Growing up in a christian family I (Fred) never thought anything of it until my late teens. Going to church twice every sunday was part and parcel of normal life. But still, I knew what it meant to be a christian – not just going to church but conciously following Jesus and the truth of the Bible. 
During college I made that choice. Active involvement in youthministry lead to joining christian conferences and ultimately to accepting the challenge to join Campus Crusade for Christ for a two year stint in a developing country. My crosscultural training took place in the US and from there - with a short period in between again in the Netherlands for finishing up my support – I went on to the Philippines.
Those two years became ten…
Jing was in the proces of joining the staff of Campus Crusade for Christ when w
e met for the first time. And even though it was not ‘love at first sight’ we became friends. After joining and finishing her training she was unexpectedly assigned to the same provincial team that I was part of. In 1980 we had a yearlong evangelistic campaign using the film ‘Jesus’. And in that year we ended up spending many hours traveling and talking together – and so we ‘bonded’.
After that – in 1981 – I went on furlough, back to Holland. And then we both discovered that our relationship had grown deeper then just friendship. The result was that we got married in 1982 and started our live and ministry 
together. First that was Campus ministry in Bacolod and Ilo-ilo (two islands in the middle of the Philippines. And then – from 1984 to 1987 – we were asked to lead the Jesusfilm-teams in the Metro Manila Area and systematically ‘show the Gospel’ in all Barangays. In the process we also started a correspondence course to give te option of growth for the thousands that accepted the Lord through this very effective ministry.
A great intermezzo was the organization of the Philippine part of the 1985 Worldwide Explo Conference. Providing transportations and security for 5 simultaneous conferences with a total of close to 10.000 participants was an interesting challenge…
And after that, the last two years of our time in the Philippines, we helped start the NLTC churchdiscipleship program.
In autumn 1988 we left for a new challenge in the Netherlands… Here most of our ministry has been behind the scenes; administrative support for the staff on the field. Organizing conferences for our own and other organizations. One yearly returning happening was the National Day of Prayer with thousands of christians coming together for praize and prayer.
From 2000 till 2006 it was once again time for a ministry with the film ‘Jesus’. Only not anymore using a 16 mm film but video-tape – and soon after that we initiated the tranfer to DVD. That was another challenge. I think we were one of the first christian organizations (if not the first) to produce our own DVD products. It started with a special product for the EO jongerendag ( a yearly national Youth-event). Just for that we produced 17.000 copies.
The next ‘version’ of the DVD ‘Jesus’ was a multilingual product which I made with the help and support of our German collegues. Over the years tens of thousands of these shiny discs with the precious Gospel were produced and spread all throughout Holland and Germany (and who knows where…).
In 2007 I’ve become the webmaster of the corporate website of Agapè (the name of Campus Crusade for Christ in Europe) Netherlands. And on the side Jing and I are heavily involved in training new staffmembers in the basics of what our movement is all about.
Besides that Jing is coaching staff in their effort to ‘raise their support’. As all staff are dependant on financial gifts from people that want to support their ministry this is also a very important part of the stafftraining.
Recently, Nov. 2010, I have taken on a new challenge besides the communication. I am now working for GAiN – the humanitarian aid agency of Agapè/CCC. I am projectleader for Water for Life which means promotion and fundraising for this exciting ministry where we provide clean and healthy water for tens of thousands of needy people in Afrika. Large scale deep-well drilling in different countries – like Benin, Togo and Tanzania.
