Houses of Hope is founded by Bishop Wim Odendaal and his supportive and praying wife Sonja. The word ‘pension’ is not in his dictionary and despite his high age, Bishop Wim is still very active as the leader of the ministry and the connected churches.
Conversion
In 1974 Bishop Wim Odendaal was radically converted through street evangelism and was filled with the Holy Spirit. He became a member of the Pentecostal Church ‘Fildelfia’ in Deventer where the Swedish pastor couple Stig and Tonnie Sagström became his spiritual parents. Shortly afterwards he was baptised. He became a fervent Christian who confronted the people he came across with Jesus Christ everywhere. He became involved in various activities of the church; in the Netherlands he attended the Kader Bible School of the Fildelfia Church in Deventer and the two-year evening Bible school Sion in Meppel. He became a director and leader of the Fildelfia Church.
Agape
As the leader of the Christian coffee bar ‘Agape’, Bishop Wim was closely involved in the reception and guidance of second-generation Turkish youth. In collaboration with a Turkish evangelist, they organised evangelism campaigns among this target group. Through his work among Turkish youth, he made working visits to Turkey and made contact with Turkish Pentecostal churches. In Turkey, he came into contact with Iranian Christians who had fled. In the Netherlands, Bishop Wim Odendaal worked together with the Christian organisation ‘Gospel for Gast’ and various government agencies to receive and guide these refugees.
The street
In 1988, Bishop Wim got into serious trouble, business-wise. During that period, he lost his company, his money; his wife and children through divorce. Eventually he ended up as a homeless person in Amsterdam. For months he wandered with an Iranian friend in the Redlight Zone of Amsterdam. His friends were dealers, drug addicts, prostitutes. He became one of them, without hope. Sometimes sleeping in a homeless shelter, sometimes at a friend’s house or in cars. He often cried out to God during this period. God was merciful to him.
Victory Outreach
He came into contact with Christians from the Victory Outreach church. The church with a heart for addicts and outcasts. These people embraced him and all they said was: Jesus loves you, come back! Bishop Wim recovered at Victory Outreach. In 1995 he received a prophetic word from pastor Joffry Leito of Victory Outreach Amsterdam: God is going to give back all your lost years! At Victory Outreach Bishop Wim met his current wife Sonja. And when they got married there was only one thing: I and my house will serve the Lord. Together they served at Victory Outreach Lelystad, Amsterdam and Rotterdam. Between 1999 and 2001 Bishop Wim was one of the leaders and the right hand of Sergio Allauca. the director of the men’s Home/Rehabilitation of Victory Outreach Rotterdam. Between 1997 and 1999 he attended the Victory Outreach School of Ministries in Amsterdam. In early 2001, Bishop Wim and Sonja said goodbye to Victory Outreach.
Peru
In September 2001, Pastors Wim and Sonja Odendaal, together with Pastor Sergio and Mary Allauca, were ordained as leaders and sent as missionaries to Peru in a special service by representatives, pastors and elders of the VPE (Assemblies of God Netherlands), the Jonah Church Ede and the Pinkstergemeente Filadelfia Deventer. Two couples, coming from a difficult background of children’s homes, youth/prison, abuse, wandering, addiction, prostitution. Outcast in the eyes of people but bought free and set free by the power of the blood of Jesus Christ.
With the blessing of the above-mentioned churches and organizations sent out but without any financial help. Only with a command and a vision from God to step out in faith and with a prophetic word and promise that God would provide because He is the Lord of all gold and silver. And that God would provide as a team of pastors dared to trust in Him.
In Peru, pastor Wim and Sonja Odendaal worked as pastors in the team of pastor Sergio and Mary Allauca and are the co-founders of the ministry Iglesia Libertad/Hogares Libertad in Cusco, Peru, which reaches out through evangelism to prisoners in prisons, risk groups and street children in the city of Cusco, 3300 meters high in the Andres Mountains in Peru.
