December 2016

Dear Friends, Family, Teammates, Encouragers, Supporters in prayer and finance and in so many other ways,

I just finished a conversation with our granddaughter, Wynnie. She’s five now. We were talking about possible names for her new cousin (Kate and Jordan are expecting a boy in February!). Wynnie had many creative suggestions ranging from “Zig Zag” to “Puppy.” Something tells me Kate and Jordan are not going to relinquish their right to choose their new son’s name! At least not to Wynnie! But it reminded me of something I read in Timothy Keller’s new book, Hidden Christmas. It’s a part of the Christmas story we don’t usually pay a lot of attention to.

The angel tells Joseph what he is to name his boy. In that patriarchal culture it was the father’s absolute right to name his child. He had complete rights over his children, and naming was a sign of control over the family. The angel, however, takes that away. By refusing to let him name Jesus, the angel is saying, “If Jesus is in your life, you are not his manager. This child who is about to be born is your manager.” p 58

Aurélie and Éowyn

Keller goes on to talk about how, to be a disciple of Christ, you need to commit to denying yourself. He says it takes courage. He also says it will lead to our true identity and “a lifetime of adventure.” I like that! And we have certainly found it to be true so many times, and I’m sure you have as well! 

Today I was also reading through some comments from Wycliffe leaders around the world. One of them said, “When the Wycliffe Global Alliance changed, so that all organizations became equal partners involved in the life of the Alliance, we felt respected and valued.” This leader was referring to the decision made last year by the 29 historical voting organizations of the Alliance. They chose, unanimously, to end their exclusivity in decision making. This meant that all Alliance Organizations (approx. 100 organizations) would now have equal voice. We talk a lot about leadership by example. This was a true example of leaders demonstrating self-denial. And as Keller says, it took courage. But what a worthwhile outcome…people in Wycliffe Organizations all around the world feeling respected and valued. And now we begin to see our true identity as we hear the voices of colleagues from everywhere! Next month we will share a bit more about where this adventure has taken us with a big picture of the Bible translation movements around the world.

Whatever courage it might take for us to deny ourselves, when we are not our own to begin with, is small in comparison to what God sacrificed for us. And yet we struggle. It’s a good time of year to remind ourselves of God’s gift and God’s love and this amazing lifetime of adventure to which He has called us.

Part of our personal adventure this year was moving from Texas to Virginia! Thank you for praying us through this transition. We still have several years of house projects, some unpacked boxes (awaiting refurbished rooms), and some missing pieces. But we are finding much joy in our new location and new home! We have made some progress on projects. We are grateful that the lower cost of this house meant it was possible to get a new roof and new boiler (yes, radiator heat!) it desperately needed. We have also painted, planted iris, and are working on some kitchen remodeling (electrical and plumbing, plus sacrificing and shuffling cupboards) that will enable us to fit in a microwave and a dishwasher. One of the great things about this house is that it is in an ideal location for people in search of a holiday and eventually we will have plenty of bedroom space. So do consider a visit!

before

after

More changes are ahead. As of January 1, my role in the Wycliffe Global Alliance is changing. I’ll be moving from Director for Strategy and Communication to Director of Strategy. To be honest, I was not able to give much attention to strategy while serving in Communication. But we finally have a very capable person to take on Communication! You may recall me asking you to pray for Phil Prior and his family. Keep praying for them as he is the person taking on my Communication role. I will continue to serve on the Alliance leadership team and am looking forward to this major new challenge of helping the Wycliffe Global Alliance in its strategic journey. We’ve been taking a very new and different approach and I’ll be sharing more about that with you in the future! It has already been so rewarding to see how God is directing. I had come to the decision a month or so ago that Phil was ready to take on Communication. But just before talking about this with Kirk, our Executive Director and my supervisor, Kirk said he had something to ask me. What he wanted to know was when I would be ready to move into strategy fulltime!  

Tom continues in his role as webmaster for Wycliffe.net. Phil is his supervisor now and we are looking forward to new things happening with the website and, we hope, some eventual help for Tom!   His workload is way too heavy for one person and has been for a very long time. But he, too, is loving living here in Virginia and dreams of getting a small boat once the house projects slow down.

Winslow

Jude

We hope you are enjoying a wonderful Christmas season with friends and family and pray for God’s rich blessing on you in the coming year. We also want to take this opportunity to thank you for your part in this ministry with us. We could not do what we do without your support and encouragement. Thank you! We appreciate you so much!

