inspire leaders

New Website and New Blog

2010-01-12T09:29:00.000-08:00

We have finally created our own website. Check it out at http://www.daveterpstra.com

Also, the new website contains new blogs, so if you subscribe to our feed, you will need to add/change it. There is an RSS button on my new blog page which is: http://www.daveterpstra.com/daveterpstra.com/Daves_Blog/Daves_Blog.html

Thanks for staying up to speed on what we are doing.

Dreams

2009-12-14T08:36:00.000-08:00

I have been listening to the New Testament on CD as I drive to and from appointments around town (upon the recommendation of Ed Dobson). As I listened to the entire book of Matthew on a trip to and from the airport a couple of weeks ago, I noticed how often Matthew records that God spoke to people through dreams. Even Christmas would have been different had God not spoken to Joseph about the true Father of Jesus in a dream, or if the "wise men" had not been warned to head a different direction in a dream.

However, I have been in dozens of conversations over the years with individuals who are interested in hearing from God or who believe they have heard from God, but I can count on one hand the number of time someone told me that God spoke to them in a dream.

Why?

Certainly God still speaks through dreams. When the Holy Spirit first came at Pentecost Peter quoted a passage from Amos that indicated that in the present age "Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams." Dreams should be a normal way to hear from God for those filled with the Spirit.

Yet I can't recall a single dream from God.

Perhaps we have lost the art of paying attention to dreams. Perhaps we haven't disciplined ourselves to record the contents of our dreams after they happen. But if we truly desire to hear from God, and wish for Him to speak to us, perhaps we should pay more attention to our dreams.

The Car Accident

2009-12-12T09:22:00.001-08:00

I thought I would write the full story of the car accident for those who are interested. My car is at the body shop for an estimate so pictures will need to be forthcoming.

I was going to WorldVenture to drop off some checks, travelling northbound on Broadway. As I approached the intersection of Broadway and Grant (with Wendy's and Midas), a car began to creep into the intersection to make a left in front of me. He couldn't see me initially because there was a box truck in my left-hand turn lane.

When I saw him continue to creep along, I hit my horn, at which point he hit his accelerator. I swerved so we wouldn't hit head on, but instead took him down the left-hand side of the car. He hit at the driver's side wheel well and side-swiped me all the way to my back left bumper.

After hitting me, he stayed on his accelerator, jumped the curb, climbed a grass berm and dropped down a 6 foot wall into the Midas parking lot. I watched out of my rear view mirror. It was like something out of Dukes of Hazzard.

I hit my shoulder and head during the impact and still have the lingering effects of whiplash three days later. The elderly gentleman who hit me (and who should not have been allowed the wheel of a motor vehicle) is still at Littleton Hospital. I'm not sure what is wrong with him.

He claimed he didn't have insurance but he wasn't very lucid after the accident. I didn't carry comprehensive on my car since it was pretty old and I am moving out of the country in a couple of months. Oh well. Fortunately I carried Uninsured Motorist Bodily Injury.

language learning

2009-11-03T09:20:00.001-08:00

"If your children learn the language faster than you, there is something wrong with your language program!"

Our trainer said this line in our first day of language acquisition training and it stuck with me. Most of us have the assumption that kids learn language faster than adults. But it shouldn't be true. And if it is, then there is something wrong with the time and attention you are devoting to the language.

Adults can learn a language just as fast as kids do, but they need to be willing to work at it. That is why Amy and I are so grateful to our new boss at WorldVenture for challenging us to take a whole year to devote to language study. Part of us thinks it is so painful to have to delay our arrival in Mozambique for a whole year. But the other part of us knows that we will be far better off in the long run to apply concentrated study to language for a whole year.

So in the mean time, while we continue to raise support, we are going to be using Rosetta Stone and working with a language helper. I'll let you know how it goes.

