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World Outreach Podcast
World Outreach Podcast
The Power of Family on Mission: a conversation with Chris and Gerrianne
Chris and Gerrianne share their journey from everyday Dutch professionals to pioneering missionaries in Indonesia, revealing how they're raising four children while mobilizing local believers to reach the country's 200+ unreached people groups.
• Discovering their missionary calling through the Kairos course, which opened their eyes to God's mission for all believers
• Translating professional skills into ministry assets—hotel management experience becoming valuable for team leadership and project coordination
• Creating sacred family traditions like "pancake and movie night" to balance ministry demands with family priorities
• How their daughter's calm response after a dog bite became a powerful witness to a Hindu neighbor
• Pioneering Jati, an Indonesian contextualization initiative that empowers local leaders through relationship-based training
• Maintaining spiritual sustainability through monthly retreat days and intentionally "going slow to get far"
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you're listening to the world Irish podcast dynamic conversations to empower our community to engage unreached people groups everywhere. Today we're having a conversation with Chris and Gerianne. They both hail from the Netherlands and have been residing in Indonesia over on and off over the last couple years, and they're going to share with us a little bit about their journey, about what life is in ministry with a family, mobilizing Indonesians into missions amongst unreached people groups and a bunch of other topics. So, Chris Gerian, thanks for joining us today on the podcast. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Hey Ben, Thanks for having us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thank you. So before we jump into our conversation too much, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself? How did you get into your ministry, how did your family life, etc.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we are Christian Periana and we are married since 2008. We have got four kids and since 2011, we started to get in contact with ministry. At first we didn't really see ourselves as missionaries. We just wanted to help out people in need. But then we were asked to do some courses, mainly the Kairos course. We really felt the calling upon our lives as missionaries there. We also got mentored by some seasoned missionaries when we were doing the Kairos course, like Bill Molenkamp, and we first guided us during our first steps in getting into the missions, getting ready, and then we served about eight years among the Dayaks in Kalimantan. There's a children's ministry over there and, yeah, that's a bit of the first experience about ministering.
Speaker 1:And Chris, how did you discern that you had a call into ministry or missions?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was really, like Julian said during the TIROS course, that our eyes were opened for a call for everybody. We didn't see ourselves as missionaries. That was, you know, for special people who went to Bible school for years and went out to the mission field. That was our perception, but during that course we really saw no, god is using everybody. Every follower can go out there and become part of His mission. So that was a real eye-opener for us and through that really we felt God wants us to be involved in this. We didn't know how or where, but we knew God was calling us for the mission.
Speaker 1:And so how did that calling evolve or change or come to light in you as you worked with your mentors and others discussing, hey, what is missions and where might we fit into it?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So, like I said, we didn't see ourselves as missions and really didn't know much about missions, but walking for a season with these people and hearing the stories and hearing how it looked like serving God on the field in different areas Back then we were preparing ourselves to serve the Dayak people in Kalimantan, but really no experience at all. But hearing these stories from these people really made us excited to see that work through us as well in serving in other nations and you both have professional kind of backgrounds and careers.
Speaker 1:How have you seen those skills and those backgrounds contribute to your ability to do ministry cross-cultural?
Speaker 3:So my professional background is in working with children, mainly traumatized children or children with difficulties in their behaviors. And when we moved abroad things were so different because culture is different, the way children get educated is different or the adults approach children can be different, but of course children are children. So it did help me that I had so much knowledge about it, but I just had to really adapt and learn from the new culture. Yeah, there was a big learning curve there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, learning curve there, but the basic skills were already there, so you had a foundation to build on from and to move forward to yeah, what about you, chris?
