Update from Phil and Sarah Varley
Our series of summer guest blogs continues today with an update from Phil and Sarah Varley, who moved from King's three years ago to plant a church in Rotterdam, Netherlands.
Maybe it’s helpful to begin with some background – for those of you who don’t know us, we are Phil and Sarah Varley, and for many years we lived in Catford and were part of the leadership of King's Church London. In 2019 we started to sense that our time at King's was coming to an end. The season that then followed, of praying, talking, waiting (mixed in with some degree of worrying and also of God graciously speaking) eventually led us to not only leave King's, but London and the UK, and move to Rotterdam in the Netherlands to plant a church. If you’d like to know more about that journey then you can have a look at a previous blog post here.
We had never planned to move abroad, let alone plant a church, and yet God spoke so clearly to us that in the words of one our kids, it would have felt disobedient not to do it.
And now here we are, almost three years into living in the Netherlands and roughly two and a half years into planting Redeemer Rotterdam. These have been some of the most challenging and stressful but also exciting, encouraging and humbling years of our lives. The little church that has formed is a truly beautiful community of people from literally all over the earth. We are deeply grateful for all of those who have stepped in, and we honestly feel that God has been so super kind to us with the people he has brought to us.
We started meeting in January 2022 as a small group. From May 2022 we met on Sundays in a home (which was a lot of fun), and in November that same year we moved into a little community centre. We are now looking for somewhere new to meet on Sundays which would give us more space and greater visibility in the city.
So, what have we learnt?
1- that moving overseas is hard. We have so much respect for those of you who have also done that. This journey has taught us how hard it must be for so many who have moved from overseas to London – you have our admiration!
2 - that faith is critical – we know that sounds so obvious, but sometimes it seems it is possible to live the Christian life but not actually really express much ‘active faith.’ To step out however into something new (whatever that is) often requires faith. When things become uncertain, like finances, health or housing, you really need to know God called you into what you are doing and that he has good things for you. It’s much easier to talk about it than to live it. That said, it’s in the uncertainty where, if you lean towards God and actively trust him, so much personal growth happens – again, it’s not always fun, but it’s good. We are called to grow, to trust, to believe - we are not called to make being comfortable the goal.
3 - learning a new language is a challenge! Speaking Dutch involves making noises that simply don’t exist in English and writing words that are about 3 times the length of most English words. Despite the challenges however, we are glad we are engaging with language learning. It feels important to honour the place where we live, plus we quite enjoy (occasionally) feeling like we are making progress.
4 - God cares - amongst all the challenges of moving and planting a church, we have experienced remarkable provision and guidance. We’ve experienced this in the big things like housing and finance, but also in the much smaller things like miraculously finding someone to look after our dog. There are actually too many stories to share, but we have discovered, and continue to discover, that God is the God who sees and who knows. He cares and he provides.
5 - cycling is the way to go. We miss so much about London and the UK. We miss family, friends, hills, the familiarity and Greenwich Park – occasionally we even miss Morleys. There are, however, also things we love about the Netherlands. We love the people we have met, the city we live in (it is a great city) and, we do love the cycling – it is the way to go.
Thank you to so many of you who think of us and pray for us – we are grateful and humbled by your care and support. If you are able to pray for us going forward, please pray for our four kids (being in different countries is hard). Please also pray for protection and provision for us as a family and for the church. And lastly, pray that God will do amongst us all that He plans. In the end, that’s why we are here, because we want to play our part in what he is doing.
With much love
Sarah and Phil
Ps - If you are reading this and passing through Rotterdam at any point please do feel very welcome to visit us at Redeemer.
Occasionally we post updates at 360degreeview