Susan and Tom Van Wynen

July 2016

Dear Friends, Family, Teammates, Encouragers, Supporters in prayer and finance and in so many other ways,

We haven’t written in a while so you may have thought we fell off the face of the earth! We did not, but we have moved a little closer to the edge…

We have officially moved to Hampton, Virginia, just a few blocks from the edge of the Chesapeake Bay. Keeping in mind that we did this while also working our regular jobs, plus three overseas trips for me (Germany, South Africa and UK & Germany again), we hope you will forgive us for not updating you sooner. If you follow us on Facebook you at least know what our former and current house look like, but although I wrote two newsletters in recent months I never got them ready to the point of sending them out. And they are so quickly outdated! I will post one on our blog in case you are interested in some thoughts from our Global Gathering in Thailand in May. In the meantime, I’m determined to get this one out before it, too, reaches its shelf life expiration date.

First, we want to thank you for your prayers during this time of transition! It has been a busy and often challenging move, but we’ve seen God’s hand of protection and guidance all along the way. And we are grateful for your prayers!

To keep this as brief as possible, here’s a bit of timeline to bring you up to date:    

Leading up to April: Lots of house projects in Texas! Painting, a whole new bathroom, finished laundry room, etc... It was the culmination of 11 years of labor and love put into the house in Waxahachie.

April 19 and onward: We listed the house for sale. By evening we had one good offer and another the next day! We took the second offer and I packed fifty boxes that weekend then headed for Thailand for 2 ½ weeks of meetings while Tom kept packing and finishing house projects (small, but time consuming things that showed up in the inspection report). He also loaded up a small moving truck and his truck and hauled most of his tools and bamboo, etc. to his cousin’s in North Carolina (not too far from where we now live).

Saturday, May 22:  I got back home to Texas and we packed the truck and portable storage cubes while our street was being paved. After 8 months of on and off street work, we seemingly synchronized our calendars to be moving the day they were paving! But the neighborhood now looks lovely with a new street and street lights, etc. for the new occupants. We were grateful for the help of several neighbors and the De Dios crew who helped get some of the heavier stuff loaded!

Monday, May 24: Closed on the house in Texas. We had expected this bit to go smoothly but Tom lost the keys to our moving truck (we found them later in the day at Starbucks where we’d gone several times for coffee and Wi-Fi access) and the buyers had several very last minute requests we had to take care of (long story!). We’d planned to drive through to my parents’ in Tennessee that day but with the late start ended up at a motel with our moving truck and trailer (we towed the car)  and then went on to my parents’ the next day.

Into June: We stayed at my parents’ a few days then went on to Hampton. Put our truckload in a storage unit. Stayed with Schutts, a lovely, hospitable couple we met a year and half ago when we first checked out Hampton. Had the holiday weekend to try to catch up on work, then spent an afternoon house hunting with our great realtor, Zach. Made an offer on a house, but our offer was too low. The house was really nice and move-in ready. (But oddly enough, even while hoping to get this sparkling house with a brand new kitchen, in my mind I was redoing the house we actually ended up getting!)   Looked at houses another day the next week and made an offer on 141 Chancellor Road.

June 6: Our offer on the little brown house on Chancellor was accepted! Apparently the Lord was encouraging us to take on another project house! I headed off for meetings in Germany.

June 10 and following: Official house inspection. We also spent some time with Kate and Jordan and their family in Pennsylvania. Tom finally met Jude and we had great fun with both him and Winslow. Then I was off to meetings in South Africa. By now we were staying with Lynn, another friend, in Virginia Beach. She left for several weeks so Tom stayed on in her house and did a few house repairs for her to help earn our keep! We are thankful for generous friends and for God working out all the timing.

Wed, June 29: (I’m back home) We closed on the house. 141 Chancellor is ours! So grateful to the Lord for His provision!

June 30 and beyond: Started painting and floor refinishing on June 30. We worked over 4^th July weekend. Then set a pattern for the next few weeks of working on our Wycliffe stuff mornings and nights at our friend’s in Virginia Beach and working on the house from late morning until evening.

July 8: move into our house! Just a mattress on the floor but we’re in! And we have internet so can work as well!

Floor refinishing and interior painting of living room, dining room, downstairs bedrooms and hall took way more time than planned. Finally…

July 20, we unloaded the cubes and they were taken away July 22. We started unpacking…but I left for meetings in Germany on the 23^rd. I’m writing from Germany but headed home tomorrow, the 31^st. In the meantime Tom has been working, putting up shades, dealing with paperwork, putting bookcases together, etc.

My parents arrive for 10 days next weekend. We hope to find the missing bed parts before then!

