Peter and Evangeline Vandenberg
Portraits
Peter and Evangeline, when did you join CfaN?
It was January 1981. We came from the UK where we had been living and ministering, initially in Bible School and later in evangelism and singing. When we joined Christ for all Nations, we traveled with the whole family, all the way to Johannesburg, where CfaN’s headquarters was then. We were just 34 years old when we joined CfaN and we’re now 71! It’s been 38 years.
What changed for your family when you joined CfaN?
It was quite a challenge because when we were itinerant, we ministered together. We were together 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. And the family was highly involved with that. Out of school time, the kids traveled with us and it was total involvement together. However, when we joined CfaN, I suddenly found myself at home with 3 children, with a husband who was away a great deal of the time. That had its own challenges. It was a good challenge, but a fresh one, for sure. At one time, I felt like every time there was a family crisis, my husband was away. I think every woman whose husband is away a lot goes through that.
Peter, how has your role at CfaN changed, since you joined as a young man?
When I was a teenager, I trained in the technical world, becoming qualified in automotive engineering and aviation engineering. During the years that we were in evangelistic ministry in the United Kingdom, I often said to Vangi, “I wonder why the Lord let me waste my time with all that technical engineering stuff?” But lo and behold, when I joined CfaN, 90% of our team were involved in highly technical activities, including building the Big Tent, and to this day, the technical set-up that happens before every Gospel Campaign. So, the “oil in my veins” was put to very good use! But although I started out in charge of CfaN’s truck workshop, I quickly became the General Coordinator, putting much-needed structures and departments in place. Eventually, I became Vice President, serving by Reinhard’s side for many years, and now supporting Daniel Kolenda in his leadership role. Over the years, my preaching role also grew, from little Pastors’ Seminars in the old days, to full Fire Conferences before every campaign. It’s been my great privilege, to date, to preach to more than 2.7 million pastors all across Africa. In the last few years, I’ve handed over many administrative responsibilities to younger people, but I still love to preach – and I’m still part of the CfaN executive team.
Vangi, can you tell us about your own ministry life, before and during your CfaN years?
I grew up as a pastor’s kid. Ministry was part of my life from a very early age. I started playing the piano in children’s services when I was 12 years old, and it wasn’t too long before I was playing the organ and the piano in church. I then got further involved in church. I taught Sunday school, I ran the choir and so on, always undergirded by a deep, abiding love of worship. Over the years, I continued to lead worship at church, and lead women’s conferences and other ministry opportunities. With CfaN, I led worship in so many places and even in languages that I couldn’t speak a word of, learning songs phonetically sometimes! Fire Conferences were an important part of my life for a long time, and were both great fun, and great spiritual experiences.
How do you see your purpose or vision?
People talk a lot about vision: what they think they should do, what they want to do, what they hope to do. The call of God is paramount – and people say, “I don’t know what it is. I’m looking for it.”
But the key is purpose. Purpose leads to vision. When the purpose changes, it lays a platform for your vision to change. People look for the vision – in anything, not just in ministry. They hope to hear about the vision, see it somehow, be given it. But vision comes from purpose.
Purpose leads to vision!
And what is your purpose? Many times, people have the wrong purpose. And then they want a vision, but it’s not going to grow out of the wrong purpose. For example, look at us. Our purpose, it seemed to us when we got married, was to love each other, to get married and have children, and love them, too. Another purpose we had was to build our business and fulfil that role, and we did that very effectively. But everything changed when we felt a prompting to go into full-time ministry. That was a change of purpose. It changed the purpose of our lives.
In truth, the Lord never told us specifically to go to Bible school. The Lord never told us to go to England, and to go to Elim Pentecostal Bible College. Our purpose drove us to make those decisions, because our purpose was now to become full-time workers for God, and we therefore knew that we had to prepare. That purpose eventually laid the way for our vision – our vision became to preach the Gospel and see people saved.
Still later, our purpose shifted, and it became our purpose to work for CfaN. That changed our vision –our vision was now to work in this ministry under the leadership, which was first Reinhard, and then Daniel, to the very best of our ability.
Purpose leads to vision.
What has the “cost” and “reward” been of being in the ministry?
Just because you count the cost doesn’t mean the cost is too great. I have often counted the cost, with the sure knowledge that God is no man’s debtor. When you give your best, when you lay that on the altar, God has a way of enriching your life. The biggest cost for me has been separation of various kinds – from my children, from my husband, from my extended family. But it’s a sacrifice I can give with joy and thanksgiving.
We’ve had to start financially “from scratch” five times, in following the call of God on our lives, sometimes losing everything we had built up, especially when moving countries. But it has never been an issue for us – it was a cost we paid gladly. And we can truly say that God has blessed us and provided for us and our family. The cost, whether counted or not, is not proportional to the rewards, the many blessings.
The enrichments have been many, starting with cultural. Every place that we’ve lived, there’s been something that we liked, and we’ve integrated that into our lives. We’ve learnt other languages, traveled far and wide, met the most wonderful people. And spiritually, it’s been enriching, as we’ve been exposed to many ways of thinking and being. That’s helped us to be more accommodating of other believers and to see that there are many ways to follow the call of God. There’s a broadening of your spirit that happens when you’re obedient to God.
Where do you see CfaN going in the future?
I’m privileged to have been working alongside Daniel Kolenda for the last 9 years, and I worked with Reinhard Bonnke for decades before that. I’ve seen with my own eyes how – in these last 9 years – over 21 million people have received Jesus as their Savior. To put that into perspective, it took the first 19 years of CfaN before we reached 1 million people saved! It’s clear that there’s a whole new dynamic at play, and I have absolutely no doubt that the future of CfaN will be greater than the early years. We are already seeing that happen. Our purpose – to spread the Gospel and see people saved – has never changed, but our vision has surely grown. And I am a witness to that, by God’s grace.