Arguing with God

2009-10-26T12:12:00.001-07:00

I have been thinking a lot about prayer recently as I have been praying more fervently about our needs (and also the needs of many of our friends). I picked up a little book that I read years ago by Charles Spurgeon called "The Power in Prayer". The book is a collection of sermons Spurgeon preached and a favorite of mine is called "Order and Argument in Prayer"

Spurgeon suggests a number of arguments which we should use when petitioning God:
God's attributes
God's promises
The Great Name of God
The Sorrows of His People
The Past
The Only True God
The Sufferings of Jesus

Some of these require some explanation, which is why you should get the book. But I am curious what arguments you might use when you knock upon the door or Heaven and cry out to the Almighty.

Eradication of Poverty

2009-10-18T16:32:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. What a sad commentary on our world that we need a whole day to remind us in the West that much of the world is suffering in unimaginable levels of destitution. But why haven't we alleviated poverty yet? Have we failed to give enough?

The answer is NO. In short, we have given more than "enough" over the past 50 years. In fact, the West (North America and Europe) have given trillions (with a "T") in the last 50 years. That is more than enough money to completely pull every poor person on the planet out of destitution, and yet it hasn't. Why?

In short, there are two reasons: corruption and planning.

In case you didn't know, most of the world lives under a government that is corrupt. In other words, when their country is given aid by the West, most of it goes to line the pockets of those at the top of the food chain all the way down to those just above the bottom of the food chain. Why deliver mosquito nets to a village when you can sell them yourself and use the profit to buy better building materials for your house? Why ensure that medicine gets delivered if your boss doesn't really care and you will get paid either way? Why not give cushy jobs to family members instead of people who will actually perform an assignment? Corruption kills the best laid plans.

And that leads us to the second reason that poverty has yet to be eradicated. Plans. You see, capitalism actually works. And capitalism isn't a plan. That's socialism. Socialism attempts to lock smart people into a room and have them decide what is best for the rest of us. Capitalism says that you should decide what is best for you and if you want something, you should be responsible to get it for yourself.

So take for example the release of the most recent Harry Potter book. Millions of copies were delivered in multiple languages to children (and nerdy adults like me) all over the world ON THE SAME DAY! And yet we can't get mosquito nets to children who will die without them this month. If you and I can get a book, why can't we get nets to kids?

And in the question lies the problem. In order to eradicate poverty we need to move from the attitude that WE need to get mosquito nets to THEM, and instead realize that WE need to do everything we can to make the nets attainable by ANYONE who would GO LOOKING for them.

Poverty is not something you and I can plan away. It must be climbed out of by those who are finally given the chance. But you and I can work to give more people that chance.

For more thoughts on this subject read the excellent book "White Man's Burden" by William Easterly. For more on how you can help give people a chance to get out of poverty, email me.

Sardines

2009-10-11T10:53:00.000-07:00

**** WARNING *****

Please do not read this post if you are planning on one day attending training at MTI or if you might ever go to training down here. If you read the rest of this post, it will ruin a significant piece of your experience.

*********************

So now with that said, I can continue. As I have popped up into Denver from training a couple of times over the last few weeks, several people have asked me how training has been going. My answer is usually: intense. Why is it so intense? Simply put, the first 3 weeks of training have been the most emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually exhausting experience I have ever volunteered for. Allow me to explain the capstone of the intensity.

I was locked in a 6' x 6' x 8' plywood box with 21 other people for over 2 hours in a simulated hostage experience at the end of which I was one of 5 men who were dragged from the box, pushed to the floor, and executed by a gunshot (they shot blanks) to the back of my skull.

I'm not sure I can type out the whole story with the necessary drama, but it was real enough that half of the people in the box with me were crying by the end, and I was praying with my forehead on the cold concrete because it felt so real.

Amy had a much different and worse experience than me in her box (what's worse than being executed you say? You will have to ask...). I will let her tell the story if she wants to.

The kids were off playing and had no idea what happened to us. But for us, it brought home the reality of some of the more extreme dangers of life overseas.

Although Mozambique has been at peace for over a decade, as Kenya demonstrated to the world just a couple of years ago, even the most peaceful African country can erupt into flames with one bad election.

For me, one of the most profound elements of impact was recognizing I was in the box with people going to Morocco, China, and other places where security is a real risk. It was a sobering experience to say the least.