We are grateful to God for providing this new home. It’s closer to my parents and to Kate and family. And with a little time and effort we will have space for everyone! Come visit! (well, maybe not all at once!) This house is actually smaller than our last one but has two bedrooms downstairs and two upstairs so is a better plan for guests. And we are just a few blocks from the Chesapeake Bay!  We look forward to making memories with family and friends that will make this house feel like home.

We will get back to telling you more about how God is at work around the world in our next newsletter, but wanted to let you know how He’s been at work in our relocation. We’ve been meeting neighbors and visiting a good church nearby. Pray we will know how to build relationships and good community. And thank you again for your prayers during this time of transition!

Susan and Tom Van Wynen

new address:
141 Chancellor Rd.
Hampton, VA  23661

May 2016

A Sense of Wonder

As usual, I hesitate to speak of meetings, for fear you will skip this section, or, worse yet, fall asleep. But I will continue, nonetheless, in trying to describe to you just how unlike meetings our meetings really are. It seems a worthwhile endeavor because we have seen God at work in ways I have not seen before…and because these “meetings” are really fun!

Wonderful, is an adjective so overused it has nearly lost its very essence. But think again and consider what it is to be full of wonder. We were a wonder-full assembly this past week. I heard one colleague, a Wycliffe  missionary kid like Tom, talk about his "sense of wonder" as he arrived at the Wycliffe Global Gathering. Waiting in the registration line, he realized he was standing next to a man from the Terena people group his parents had gone to work with many years before. The Terena man pulled out his mobile phone and showed him the Terena Scriptures online. God had fulfilled the vision of God's Word in the hands and hearts of the Terena people of Brazil. And provided a way for all to have access!

Another facet of this story is that this Terena man is now one of many indigenous leaders in the global Bible translation movements. That was just one of the wonderful ways God showed how He is bringing the nations to himself. He revealed Himself in many ways in that Thailand hotel this past week. Leaders from more than 80 Wycliffe Global Alliance Organizations gathered. The vast majority are from the global south and east. We are no longer an organization of primarily Westerners. About 10% of the organizations are Indonesian. Quite the statistic considering Indonesia has the largest Muslim population in the world.  People tend to forget there are also millions of Indonesian Christians! Almost a dozen church denominations were also represented. They, too, are now Wycliffe Global Alliance organizations. This is a very different Wycliffe than the one we knew just a few years ago! We used to have voting organizations (mostly western), non-voting orgs, partner orgs, and guest orgs. Today there are fewer categories but even greater diversity of representation.

Back to the wonder! Worship time included music in many languages. The board chair from Slovakia prayed an ancient Christian Slavic chant and shared how the gospel came to his region many centuries ago. We had an event called the Third Table where participants from each major region of the world gave and received gifts from each cultural region. Gifts like “friendship, relationship,” “servant leadership,” and “hospitality/generosity” were described and embraced by the whole group. The rich discussions of these gifts led to greater understanding and greater intercultural potential for the Alliance. The greater the understanding--the deeper the friendships. The deeper the friendships--the greater the opportunity to display the unity and diversity of the body of Christ. 

Worship time was also spent exploring and reflecting on community. Just as we are blessed to be part of the Alliance community, we are also blessed to be in community with you! It is a privilege to encourage and support one another in prayer and friendship and we are also so grateful for your financial support of this ministry in which we serve.

As my plane prepares to land in Dallas, I'm preparing myself to hit the ground running and rejoin Tom in our packing and moving efforts! Yes, we are moving! After all the house projects and talk of moving, it's now coming together very quickly. We close on our house on Friday, so by next week will be looking for a new home in the Hampton, Virginia area. Hard to believe! We have so many good memories from this house and look forward to making new memories with family and friends in the new house. Thanks for your prayers! We look forward to being closer to Kate and family, to my parents and closer to water...and further from allergies...we hope! We can continue our work from anywhere with Internet and an airport, so are grateful for this opportunity. We will send you our new address when we have one!

Thank you again for your part in ministry with us and with Him,

Susan and Tom Van Wynen

February 2016

“…to those who are called, wrapped in the love of God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ. May mercy, peace, and love be lavished on you!” JUDE 1:1B-2

Jude Raphael Roberts

We’re introducing this letter with words of encouragement from the book of Jude, and we also want to introduce you to our new grandson, Jude Rafael Roberts, born November 13, 2015! God has lavished love on Kate’s family as she and Jordan and newly proclaimed big sister, Winslow (now a year-and-a-half) have joyfully welcomed Jude. They are doing well, making all the usual adjustments and cherishing their darling family and whatever sleep is available in their very busy life as Jordan has begun his third year of seminary in Philadelphia and Kate continues to admirably juggle motherhood and writing and editing work from home.