Speaker 2:well, my background is in hotel management and I led teams in hotels and when god called us for mission I was like oops, I picked the wrong preparation course here for missions. But really it's like all those skills of working with people and, you know, vision casting and getting people to work together in teams. All those skills are very much needed on the mission field as well. I would say my professional background really helped me understanding working with people and doing big projects as teams together, and that was really helpful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think a lot of people maybe have a misperception of that. Oh, you can only do missions if you have Bible school and ministry skills, direct ministry skills. But there's so much from our other areas of life that are used when doing missions and missions among unreached people, groups and pioneering work that everybody really has a role to play in it. We can find our place if we ask God to lead us and direct us in that manner. Yes, definitely yeah. So let's transition a little bit. One of you you both have, you know, chris, you mentioned that. Or Garyann, you mentioned you know working with children and a passion for children. You've been involved in children's ministries over the years. You now have a very quickly growing family for children. How have you incorporated family life and ministry together together?
Speaker 3:well, the beginning it just um grew it. We, we became a family on the field. So we first were there together as a couple and um helping out with uh, with the children that lived in the ministry, but then we had our own and she just came along um. So we actually went from one child and a couple of months later we had 18 more in our house to to take care of, and because, well, I think family is just looking after each other and having connection with each other and that's one of the main things in ministry, I think as well. So it felt quite natural to just have your children there and do life together with the people on the field. Yeah, I think that's how it worked and it's working still.
Speaker 1:And working still. Yeah, how have you found the balance of incorporating your own children into ministry and not putting pressure on them and just being family, as you said, you're just incorporating others into your family. What have you seen in that area?
Speaker 3:Sometimes it can be a tricky one because of course, your children always ask for attention. But ministry, especially ministry with children, demands a lot of your time and attention as well. But our first priority is our own children. So if we see they struggle or they need more, we do take time for them. One of the main things we do is we have some traditions and some routines that really involve only them, so it's just us as a family.
Speaker 3:Like Saturday night, it's pancake night and movies. There's nothing that comes in between that. It also does change a little bit when the kids get older. In the beginning they are not aware of many things, so you can take them along with everything. When they get older, they do request some other attention and I think that gets easier because they can word it now, so they can ask us for what they need or, um, what they think of the situation, and we try to adjust um and and always prioritize them first, within that you know, this balancing of traditions and keeping things that are just kind of sacred for your family and special for your immediate family, how has that allowed your children to embrace ministry more, do you think?
Speaker 1:I?
Speaker 3:think for them, ministry is not something unclear and far away. It's their life. They embrace other people who also are with families. So for them, them it's just the people they know and the people we share with and, um, we share life with, we share prayer with and all those things. Yeah, I think it's. It's for them it's quite kind of the second family instead of their natural family who lives quite far away. For for them.
Speaker 1:but uh, the people in ministry are are much closer by yeah, so I suppose they don't have to feel competition if they have, you know, both their immediate family that they're doing some things with and then also incorporating this naturally into an extended family position. Chris, as you think about navigating these seasons as Gerianne mentioned of you know requiring different things at different times, especially as your kids get older how has that shaped your ministry expression?
Speaker 2:I think we as a family went through different seasons, having smaller kids and also recognizing, hey, our kids need more attention now. So we actually took some time off from the mission field and moved back to the Netherlands to really focus on that. And now being in a real different season again and different roles in ministry, and I think once you prioritize your family, you will identify as well what season you're in and what ministry role fits well with that. So there's different roles, which I would not want to do. Having little kids If it involves traveling the whole world and being away for months in a row, that's not a good fit for me in this season because I've got little children and a family to take care of, so that would fit in another season of our lives better probably. So that's how we try to see hey, where are we and what role in ministry will fit us in our current family situation?
Speaker 1:well, and we go from there, yeah, and that makes great sense and I think that's really wise advice. There is to discern what's appropriate at this season. May we all have enough wisdom to know what that is. It can be challenging to prioritize. We were together a few months back and you were sharing a story of one of your children and how naturally having children increases opportunities to engage with the local communities and how they are involved in sharing their faith involved in sharing their faith. Can you tell us a little bit about that story, about when your children got bit by a dog and how that opened up opportunities to share their own faith?