Through this ministry, churches were planted, shelters for children, shelters for addicted men and women were established and outpatient care was given to ex-convicts. Self-support projects were set up, including a restaurant and a welding company. The team pioneered in the border area between Peru and Brazil, where they founded a church and set up an evangelical primary school.
Our God is a trustworthy God. They have gone through various very difficult situations, but in the years that lie behind them they have experienced that God has never abandoned them and has always provided. The first generation of (street) children/ youth, are now the leaders of various ministries in the churches in Peru.
The first congregation Iglesia Libertad has been handed over to a new generation of pastors who grew up and emerged from their own church; they have taken the vision and are one of the churches of the International Apostolic/ Prophetic Ministry Libertad para las Naciones of Apostle Sergio and Mary Allauca.
Surinam
In 2002, the second year of their stay in Peru, a Word from God came that Pastor Sergio and Mary Allauca would further expand the ministry in Peru and that Pastor Wim and Sonja Odendaal would fly back and forth from east to west to provide the ministry by speaking in different countries and thereby also to lay a good financial foundation.
From that time on, Pastor Wim flew back and forth from Peru to the Netherlands at intervals of weeks, sometimes months, to build a stable home front for the ministry in Peru and to help expand the ministry in Peru to another level.
In 2003, during a visit to the Netherlands, Pastor Wim Odendaal was invited to attend a multicultural meeting in Amsterdam where a well-known African pastor would speak. During the sermon, this preacher stopped. Steps off the stage and comes to Pastor Wim and speaks a prophetic word: Pastor, God is going to take you to Africa to build a ministry.
In the spring of 2005, during a family visit in Suriname, God made it clear to the pastor couple that He wanted to take them in a different direction. Early 2006, during a speech in the Elim Church Hilversum/Netherlands, God confirmed through a prophetic word that He wanted to use them in Suriname to guide and help children in need, people on the fringes of society and in prisons and to set up a shelter and rehabilitation/training center for ex-convicts and for missions in the interior. All doors in Suriname would be opened for us from within.
In 2006, the House of Suriname Foundation was established in Suriname and the pastor couple was blessed and sent out as pastors for the ministry of House of Hope Ministries Suriname in a meeting of the HICC church (Hilversum International Christian Center, now Thousand Hills Hilversum International) by pastors of the aforementioned church and the pastors of the full gospel church Lelystad and the Jonah church Ede.
Prisoners
In 2008, the House of Hope team was invited through contacts with the Ministry of Justice/Delinquent Care to provide block study and counseling to Christian prisoners in the Duisburg prison and later also in Santa Boma. The reason for this was a letter from Pastor Wim Odendaal to the Ministry of Justice because his experience in the prisons in Peru has shown that conversion through evangelization in prisons is no guarantee that they will not fall back into the old behavior pattern after release.
By laying a foundation through special studies and counseling and building relationships with men who have become Christians in prison. This is important because in Suriname too, there is hardly any talk of probation and people often fall into a hole after release. House of Hope Suriname has been providing outpatient care since 2008 and since 2012 has had the possibility of temporary shelter, internal guidance, spiritual and social/societal and an internal training for ex-detained men to gradually return them to Surinam society.
In addition to the shelter, the pastoral team has set up a self-support agricultural project. In 2008, this was already started on a small scale to be able to provide for their own needs. At the end of 2012, Houses of Hope Ministries Surinam received a donation so that at the beginning of 2013, they could start developing 2 hectares of agricultural land belonging to the house and provide the necessary finances that are needed to develop the various components of the vision.
Ghana
In 2010, Bishop Wim gets in touch with a brother from Ghana, and in 2015 he makes his first visit to Ghana.
In the meantime, there are three Houses of Hope Ministries International churches in different parts of Ghana. Three church are build and various micro-projects have been set up.
Houses of Hope Ministries International has branches and contact points in the Netherlands, Ghana, Suriname, Peru and the USA. Bishop Wim Odendaal is regularly invited for speaking engagements and conferences at home and abroad.