Josh and Heather, Wynnie and Aurélie are doing well, too. Wynnie, four, is taking ballet again and is full of creative ideas and energy. Aurélie, almost one-and-a-half, is full of smiles and has a twinkle of mischief in her eyes as she trails after her big sister. We are grateful for Skype for staying in touch with both families as we don’t get to visit them as often as we’d like!

Here on the homefront, we are in high gear to get moving…literally. After more than 10 years in Waxahachie, Texas, we are ready to relocate. Our work with the Wycliffe Global Alliance allows us to work from anywhere with internet and an airport, so now that we no longer have family in the area, we are ready to move! Over the past ten years we’ve had Josh and Heather living with us (mostly while we were away, traveling for two years), Kate lived with us while she finished college and made her various forays to Brazil and New York. Tom’s dad and Vivian lived near us in Duncanville during most of our Texas years. And my parents lived with us for three months and then in their own Waxahachie home for four years before moving back to Tennessee in 2014. We’ve had good years here, lots of great times with family and guests and we’ve loved our house, but we never envisioned staying in Texas! We’d like to be closer to at least part of the family, closer to water and further from allergies.

At this point we are pushing hard to get our house ready to sell. That, plus work is keeping us super busy! We hope to have the house up for sale by April and are seeking the Lord’s will and wisdom for where to next! Our primary region of focus is the Hampton/Newport News area in Virginia. Totally new territory for us, but a decent day’s drive to both Kate and family and to my parents, not tooo cold for too long in the winter, near water and, we hope, affordable! It’s further from Josh and Heather in Colorado and from the California family members, but we hope to have a large enough home for stay-awhile company! Please pray with us as we contemplate and work towards this major change!

Tom has been working on various web tools and fixes on wycliffe.net Major items: we are doing an update to the topic categories, He found a new partner to work with to collect better data on online Scripture to list and this week he just learned that Google is making major changes to the PicasaWeb service that we use for all our image handling. We are grateful for more colleagues getting involved with the content of the Wycliffe.net site and are also encouraged when we hear how the resources and stories on the site are being used by Wycliffe organizations, churches and others all around the world! Please continue to pray that we can find someone to work alongside Tom on the technical aspects of the site.

You may recall we asked for prayer for Phil Prior and his family as they were raising their support and planning to join our communication team. Thanks for praying! Phil is officially joining the team in April. This is a huge answer to prayer! He will be taking the leadership of the “public face” of Wycliffe Global Alliance communication. That means oversight of all the online resources, branding and lots of other facets of the work that I’ve been handling or that just weren’t being handled at all! Do continue to pray for the Priors.

In January I traveled to Amsterdam and Manila for meetings with some of our leadership team, with a newly forming video team, and with communication colleagues from Asia.  There is tremendous potential for sharing so many more stories of what God is through His Word and His people and to encourage all of His Church to participate with Him.

Paul Machira’s story is an example of what we are seeing all around the world. Check out http://www.wycliffe.net/articles?id=6233 to read the full story of how God spared Paul’s life and gave him a new vision and a new mission. Here’s just an excerpt to whet your appetite—

Paul is convinced that the Church in Kenya is now completely able to support Bible translation and other aspects of God’s mission, but they have not yet fully responded. He and his colleagues have taken this as a challenge, passionately sharing this vision with universities, primary and secondary schools, churches and corporations.

“[We] go out there and say, ‘Hey, wait a minute. Christianity, when it came to Africa, came to Kenya through missionaries from Europe. Why are we still depending on their great, great, great grandchildren to fund missionary activities in Africa, in Kenya, at a time such as this? Isn’t it time that we rose up and took charge of mission work?’”

They build awareness about Scripture translation needs and seek support for *BTL’s Bible translation efforts. What really excites them is that they are seeing Kenyan believers and churches become increasingly inspired to participate in God’s mission.

*BTL is a Wycliffe Alliance organization in Kenya

Financial Update

As we are getting into 2016, we thought it would be good to share our financial update with you. Over the past five years we’ve been blessed with installments of a legacy gift from Tom’s Aunt Martha. These extra funds helped us with everything from Kate’s wedding to our car to day-to-day grocery bills and life. We felt especially blessed to be able to give some help to our kids during this time. But this bonus blessing has come to an end…and our regular support doesn’t even quite get us to the quota level Wycliffe recommends for our day-to-day life. We have wonderful, faithful partners in prayer, giving and encouragement. We are grateful for each one of you! Some of our ministry partners have joined us in recent years, but most have been with us for many years… and a number have gone to be with the Lord. Will you pray with us about finding some additional prayer and financial supporters? As we participate in God’s mission together we are trusting Him to provide!

Thank you for your faithful prayers and support!