Speaker 2:with other people. Yeah, that's a great story and a great experience of walking with kids on the mission field. So we live in an environment with many street dogs actually, we've got many dogs on the street and our oldest was just playing outside with her friends in the neighborhood and all of a sudden she got bitten by one of the dogs and the whole community here was in big panic because there is the rabies going around here, which is very, very people are very frightened of that. I think there's not enough vaccines around. So the whole community was like, oh no, what's going to happen? And all these stories already went around of worst case scenarios, what could happen if she got sick.
Speaker 2:But we ended up with one of the families here, took us to a hospital where they had arranged for a vaccine for Sophie and this lady. She joined us in the car going to the hospital and on the way to the hospital she asked hey, why are you so relaxed? Why doesn't it look like you were afraid? And then Sophie actually said no, we don't have to be afraid because God is with us and he will protect us. And I think it was just a very honest and a great testimony to that lady and later it turned out this lady, her husband, was one of the priests or one of the pastors of the Hindu community in our neighborhood, and I don't know how impactful this testimony was, but I'm sure God is using this for this family and bring a bit of light in this lives full of fear, full of fear of the spirits, full of fear and offering to keep everybody happy, to keep all spirits happy. So, yeah, this is just a great example of how kids bring testimonies of their faith on the field.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is and the potential for natural conversations, and I think it's great that your children are've discipled them, you've raised them well, that they can just naturally profess their faith in a comfortable way and live it out, and it's a testament to you both. You know, recycling your children and investing in your children, um, in the various ways necessary to do that. What advice do you have for other people going onto the field with children or families who are like, yeah, I think God's calling us to missions, what advice would you give them as they consider moving to the field or embracing ministry with the family?
Speaker 2:I would say to really make sure you prioritize your family, and you do that by thinking about it before you go and coming up with some non-negotiables, some boundaries you set as a family, because once you hit the field, the business side and all attention is asked from the mission. So if you don't have those boundaries in place before you go, it's going to be a daily struggle to figure out who gets my priority when. Um, we believe family is our first priority, so we like to set some boundaries around it as well, to make sure that our daily life really reflects that priority as well.
Speaker 3:that's very good well, I think what chris before. There's different roles in ministry and you can find something that fits your family. So if you have older children, it might not be a bad thing if you are traveling from time to time, but if they're really young, maybe that's really hard if one or both of the parents leave for days in a row. So it's good to look into those different roles and look at the season that your family is in, what the things are that your children need Usually when you move away from where you normally live your family doesn't move with you, your extended family, so you have less people that can maybe look after your children, especially in the beginning when you don't have many relationships yet.
Speaker 3:So there's a lot of pressure, a lot of time that you get to spend together and less time that other people will look after your children, and if you are aware of that, that's totally fine. We really enjoy all the time we get to spend as a family. But it has changed a lot since we were living in the Netherlands, where we could just ask our grandparents, their grandparents, to look after the kids so that we could have time to do other stuff or work or do ministry. We need to be flexible now. So if you are aware of that, you can totally work with it in the right role that fits your family and the ministry.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's good, good advice from both of you, thank you. I want to transition a little bit more and talk about one of the strategic projects you guys are pioneering in Indonesia Jati. Tell us a little bit about it and why does it matter?
Speaker 2:Jati is the, say, indonesian translation or Indonesian contextualization of what we do and what we believe in. World outreach does work really well in Indonesia as well, but it works much better if we translate and contextualize these things so we can reach many more Indonesian people in Indonesia. I think it matters because the future of ministries in Indonesia is led by Indonesians and is done by the Indonesian church and resourced from the body of Christ in Indonesia. So to have a local organization championing that, putting some structures in place to really support our Indonesian missionaries and to reach the unreached people groups of Indonesia, that's what Jati is all about, because there's still a great need within Indonesia.
