The Hellands in Holland

The Gift of Giving Water And if you give even a cup of cold water to one of the least of my followers, you will surely be rewarded." Matthew 10:42 NLT You can always give without loving, but you can not love without giving. –Amy Carmichael             As pioneer missionaries in Amsterdam , the Netherlands , we have the privilege of planting the first IPHC churches in our country. That means that the spiritual DNA of these first churches will go on as they start new churches. Since first starting with a small group in our living room, we decided to fully support another IPHC church planter and his family in Azerbaijan . We have been doing this for more than five years and will joyfully continue investing in their lives and ministry. This really is one of our greatest joys and privileges, yet we have decided that we wanted to give even more.             Every Su...

Today I have the opportunity to speak at Huizen van Licht (www.huizenvanlicht.nl) in Den Haag. I have been asked to speak about motivational gifts and the gifts of the spirit as described in 1 Cor. 12. I thought I would include the following link for people wanting to learn about motivational gifts. Click on  http://victorylifechurch.org/vlc/resources/  and then scroll down to the different motivational gifts to find out more. Blessings

            As a six-year old girl, I was molested. After that incident I began getting horrible nightmares where I dreamt that I was no longer loved by God. These dreams stopped though when I asked Jesus, with tears in my eyes, to come into my heart. At age 15, I was baptized by my father who was my pastor. When I was nineteen, I felt like God was leading me to go to the south of Italy where I served as a missionary for eight years. My time in Italy was very difficult and when I returned to Holland I came back with an extreme psychological and physical burn-out. I found myself completely exhausted.             My desire to do things for God has always been great, yet my strength was always limited. I was able to go to a Bible School and also work at a children’s home and orphanage  in Holland . However, I struggled continually with depression. In the midst of...

UNDERSTANDING AND USING PROPHECY AND OTHER GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT Gifts of the Spirit.    (1 Cor 12:7-11)                                                                                                                                        1. Words of Wisdom (v. 8) supernaturally knowing what to do in certain si...

Then he said, "Son of man, get all these words that I'm giving you inside you. Listen to them obediently. Make them your own. And now go. Go to the exiles, your people, and speak. Tell them , "This is the message of God, the Master.' Speak your peace, whether they listen or not."  Ezekiel 3:10-11 The Message Bible In order to effectively communicate God's message, we need to first digest them; internalize them, make them our own. When we  have allowed them to enter into the deepest recesses of my heart, then they can change us at the core of our being. Nevertheless, we must also be actively listening and internalizing how the culture around us thinks. When this takes place, we will be able to fluently speak God's words to the culture we live among in a way that they can understand. ( The late Dr. T. L. Osborn) A  good example of this comes from the life of the late T.L. Osborn. Osborn was a pioneer in mass crusade evangelism outside of the Uni...

My name is Michelle*. For more than a year I was invited to go to Celebrate Recovery, a program offered at New Life West. I did not want to go because I did not want to be converted or join a group wh ere I would not be accepted. However, one evening, I finally did go to CR and what I discovered that evening began a journey of self-discovery and growth with God who continues to this day to change my life. I grew up in a Roman Catholic family where my grandpa was more Catholic than the pope and every Sunday we went to church. However, when I turned six, suddenly church and faith were eliminated from our family life. My parents taught me that we can only trust in rationality and science and that you can not trust in anyone except for yourself. I missed the feeling of someone or something being there whom I could trust so I began worshipping that which would gave me security in life: a job or money. Then in May 2012, the crisis hit hard in my field of work. I lost my job and found my...

Chiune Sugihara was the vice consul for Japan in Lithuania during 1939-1940. During his time there, he realized the horrible plight of the Jews for whom it was nearly impossible to travel. Against orders of his superiors, he decided to begin handing out transit visas in order to save these people's lives. In one day he would give out more visas than regularly given out in a month. During the last days of his time in Lithuania, he would spend 19-20 hours a day hand writing visas for people to escape Lithuania. He did this at a great personal risk, but is credited for saving over 6,000 jews. When asked why he did what he did  he said, "I myself thought this would the be righ thing to do. There is nothing wrong in saving many people's lives...The spirit of humanity, philanthropy...neighborly friendschip...with this spirit, I ventured to do what I did, confronting this difficult situations--and because of this reason, I went ahead with redoubled courage." Some people ...