A couple of years ago, HCMS principal Tom Strikwerda was chatting with HCHS math and Bible teacher, and former track coach Mike Verkaik, about the HCHS South Africa trips he leads every summer through Oceans Ministries. The trips sounded amazing—the high school juniors and seniors spent 10 days volunteering, learning, worshiping, and hiking at the Oceans Ministry Center in Fish Hoek, South Africa. And Tom wondered, why can’t middle school kids do this?
Mike couldn’t really see why not, so they tried it in February 2023 with eight HCMS students. “And it was fantastic,” Tom recalled. “Better than fantastic!”
The plan was to give these students a variety of experiences, from interacting with kids in the school program, making dinner and serving families in poverty, from hiking mountains, swimming in the ocean, playing pickup rugby on the beach, to worshiping with a couple of different church communities, listening to special local guests, and praying together. All this to draw closer to God and each other, while also learning about Christian leadership. An unbelievable experience—and a tall order.
Tom and Mike switched the 10-day trip from February to fall break so that students would miss less school, and this past November, HCMS returned from its 4th trip there.
“And it was even better than fantastic,” Tom asserted.
The curious thing about middle school kids is that they can be uninhibited in beautiful ways. And people notice and watch them, often without them realizing it.
Which is what happened on HCMS’s second trip, the first fall trip: The students gathered at the end of the day—as they do every day—and shared their “highs and lows” of the day, singing “Firm Foundation” together. A fellow Fish Hoek resident and guest speaker for the evening, Brian Steele, happened to overhear them, and his ears perked up. An educator by trade, he was struggling to decide whether or not to help run a new Christian school in the Ocean’s Ministry Center, or remain in his current job as an educator in the local public school. Hearing the HCMS students’ highs and lows and prayer time intrigued Brian, and helped him discern that he should accept the calling of running the Christian school.
Because of that meeting with those HCMS students, Brian went on to take over an online school, VTC House, and turn it into a dual online/physical but also Christian school, now housed at the Oceans Ministries center in Fish Hoek, SA. Brian told the HCMS students that night that, “I’ve been a teacher, educating with salt and light with my actions, but I want to be salt and light with my words, too.”
The first week of that school year, Brian was already seeing fruit, in particular with a student, Gabriel, who received Jesus as his Savior! Later that year, Brian visited West Michigan, including Holland Christian, to learn how we run Christian schools in our region.
It’s stories like that, that abound after these trips—God working in amazing ways. During this most recent trip, a Muslim government official hanging out in the courtyard overheard HCMS students praying over the school’s teachers, and unexpectedly asked for prayer from them as well, surprising the locals more than the students.
“Our special guest, Andrew (Mr. Haig’s brother-in-law), talked about glorious inefficiency, which is the idea that we try to do things efficiently and don’t always think about the big picture plan. Glorious inefficiency means that God does stuff, maybe not the most efficient way, but always the big picture, best way. We also talked a lot about the power of prayer. Looking back on our days and the opportunity to pray over the teachers, we have started to realize more than ever how important prayer is. It can truly change a situation around.”
Alex Chawla ’30
The group also tried something new this trip—plumbing! Whenever it rained, the Oceans Ministry Center’s sewage would back up, causing extensive damage, as you may imagine. So Brian Schrotenboer, owner of Specialized Plumbing Services, came along on the trip thanks to Haven Church in Zeeland. For the first day, most of the HCMS kids dug ditches and moved huge rocks, so Brian could lay the pipe and fix the sewage drains, alleviating huge headaches for the center in just a few days.
Other days, the students prepared and served food for 700 at Jim Se Bos; played with the Care Center’s children; hiked Table Mountain; journaled, prayed, and read the Bible at a variety of locations; hiked with students from VTC House, always ending and beginning each day with “family time,” in worship and sharing.
Not only did the HCMS students work to serve those around them, but they came back changed themselves, inspired, blessed, and thankful. It’s fascinating to read their own words from their blog entries:
[When] worship started. It was so much fun. There were 2 people leading on the small stage and everyone seemed to know all the lyrics and were just singing their hearts out. Everyone was dancing and clapping. It was absolutely incredible. After that we sat down when the pastor came on stage. Then immediately we stood back up to sing again! Everyone was moving around the room, shaking hands and dancing while singing (pretty sure there was a conga line going around?) Then the pastor came up to speak for real after a couple more songs. He preached about leaving our worries behind, which was very impactful. We prayed and then got up to sing.
Oliver Bishop ’30
We drove home and settled into dinner. We had chicken bacon rice casserole. It was a very good meal. It got me thinking, I thought most of the kids in Jim Se Bos may never in their life have the same meal as we just did. It gives you some perspective. In the United States, we are very blessed. Even when we go to a place like South Africa, we are living in a nicer place, eating better food, and have more opportunities than some of the people that live there.
John Propst ’30:
When God brings together people in this way, incredible things start to happen. Which is exactly what happened with us. We ventured to a very old vineyard in order to quiet ourselves and tune into what the LORD has for us. Many of us heard from God in one way or another. Later on, Pastor Ryan spoke to us about being open and listening to what the Holy Spirit has to say. The rest of this night was filled with conversations and prayer about the Holy Spirit doing work in us. We reflected on how God has been good in our lives, and praised him for the fact that we are the group that actually got to come here. God put together a crazy story of people who are all in different walks and points in life, but he’s united us and grown us in our love for this place, each other, and himself.
Grant VanderZee ’23
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