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.
Vocation and vision
September 1974, Rev. Wim Odendaal came to radical conversion through street evangelism and was filled with the Holy Spirit. He joined the Pentecostal congregation “Fildelfia” in Deventer, where the Swedish pastor couple Stig and Tonnie Sagström became his spiritual parents. Soon after, he was baptised. He became an fervent Christian who confronted people everywhere who came his way with Jesus Christ. He became involved in various activities of the church; attended the Kader Bible School of the Fildelfia Congregation in Deventer in the Netherlands and the two-year evening Bible School Zion in Meppel. He became an administrator and leader of the Fildelfia Congregation.
Agape
As leader of the Christian coffee bar “Agape”, Rev. Wim was closely involved in the care and guidance of second-generation Turkish youth. In cooperation with a Turkish evangelist, they organised evangelisation 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 refugee Iranian Christians. In the Netherlands, Wim Odendaal worked with the Christian organisation “Gospel for Gast” and various government agencies to receive and guide these refugees.
The street
In 1988, Rev. Wim ran into big problems, business-wise. During that period, he lost his business, his money; through divorce, his wife and children.
Eventually, he ended up as a homeless man in Amsterdam. For months, he roamed Amsterdam’s Redlight Zone with an Iranian friend. His friends were dealers, drug addicts, prostitutes. He became one of them, without hope. Sometimes sleeping in a house for the homeless, sometimes at a friend’s house or in cars. He often cried out to God during this period.
God was gracious to him.
Victory Outreach
He came in 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!
Rev. 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, Rev. Wim met his current wife Sonja. And when they 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, Rev. 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, Rev. Wim and Sonja bid farewell to Victory Outreach.
Peru
In September 2001, Rev. Wim and Sonja Odendaal, together with Pastor Sergio and Mary Allauca, were inaugurate as pastors in a special service by representatives, pastors and elders of the VPE (Assemblies of God Netherlands), the Jonah Congregation Ede and Pentecost Church Filadelfia Deventer, and sent as missionaries to Peru.
Two couples, coming from a difficult background of children’s homes, youth/prison, abuse, wandering, addiction, prostitution.
Outcast in people’s eyes but ransomed and set free by the power of the blood of Jesus Christ. Sent out with the blessing of the above churches and organisations but without any financial help. Only with a mission and 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 so provided as a team of pastors dared to trust Him.
In Peru, Rev. Wim and Sonja Odendaal served on the team of Pastor Sergio and Mary Allauca as pastors and are the co-founders of the ministry Iglesia Libertad/ Hogares Libertad in Cusco, Peru, which reaches out through evangelism to inmates in the prisons, at-risk groups and street children of the city of Cusco, 3300 metre 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 help was given to ex-prisoners. Self-support projects were set up a restaurant and a welding business. The team pioneered in the border area between Peru and Brazil where they established a congregation and set up an evangelical primary school.
Our God is a trustworthy God. They have gone through several very difficult situations but in the years behind them they have found 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 churches in Peru. The first congregation Iglesia Libertad has been handed over to a new generation of pastors grown up and emerging from their own church; they have caught the vision and are one of the churches of the International Apostolic/Prophetic Ministry Libertad para las Naciones of Apostle Sergio and Mary Allauca.
In 2002, the second year of their stay in Peru, a Word from God came that Pastor Sergio and Mary Allauca would continue to expand the ministry in Peru and that Rev. Wim and Sonja Odendaal would fly back and forth from east to west to provide for the ministry through speaking engagements in different countries and thereby also put it on a sound financial footing.
From then on, Rev. Wim flew back and forth from Peru to the Netherlands at intervals of weeks, sometimes months, to build a stable home front for ministry in Peru and to help build ministry in Peru to another level.
In 2003, while visiting the Netherlands, Rev. Wim Odendaal was invited to attend a multicultural service in Amsterdam where a well-known African pastor was to speak. During the sermon, this preacher stopped. Stepping off the altar, he approached Rev. Wim and spoke 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 go in a different direction with them. In 2005 also, during a speaking tour in the Elim Congregation Hilversum/ Netherlands, God confirmed through a prophetic word that He wanted to use them in Suriname for counselling and helping children in need, people on the fringes of society and in prisons, and for setting up a shelter and rehabilitation/training centre for ex-prisoners and in missionary work in the interior. All doors in Suriname would be opened for us from within.