It's all about forgiveness

2009-10-06T19:14:00.000-07:00

I recently applied for a grant from Wheaton College that pays off the student loans of Wheaties who are headed overseas as missionaries. Amy and I had planned to pay off my loans when she went back to work. But now that we are moving to Mozambique and living off from support, the loans are a bit more of a burden than we thought they would be at this stage of life.

If you are in to prayer (and I hope you are), please pray that I am awarded the scholarship. It would be a huge blessing for our family. We can certainly make our finances work without it, but as anyone with student loans can attest, it would be a big deal if they were forgiven.

Week with YWAM

2009-08-31T13:20:00.000-07:00

Youth With a Mission (YWAM) invited me to speak at their University of the Nations campus this last week. I spent the week teaching for 3 hours every morning to a group of about 40 20-something students on "The Fundamentals of Christian Leadership".

Besides the joy of teaching about one of my favorite topics, it was great to spend a week with hundreds of people who have committed their life to mission. The entire base seemed to be filled with some of the most passionate followers of Jesus on the planet. It made for an especially fun class as I didn't need to draw students out to help them care. They already did.

Besides having fun and using my gifts, the week forced me to boil all of my leadership thoughts and philosophies down to a just a couple of ideas. I had to ask myself the question: what do I believe are the most important and essential fundamentals of the faith? That was hard work but worth doing. I know it will have lasting impact on the way I think about leadership in the future.

The Problem with Democracy

2009-08-14T14:44:00.001-07:00

I have just finished reading the biography of John Adams written by David McCullough (reading and writing is about all I can do today as I am sick and in bed). And after reading about the amazing founders of our nation, I have come to a sad conclusion:

When a government is "by the people" in a democracy, then the nation will rise or fall based upon the quality of her citizens. Those elected are simply the product of the people.

I know that this thought is neither new, nor profound, but it makes me all the more determined on a single point. I will do my best for the rest of my life to not simply complain about my elected officials. After all, they were elected by me and my neighbors.

What I will dedicate the rest of my life toward is helping to transform the lives of my neighbors and myself (here and in Africa). After all, only when the people lead, will those they elect follow.

Rhythm and Blues

2009-08-13T16:56:00.000-07:00

For the last two weeks I have been in Arizona (for my sister-in-law's wedding) and Chicago (for the Willow Creek Leadership Summit). Now that I am back home, Amy and I are trying to find our rhythm again. It's hard.

I notice that the worst part about being out of rhythm with life is not just the funk of losing your beat. It's that it too easily turns into a self-defeating cycle. Being out of rhythm for working out, putting the kids down to sleep, waking up in the morning, or even reading the Scriptures with regularity makes me depressed. It gives me the blues. And of course these blues don't help motivate me to get back in rhythm.

So I have felt the funk begin to fade over the last couple of days, but it has been a frustrating week trying to get in rhythm. I'm there now, but I felt like I lost a couple of valuable days at less-than-normal efficiency. I've found my groove, but it took too long. Any suggestions on how to keep the groove after a transition?

BlogTalkRadio Share Show Widget

2009-07-22T17:10:00.001-07:00

Missionary Training

2009-06-08T12:24:00.000-07:00

WorldVenture requires us to complete quite a bit of training before we can head to the field. So far, Amy and I have been very impressed with the training that we have received. In fact, the excellence of the practical training that we have gotten from WorldVenture as well as outside contractors has made me rethink training in the church and in seminary. Do we spend too much time on theory and not enough time on application? Should seminaries make students "practice" more skills in the classroom? Should churches spend more time on Bible Study techniques, how to pray, how to counsel friends, etc.?

At the beginning of May, Amy and I went to Chicago to complete a training on how to educate our children overseas. It was awesome. In fact, I came away from the training thinking that we should have a similar seminar for every parent in the church: How to educate your kids, regardless of the schooling choice your family makes.

So far, the skills we have received in training to be missionaries have been great. Let's just hope they work on the field.

