The Journey of attending Harvest School 25

COME - the invitation found on the floor of a prayer hut in Iris Pemba
sourced apparently from old gravestones 

This blog is an attempt to document the journey of our adventure of attending Harvest Mission School 25 and will also serve as a journal for us to reflect back upon, as we know we are in for a life changing experience! This is the story of Mark and Andrea van der Wal and it also involves our children - our daughter Amy and her husband Ewald, our daughter Kelly and our son Jude.

In 2011 Andrea, myself and a friend Danie went on a two week trip to see/experience what was going on in Pemba Mozambique. We had heard of so many amazing and unbelievable stories of Heidi and Rolland Baker and how the church was growing at an unheard of rate. Those two weeks had such a profound effect on me having first arrived looking for conclusive evidence of all these miracles but leaving with a heart so deeply impacted by the Love of God and knowing there was so much more to what I had experienced in my life up until then. During our stay we were asked to carry bottles and bottles of water to the dorms of the soon arriving Harvest School students who we had heard had committed to a three month mission school in Mozambique. Taking off two weeks for us then was a rather huge personal upheaval and we were half in awe and admiration of these students as they arrived from all over the world with the atmosphere thick with expectancy of what was about to happen in their lives. We just dreamed of being able to do this ourselves however it was a "safe" dream due to the seemingly impossible logistical and financial constraints.

Mozambique Pemba 2011

In 2013 we enjoyed three weeks in beautiful Ireland with our daughter joining us at the last minute - a trip where we were shown such hospitality and love by an amazing Irish couple. The circumstances around this trip opened our eyes to how He orchestrates events well in advance planning unthinkable setups. This was the first time I had taken four weeks of leave from my work and I felt God saying "I am taking you on a new journey of Faith". It was as if He was giving us a taste and a glimpse of the other way - His Way. On this new journey we weren't thrown in the deep end but step by step we were shown His faithfulness with multiple testimonies to His Goodness evident in our family life.

Kelly & Andrea in Ireland

Amy & Ewald

Just after Christmas 2014 I heard Andrea shouting from the front of the house "we're going to Mission Possible!" Andrea doesn't shout too much, even when I mess up so I knew this was different! She had seen a Facebook post of Heidi Baker announcing the Mission Possible 2015 conference in Holland and somehow we just knew we had to get there. The conference was hosted by Mattheus van der Steen and there the two of us were in Holland not knowing anyone but so overwhelmed by what we experienced there. We saw and heard people from the persecuted church and such great stories of faith from so many speakers and pioneers like Brother Andrew and Loren Cunningham who started YWAM. We sensed some momentum occurring but weren't exactly sure for what.

Mission Possible - Amsterdam 2015

Over the last two years there have been significant changes in my work which led to me having the opportunity to take off nine weeks from my practice as an anaesthesiologist. Some of the decisions were hard and some of the inspirations came from obscure places - like a quote at an anaesthetic conference supposedly by Albert Einstein - "If you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got". During these developments attending the mission school in Mozambique became a reality and the threshold had been crossed. It was as if a secondary issue had now became the very main thing.

The plan was now to attend the Harvest School the end of 2016 and we applied filling in the forms and at the same time getting more clarity as to our motives. A big obstacle was the care of our fifteen year old son Jude and thankfully a kind couple offered to look after him for the nine weeks. They have looked after Jude before and he loves them dearly - we are so very grateful to them. Then the email from Iris ministries came and we were accepted! The dream had now become a reality and the the plans set into motion - plans that had unknowingly been set in action long before and so many dots joined! Andrea and I travel up to White River the 8th October where we will meet the rest of the HS25 students - more than 200 from 30 nations! To be continued.....following the dots

Jude capturing Life!

Father & Son selfie