The Story

We came to Holland, MI in 2009 under the assumption that we would be here for 3 years as Jason to attended Western Theological Seminary as a full time student to obtain his Masters of Divinity. After that he would find an an urban church and do traditional pastoral ministry. Wow were we disillusioned! We were quickly guided toward a different path. One that we never would have chosen on our own, which God knew. This path would lead us to become urban missionaries, embracing incarnational living and a life of intentional poverty. Jason continued his seminary education at a slightly slower pace in his second year to allow the time necessary to begin establishing a ministry in our new neighborhood, “the STEPS urban missions”. the STEPS (Sharing Truth and Embracing People in Shalom) was breathed into us with the foundation of Isaiah 61:1 firm in our core.

“The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound.”

In the fall of 2010, we hosted a great kick off event in the neighborhood park that, despite a rainy day, drew about 75 people, providing lunch, games for the kids and an opportunity to distribute Bibles. Around Thanksgiving, the STEPS was able to bless a neighboring family with food donated to us by a homeschooling class. In December, we coordinated Christmas blessings of food, new clothing and Christmas gifts for 2 families. Erica ministered to a group of wives from the seminary every month. Jason led a Hope College immersion trip to Newark, NJ for students to experience social justice in a dynamic urban environment. While these are the highlights of our first year in ministry, it honestly looks much different than we had planned. We have been very challenged by many of the people in our neighborhood who are very closed off from embracing community or even a quick smile and hello. As we were reflecting on our journey, we felt as though we were failing the vision that God had laid out for us. That we hadn’t done enough and things weren’t moving fast enough to show the ‘results’ that we felt others needed to see. At the same time that we felt we weren’t doing enough, God was speaking to us about ‘doing’ even less. It was confusing, to say the least, until we realized what He was actually asking of us was to trust more in His timing and stop trying so hard to produce measurable results in the meantime, to simply live incarnationaly and love our neighbors. All we could say was ‘okay’. The beauty of trusting in that timing and the sense of peace that has come from surrendering to that has been overwhelming. New plans have been laid before us; beautiful plans that, again, we never would have considered on our own, but are so excited to embrace!

God has made it very clear that Jason is to be a strong voice within whatever community we live for social justice and community development. This will require him to obtain his Masters of Divinity, but what we have come to realize, is that Western Theological Seminary simply does not have the resources to equip and effectively train him for this calling. As we have been prayerfully considering other schools, Jason has found an extraordinary school with a distance education option that he will apply to. This online learning will take place until we are able to move closer to the school so Jason can take in residence courses and allow him to secure employment to continue our journey as ‘tentmakers’, as Paul was in the city of Corinth in Acts. We are very excited by this possibility and are eager for it to take place. However, there are awesome opportunities in this next year waiting for us to embrace and run with here in Holland. Jason will begin an internship with Hope College Campus Ministries under their director of Outreach and Social Justice. He will continue to work in campus safety at Hope as a part time officer and we will also continue to have a presence in the neighborhood as we are led. Erica will continue to love on the seminary wives from Western Theological through scheduled gatherings and leading bible studies. We will continue living out an example of parenting with children in challenging life situation to others. We will also continue to support the restoration of couples finding themselves and their marriages in a state of crisis and seeking to rebuild and redefine their marital horizon. It’s going to be another exciting year as we continue to do our best in living out the STEPS vision of Sharing Truth and Embracing People in Shalom!