During the year our office, staff and volunteers were all involved in the annual schedule of planning, preparations and running concerts, the Continental tours as well as tours of many other artists like Ingemar Olsson, Adrian Snell, Christmas tours, country-music tours, rock-tours, praise-tours, work of the publishing house, Magazines, workshops, etc, etc. But in the middle of such an annual period there was the great moment of inspiration: the Christian Artists Seminar. So with great joy we had had the second CA-Seminar in 1982, how inspiring and innovating this week had been\u2026 but finances were a drama. So what should we do? Leen and Ria decided to pray for the situation: stop the event as finances were so bad or move on, but would God provide? And what if after some weeks of prayer a kind of answer came: \u201cmove on, but it will not get easy\u2026\u201d Two weeks later we got a visit of our auditors. After going through the books they said that the ministry was healthy\u2026 BUT we should stop CA immediately. What happened next was quite funny. Leen agreed totally with the argument based on the figures and next he said that based on the dynamics of that event he was totally convinced that the next year was going to be different, so why not see this loss as an investment in the success of the future operation\u2026 They looked\u00acat Leen, closed the books and suitcases and said \u2018okay\u2019 and left\u2026 But had we heard Gods voice? Or was it only wishful thinking?
\nSo we got to the summer of 1983. Would CA really be different, or should we have to close the doors in september?
\nThis year there was an incredible difference. Many more people came to the Seminar, so more or less we could pay the invoices. Thank you God. But there was another remarkable difference. Leen was convinced that he should get Floyd McClung (the former number two at YWAM) to speak. After talking and writing for 2 years Floyd had had \u2018a word of God\u2019 that he should go. So Floyd was there at CA in 1983 and his presence (he is VERY tall), his attitude(most preachers are so often very nasty to artists, and he was so kind) and his message (finally some substance for artists) made an incredible, deep spiritual impact. Yes, God was at work at CA.
\nAnd this message went that autumn out like a bushfire around Europe and laid the basis for the growth of CA till over 2000 participants came in 1989.
\nBut at the end, this CA-Seminar of 1983 a special blessing for Leen and Ria.
\nWhen Floyd and his family left the site after the CA-week, he went to Leen and Ria and said that he was totally impressed by their work, their ministry and their call and said that nowhere in YWAM he had seen so clearly how God can use the arts to glorify His name\u2026 Leen and Ria broke out in tears. So Floyd wondered, as he had not offended the two of them. Then Leen and Ria explained about their life stories, the eternal rejection of christian leaders, their rejection in the family and now for so many years walking against the storm, but holding on to the call of God\u2026 so many time you feel alone, desperately alone. And now, for the first time in their lives, a Christian leader had expressed respect, appreciation and love\u2026 This moment and during the years after when Floyd and Sally McClung became friends of the house has been a time of great healing for the bitterness and the rejection. After that moment, whatever leaders said, it did not matter anymore.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
During the year our office, staff and volunteers were all involved in the annual schedule of planning, preparations and running concerts, the Continental tours as well as tours of many other artists like Ingemar Olsson, Adrian Snell, Christmas tours, country-music tours, rock-tours, praise-tours, work of the publishing house, Magazines, workshops, etc, etc. But in the … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/la-riviere.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/la-riviere.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/la-riviere.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/la-riviere.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/la-riviere.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/la-riviere.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/la-riviere.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/la-riviere.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/la-riviere.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}