So, this is how the story goes: Boy meets girl. They fall in love. Boy proposes, girl accepts. They graduate college together, exchange vows, and faster than you can say “I do,” they’ve unpacked from the honeymoon … and packed again for a move to Ecuador?
Hold on now, maybe the story goes like this: Boy meets girl. They fall
in love, et cetera. They graduate the school of hard knocks. Barely.
They exchange drugs and alcohol and say “I do” to the party scene,
marriage, two kids, emotional co-dependency, and finally a separation
as husband and wife. Then divine grace kicks down the door – both of
them – and a powerful testimony of healing and reconciliation is
erected. Renewing their vows becomes a turning point … on the road to
Belize, Central America?
Wait just a minute – which story is it? Well, both, actually.
The journey from wedding vows to mission field can be a wild
white-water rapid, as Jeff and Kelly Haanen will tell you. It also can
be a wilderness odyssey, as Ray and Connie Trynovich can attest.
Both missionary stories weave a romantic tapestry, which just goes to say: there’s no one right way.
* * *
Most people who get hitched in their early 20s are thinking about
paying off school loans, finding jobs, adjusting to married life,
apartment hunting, and just plain having fun. They usually reach
certain life milestones the old fashioned way: one step at a time.
Then there’s the Haanen method: hit the ground running. If you touch ground at all.
During a 10-week stretch this summer, Jeff and Kelly went from standing
on a graduation podium at Valparaiso University in Indiana, to standing
in an airport terminal in Quito, Ecuador, the home of their first
missions assignment with Avant Ministries.
In between, they made their way down the wedding aisle in Valparaiso,
honeymooned in the Bahamas, hosted support-raising socials back home,
packed their belongings, dropped in on a friend’s nuptials in Chicago,
rolled into Kansas City for Avant missionary training, and turned
around to pick up visas in Chicago and visit loved ones in Minnesota …
Whew.
The odometer is still gasping after a couple thousand spins on their
“moody” Saturn SL2. From this pedal-to-metal pace, Jeff and Kelly are
now adjusting to the Latin tempo of Quito, a city surrounded by
stunning mountains and the paradox of ornate colonial buildings
abutting business complexes.
“We haven’t had a whole lot of time for reflection – it all just hit
us,” concedes Kelly, laughing. “But both of us longed to see something
bigger than our school or the little suburb we grew up in.”
That little suburb is Plymouth, Minn., which was big enough for them to
miss each other while growing up only three miles apart. They had to
travel 500 miles to finally bump into one another – while living in the
same campus dormitory during their first semester at Valparaiso in
2001. They struck a friendship, but didn’t have their first
heart-to-heart talk until driving home together for Christmas break.
Kelly was questioning her lifestyle and life direction, and Jeff
introduced her to Christ. That spiritual bond spawned a love story and
an on-campus witness. By their junior year, Jeff and Kelly had helped
launch a Campus Crusade for Christ chapter that now boasts more than
100 students. They were engaged that same school year, in the spring of
2004.
Then came that ubiquitous college question: What are we gonna do with our lives?
“The majority of our friends are out getting jobs. But God built into
us a desire for adventure,” says Kelly, 22. “This is an awesome,
exciting opportunity.”
Within weeks of their engagement, Kelly won a scholarship to do a
post-graduate cultural exchange at a South American university. So Jeff
turned his job-hunting compass that direction. He’d caught a passion
for Hispanic culture during a study-abroad semester in Mexico; God
transformed that into a heart for missions.
Jeff is now helping to train leaders at an Ecuadorian church. The
Haanens also hope to rally a fledgling group of believers into a
Christian student movement at Kelly’s school, Universidad San Francisco
de Quito.
“So many times we prayed, ‘God, this is kind of nuts. But we trust
You,’” says Jeff, 23. “It’s not a traditional missionary thing, it’s
happening so quickly. We just said, ‘Lord, we are your servants.’ We
are here for a specific purpose, to do His will.”
* * *
Some might caution that the first year of marriage demands a more
stable environment than the mission field, “but that’s thinking inside
the box,” says Connie Trynovich, who met the Haanens during the Avant
candidate training in July.
Connie and Ray weren’t even thinking about God as newlyweds, much less
evangelism – “who would take pot-smoking missionaries?” she says. Yet
that’s exactly the journey God used to fashion their ministry.
They met as college students in rural south-central Pennsylvania.
Neither finished school, but the party scene trickled from campus life
into their married life in the late 1970s.
“It was almost like I never left school,” says Ray, now 51. “We were
just trying to keep it together financially, because I was blowing
about a third of our income” on drugs and alcohol.
Connie slowed down when they had two children, and a baby-sitter got
her plugged into a church where people faithfully prayed for Ray. Then
came Easter Sunday, 1984: Connie came home from a family dinner to find
Ray passed out drunk after work.
“That’s it, I’m done,” Connie announced. “I can’t take it anymore.”
An eight-month separation followed. Feeling as empty as his last bottle
of beer, Ray stormed into a Christian counselor’s office: “I have two
questions for you, and if you can’t answer them, I’m walking out: Why
am I doing this, and why can’t I stop? Because I’ve tried everything
else to quit.”
Ray did walk out – as a born-again believer and a changed man, totally
free from bondage. Connie didn’t buy it. Too many promises had been
broken. After months of abysmal attempts to rebuild trust, it was Ray’s
turn to give up.
“I said, ‘God, I’m done. If you want us together, it has to be you,’”
Ray recalls. “When I got out of the way, God started working.”
Two months later Connie called: “Can I come over?” Ray was expecting
divorce papers. Connie brought dinner. And the hope of a fresh start.
Ray wasn’t sure. That night he gathered the kids on the couch and
consulted them: a big thumbs up. Then the Holy Spirit nudged him: If
you don’t try, how will you know?
In 1985 they renewed their vows in a church ceremony, their two young children standing with them.
“We needed a fresh start,” says Connie, now 49. “This time we meant it.
It wasn’t a party. We put the past behind us. Ray was delivered from
addiction and I was delivered from bitterness and unforgiveness. It was
the beginning of our new life.”
They went on to earn degrees at Lancaster Bible College in the early
1990s. After Ray returned from a school mission trip to Jamaica, they
were eager to hit the mission field. But God said “wait.” While caring
for an ill parent and letting their kids finish school, doors flew open
for them to minister to others struggling with addictions and marriage
relationships.
They expect to be in Belize by the end of the year, working with
neighborhood teens in Belmopan and establishing a library resource
center at Central American Christian College.
“Hardship builds integrity and dependency on each other and the Lord,”
Connie says. “It’s never too late for missions. You don’t have to be
21.”
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