Speaker 1:There's a growing church within Indonesia, but there's 200 plus unreached people groups still residing there, and so the ability to send and deploy more indonesians working cross-culturally within their own country and beyond, that does become a priority. And so how do we serve people well, how do we serve indonesians well, in that so many of the things that we're looking at obviously, as you mentioned, is trying to provide the services that we do for a traditional missionary into a localized context. So so how do we provide field leadership? How do we provide member care? What does it look like to have contextual training, training that's relevant for them, so that they can go and continue to engage these people? As you've been wrestling with this and moving forward with it and getting it started long term, what do you think is the key motivations behind moving more in this direction?
Speaker 3:we see that local workers are so much more effective in reaching their own people. So I think, well, of course that's what you want, right. You want effectivity, you want people to be really by always having foreign people lead in a country that makes a lot of dependence. But we're not always sure if the foreign leaders can stay because of multiple reasons and you don't want the mission then to come to a hold or yeah, that it's not going to continue after people leave. But if, if you focus on local people and disciple them and tell them to disciple the next generation, then it can just keep continuing and there's not a reason that it will be put on hold or stop altogether. So we think it's much more effective and way better for the long term to have local people involved also in leadership and mainly to reach out to their own people.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, for the sustainability and the continued advancement of the gospel amongst unreached people groups. What have been some of the traditional hindrances or challenges of Indonesians getting involved in or engaging in mission?
Speaker 2:I think one of the clear examples is engaging in mission. I think one of the clear examples is member care as World Outreach. We want to care for our missionaries on the field and we do that with the capacity we have, but also from a cultural background, what we believe care looks like. But for the Indonesian culture there is this whole different perception of care of taking rest. What does it mean to care for others? How does it look like if we care for our missionaries on the mission field?
Speaker 2:And I think to really expand the mission in Indonesia we need to let those concepts grow in the local culture. We have the DNA, we know what our values are are, but how it looks like in indonesia might be really different. And how do we get there is through a local structure of local leaders who've been on the field for 20 plus years themselves already through jati, you know, going that development process and and really looking for these answers how does this look like in the local culture? So we're coming with this DNA and values we have as an organization, but the people on the field really understand what it means in their culture and their context as well. So I think through a development with local leaders. We can serve them much better because we speak their language, their cultural language as well. To do that from an organizational or international perspective, I think that's very difficult if you're not part of that culture yourself. To really understand what. What are the dynamics of?
Speaker 1:the culture, right, yeah, exactly. And so how do we? How do we localize it and how do we help it to grow in the soil that it's planted in, so to speak? And you, you, you both are not alone in this. There is a team of indonesians that you're working with and and they're taking the lead on these conversations and you're facilitating these conversations and bringing in the structures and systems necessary to help grow. What have been some of the impacts of Jati this far?
Speaker 2:The biggest impact programs we're running at this moment, I think, is the pioneering program. It's a six-month program where church planters are trained and it's an intensive discipleship program where it's not just teachings and theory but where some of our Indonesian church planters bring along new missionaries or those who are new to church planting in the Indonesian context and bring them along for six months and they do live together and they go out together and they explore how it looks like together and there are some teachings and there are moments of sitting and learning, but most of it is just being out there and live life together as church planters in an unreached people group. And I think that fits so well in the Indonesian culture, which is a relational culture, which is living life together, culture and modeling. So this program really fits in the Indonesian culture and creates great results as well of people who feel equipped and who now know what it looks like to be a church planter out there and they're brave and they're going out and they're equipped and sent to new unreached people.
Speaker 1:They're going out and they're equities and sense to new uh new unreached people. Yeah, that's great, and and the testimonies are coming back of people you know being administered into seeing miracles and people healed and communities of faith being established, and but then also the fact that people finish these programs and they're like, hey, this is what I think god's really calling me to and they're committing to joining a team or going out themselves long term. It's really exciting to see how spending time with people walking alongside them, that relationship stuff as you're speaking to um, inspires people to fulfill god's call on their life with, with this jati. What are you, what are you both, excited about, um?
