach their nation for Christ. During the day time, we trained leaders and at night we were holding crusades. For the next ten to fifteen years this was my strategy of operations.
3. The poor and needy
In the last ten years however, the Lord began to open my eyes for the needs of the poor, the hungry, the orphans and the dying. God began to brake my heart with the things that break His heart when I discovered that worldwide we have 148 million orphans, 40 million fugitives, 8000 people die every 24 hours of aids, causing more orphans and widows. Every 20 seconds a child dies of malnutrition an/or dysentery. Over 42 million babies are aborted every year globally. There are 250.000 children soldiers, manly in central Africa. In India only there are approximately 40 million widows that are suffering severely and dying in misery.
When I thought about all these needs I was reminded of the words of Jesus who said: "What you done for the least of these, you have done unto Me" (Matthew 25:40). Driven by this vision and the passion of Gods heart for orphans and widows, we started to develop this side of our ministry. Since then we have raised funds for victims of the civil war in Kenya, victims of the genocide in Rwanda, build a few houses for the poor in Kosovo, sponsored widows to obtain fuel to survive their Balkan winters in Kosovo and lately we started our great project in India. For the sake of this compassionate ministry we have started Abba Child Care. You find more information of this compassionate ministry at www.abbachildcare.org
In conclusion
To summarize our vision and mission is threefold:
What you have done for the least, you’ve done for Me - Give a child a family and this family a future