One of the saddest goodbyes

2009-05-15T12:56:00.000-07:00

After 13 years of sponsoring Ashenafi Girma, we had to end our sponsorship today. With our new budget reality, we simply could not make it work anymore. I can't begin to explain how sad it is to say goodbye. I have "known" Ashenafi longer than I have known most of those who read this blog.

Amy and I began sponsoring him before we were even married. I think our sponsorship of him helped to define our relationship from the beginning as being about a mission, not just about us (an idea my former colleague spoke about this last Tuesday).

So if you are reading this and you already sponsor a child, I would like to encourage you to write them. I wish I would have done that more. And if you are reading this and you don't sponsor a child - sign up! It is a life changing experience.

We will miss you Ashenafi!

Junk Mail

2009-04-27T16:26:00.000-07:00

I have received reports from several people recently that my email to them went to their junk mail. If you filled out your information on Tuesday and dropped it in the bucket, please check your junk mail and add me to your safe senders list. Thanks.

daveterpstra@gmail.com

Overwhelmed

2009-04-21T21:07:00.000-07:00

It takes something significant to make me speechless. TNL did it tonight.

Thank you to everyone in our community who expressed their love and support and encouragement tonight. Amy and I don't even have words to say how grateful we are.

Thank you.

Dave

miracle #1

2009-02-22T08:44:00.000-08:00

There have been three miracles I have been hoping and praying for over the past year. I call them miracles, because by definition they are something that requires an act of God, and cannot be done by human effort alone. These three miracles are:

#1 - That God would lead someone to TNL as the Teaching Pastor who would actually overlap on staff with me.
#2 - That we would be able to financially survive after I leave my job at TNL and before we head to the field.
#3 - That we would be able to leave this fall.

So miracle #1 has come to fruition. TNL has hired a new Teaching Core Pastor. I would love to give all the details here, but I will let the elders and other pastors have the fun of introducing him. But Amy and I couldn't be more excited. He and his family are a perfect fit for TNL.

A friend of mine met him at the National Pastors Convention a couple of weeks ago, then wrote to me: He's got the TNL vibe!

I totally agree. So in case you haven't heard, God is up to something amazing at TNL.

missionary in-laws

2009-02-07T07:37:00.001-08:00

So I have been trying to frame the relationship that we have with WorldVenture and I realize now they are like in-laws.

Let me explain: As I prepare to leave TNL, it is becoming more and more a reality that TNL isn't going to be my home and primary family anymore. My team in Mozambique will serve in that role. So in a way, we are leaving our primary family at TNL and marrying into WorldVenture in Mozambique.

So this begs the question of what sort of in-laws the rest of WorldVenture will be. And we can honestly say, so far so good. We just spent a week with the WorldVenture family for their annual Renewal Conference and we are amazed at these people of God. The first two days of the conference are just spent praying. All day. With coffee breaks and a lunch break. But other than that, just praying.

But beyond the prayer time, we got to hang out with missionaries from around the world (some of whom have been on the field for decades) and just talk. Wow. There really aren't words to use to fully convey the impressive demeanor of these super-humans. Every day they deal with poverty, disease and spiritual darkness, and yet they just keep on going. Meeting some of them feels like meeting some of the early Christians who were reaching those who had never had the opportunity to hear the gospel. Amazing stuff.

But in-laws can be a little quirky as well. It will be weird working for an organization led by baby-boomers. It will be hard to lose the leaness and edge that comes with working at TNL. I will have a hard time when ministry isn't set up by Jared, supported by John, and followed up by Brian. But we will survive nevertheless.

If you would like to learn more about our quirky new in-laws, check them out at www.WorldVenture.com

database disaster

2009-01-23T17:16:00.000-08:00

We have had some computer problems which has slowed us down on contacting people. However, we seem to have sorted the problem out now. If you have yet to hear from us, we hope to be able to call in the next couple of weeks. Sorry for the delay.

How God Ruined My Life

2008-12-07T08:34:00.000-08:00

This is a talk that I gave at Greenwood Community Church last month. It is the audio from the talk. Fortunately, you don't have to look at me while you listen. Again, thanks to Greenwood for allowing me to share.