Speaker 3:about moving forward with it I'm really excited about seeing people uh along, they join, and there's more teams to be sent out, and not just for a short period. But we're really focusing on discipling these people well, training them well so they can do this for the long haul and they will be also disciples to take on others, to sow in those people's lives, so they can also continue the work that has been started. So we really are excited for the movements that are starting to happen. Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I agree with that. I think JATI is becoming an organization of normal people who trust in God and do extraordinary things normal people who trust in God and do extraordinary things. And I think Jati is an organization where not only people train others when they all know it themselves. See, Jati becomes this group of people who walk the walk together and learning along the way.
Speaker 2:One of the examples that makes me really excited is young Indonesians who do fundraising, which is very, very challenging in Indonesia to raise funds for your ministry. But we've got these young people who are still fundraising themselves but already starting to mentor other workers in our organization to do the same thing. So we're not a group of people who know it all. We're a group of people who are exploring and trusting God to work through us as normal, ordinary people and start mentoring each other, start coaching each other through these processes, and I think that's a sign of a movement where people start to move and people start to encourage one another and it becomes a group of people who walk together and figure it out together. And that's really exciting. That makes it a strong, strong group.
Speaker 1:You guys both touched on something there walking together, being in community and relationship together, but also looking towards the long term and how do we continue on in the long haul of this and making a movement that can build on itself and disciples others and who disciple others and continue forward that way? So you've both been in ministry now for quite a while you have several years and been through some difficult seasons and challenges. How do you sustain yourself spiritually on the field?
Speaker 3:Well, since recently, we have started having a monthly retreat day Because we've been talking about ministry, about family.
Speaker 3:Both are very demanding at times and you're busy all the time and sometimes you just need to turn off all the things and have some time for yourself and for God. So, once a month, I take a day off and another day and have some time for yourself and for God. So once a month I take a day off and another day Chris takes a day off and we just go to a quiet place where we do not get disturbed and we take time to reflect, to just be quiet, to focus on the Lord, to pray, to receive from him and, yeah, sometimes look back and just be thankful for all the things that have happened, but also look ahead a bit and see what we want to focus on, and it's really great to have time to do that, to make time, because usually you don't have a day off anywhere without anything in your agenda. So we really prioritize this and we just make sure we have one day a month that we really, really connect with the Lord and reflect on the things that have happened.
Speaker 1:That's really good. It's good to have those practices in place. What about you, Chris? What has helped you kind of sustain your walk with God through these years?
Speaker 2:I think it's all about the intentional going slow, the intentional going slow and because there's always something else we can do and there's always another idea and there's always another way we can invest in the ministry. But, like Jeroen said, the example of that retreat day once a month, a full day of solitude and reflecting and really stopping, stop working and go slow. So that's a practical example. But in our daily work as well, we intentionally go slow so we're not running ahead of God. We try to see his pace in work we're doing. We often say we go slow to get far. We intentionally go slow so we have time and we can take rest from time to time. And that's an intentional thing, especially for me. I think I like to go fast, I like to do lots of things and I see improvements here and there and that's a big risk really to start running. So go slow to get far and have many intentional times of just being quiet and reflect on what's going on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, having that margin in your life to go slow walk with Jesus so that he is leading and guiding us and that we're not just chasing the next great thing but we're really listening to the Father's voice and how he's leading and guiding us in ministry. Great, great insights, great examples. Thank you both for being on the podcast today. There's been lots of encouraging stories that you shared and some insights that you have given us to help us think and to consider what God is doing, particularly in the area of our families, and how do we have priorities with our children. How do we have priorities within ministry? How do we continue to position ourselves so that we can hear from God and also get excited about what God is doing in the nations through Indonesians, through the structure of Jati and this organization to help send more Indonesians out to unreached people groups? So thank you both for being on the podcast today and may God bless you guys as you continue your ministry. Thank you, ben. It was a joy talking to you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thanks.
Speaker 1:Thank you.