If you are a part of a church that might be interested in having me come to speak, let me know. I would love to share our story with as many people as possible.

Thank You Greenwood

2008-11-17T13:56:00.000-08:00

There are moments in life when you have to step back and shake your head and say "only God...". Only God could have orchestrated the day that we had yesterday with our friends at Greenwood Community Church. It was amazing.

Guest teaching is always a challenge because I am unknown to the community. But both times I have taught at Greenwood I felt like I was at home. God just speaks at Greenwood and it is amazing to be a part of that.

Dozens of people expressed interest in financially partnering with us (and if you are one of those people, my email address is in my profile on the right side of this page). But beyond the new friendships and relationships, it was so great to see all of the elders and staff members who we have talked to over the last year and a half, who took the time out of their Sunday schedule to come over and encourage us as well.

It is clear to me that besides TNL, Amy and I have no greater friends in a church than Greenwood Community Church.

Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone at Greenwood for the opportunity to share. It was an enormous blessing and encouragement to be a part of your community. We look forward to seeing what God does through our partnership along the way.

Calling

2008-11-06T20:43:00.000-08:00

"All of ministry is calling. It is either discovering your calling or living into your calling."

~Dave Terpstra to Jared Mackey in India (I was jet-lagged at the time, but it still sounds right on this side of the pond).

Sometimes God calls us specifically. He wants us to go somewhere specific (like Mozambique) or do something specific (like be a counselor or pastor or teacher or computer programmer).

Sometimes God calls us collectively. He wants a whole church or home group to pay attention to something.

Sometimes God calls us lovingly. He wants us to spend more time with Him.

But sometimes God calls us generically. He simply wants us to respond. To begin to serve. To learn to listen. To discover what is next.

That is how God began to call Amy and me to Africa. Sure, looking back I can connect the dots. But at the time, they just looked like dots. Generic dots.

I'm speaking at Greenwood Community Church on the 16th on the subject of calling, and as I am putting together my story, I am realizing how obvious it seems on the back end that God was calling us to Africa. But at the time, it was just about sponsoring a kid through Compassion International, joining the One Campaign, and supporting friends who were missionaries.

I guess the lesson I am learning is to follow God's generic calls, not just his specific ones. You never know where something "generic" might lead...

Cost-to-Benefit Ratio

2008-09-15T20:58:00.000-07:00

Decision making often requires discovering the cost-to-benefit ratio of different variables. Many times in life there is no perfect choice. Right now, we are weighing the costs and the benefits of where to do our langauge study of Portuguese. Mozambique offers the benefit of learning to speak the language with the right dialect and only having to move once. Brazil offers better language schools and being able to focus our time on our study and on our family.

Right now we are leaning towards Brazil because of the quality of the school we can attend and the ability to focus on fluency, not just survival in a foreign country. However, we can't afford to send our kids to international schools in Brazil. Which means we are considering putting our first grader, kindergartener, and preschooler in an all-Portuguese class where no English is spoken for a whole year.

So how crazy do you have to be for something this crazy to no longer seem crazy?

#1 Why are you moving to Africa?

2008-08-26T11:11:00.001-07:00

The simple answer is that we are moving to Africa because that is where God has called us to go. Over the last several years we have felt an increasing burden for what God is doing on the continent and the role that we could play.

Starting in college when we sponsored a child in Ethiopia through Compassion International, God has been increasingly growing our heart for Africa. In the last three years through conversations and trips we have continued to feel that burden increase, and now it is clear to us that we need to go.

As Dave has taught at TNL again and again: you can’t do everything, you can do something. What is the something that God is calling you to do?

Moving to Mozambique is just the “something” we are called to do.

#2 How did you make the decision to go?

2008-08-26T10:57:00.001-07:00

We have certainly put a lot of time and prayer into the decision to move to Mozambique, but one conversation changed everything. We had been discussing the possibility of moving to Africa one day after our kids had all graduated from high school and moved out of the house.

Then we had a conversation with our friends who are missionaries in Guinea (West Africa). After we had told them that we thought God wanted us to work in Africa one day after our kids had left the house, they threw down a challenge: why do you think God is comfortable waiting for your kids to graduate high school while his people need you in Africa right now? We didn’t really have an answer to that.

#3 Why Mozambique?

2008-08-26T10:56:00.001-07:00

There are a number of reasons on the surface why Mozambique is such a good fit for us. First, we have friends there who will be our teammates on the field, Rodger and Lynne Schmidt. Also, our skill sets fit into Mozambique’s needs (see #5 and #6 below).

But the actual reason that we are going to Mozambique is that it is the country where we were sent. Our new boss at World Venture is Glenn Kendall. We simply asked him to send us where he thought we should go in Africa. Knowing our strengths and desires, we felt like he would make an excellent choice. In addition, we also knew how hard it would be to go from being our own bosses to working for one, so we thought we should practice submission before we left.

#4 But what about the kids?

2008-08-26T10:51:00.000-07:00

Abigail, Jacob, and Alyson are really excited to go! Just ask them. They talk about Africa all the time and little Alyson sounds about as cute as can be when she says "mo-za-beek"

We don't think we are doing harm to our kids by choosing to raise them in a third-world country. In fact, perhaps in the long run we will be doing them a favor. Our kids will grow up knowing people with AIDS, being able to speak other languages, and knowing first-hand what life changing ministry looks like.

Our hope is for them to attend international schools as they grow up. But they certainly still need your prayers. We hope to find friends who will commit to pray for one our children every week.

Let us know if you would like to do that and we will keep you on a special "kid" mailing list.

#5 What will Dave be doing?

2008-08-26T10:49:00.000-07:00

Dave will be working with pastors and other church leaders in Mozambique. There is an emerging group of 20 and 30 something pastors who are trying to lead fledgling churches in the country. However, they don't have any support. And even worse, their family members are dying of AIDS and the children are going to bed at night hungry because of their lack of resources.

Dave wants to connect the pastors of Mozambique to African and Western resources that will help them develop their churches, their families, their communities and themselves.

#6 What will Amy be doing?

2008-08-26T10:44:00.002-07:00

Amy will be working with orphanages, churches, schools, and the government of Mozambique on behalf of children. She has degrees in Child Development and Early Childhood Education and will be using her experience in those fields to act as an advocate for children.

Her hope is that every child in Mozambique would grow up in a family, not an orphanage, that every child would attend a school where they were taught by skilled teachers, and that every child would be connected to a caring, Christian community.

#7 What langauge do they speak?

2008-08-26T10:44:00.001-07:00

The national language of Mozambique is Portuguese. Mozambique was a Portuguese colony until 1975 when it won its independence in a Marxist revolution. However, Portuguese is spoken primarily in the capital and other major cities. Throughout the rest of the country tribal languages are spoken.

In order to learn Portuguese, we will be spending 9 months to a year in language school in Brazil. Brazil is the largest Portuguese speaking nation on earth, and the best language schools are found there.

#8 Is it safe?

2008-08-26T10:43:00.000-07:00

Mozambique is safe as far as African countries go. There is always danger of being robbed simply because we will be perceived as wealthy, and there are so many hungry people who just want to survive. However, Mozambique has been stable for several years and we pray that will continue.

#9 How can I help?

2008-08-26T10:40:00.000-07:00

1. Mozambique will be a lonely place for us at times, and so we want to stay in contact as best as possible with our friends and family here in the States.

2. We need you to pray for us and for the work that God has called us to do.

3. We need financial partners who will be part of our team. If you are interested in partnering financially in what God will be doing in Mozambique, just write us at daveterpstra@WorldVenture.net or amyterpstra@WorldVenture.net

#10 What is TNL going to do when you guys leave?

2008-08-26T10:39:00.000-07:00

The pastor and other elders of TNL have a plan in place for hiring a new Teaching Pastor. Dave will still be teaching until April of next year, so there will hopefully be enough time to locate someone new who God is calling to TNL. You can read more about the progress and plans at www.tnl.org/pastorsearch