{"id":266127,"date":"2025-04-21T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-04-21T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.navigators.org\/?p=266127"},"modified":"2025-06-02T13:31:00","modified_gmt":"2025-06-02T19:31:00","slug":"when-god-calls-you-back-to-your-roots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.navigators.org\/blog\/when-god-calls-you-back-to-your-roots\/","title":{"rendered":"When God Calls You Back to Your Roots"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Although Joel Dotinga<\/a> had been in church all of his life and was a student at a Christian college in Iowa, he had never had a peer to talk in depth with about his walk with the Lord. That was until his freshman year when his friend, Jason, who was with The Navigators, invited him to a Bible study and started meeting with him one-on-one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Joel
Joel and Libby Dotinga in front of the Oldehove tower in Leeuwarden, a centuries old landmark that Joel\u2019s grandparents would have been familiar with when they grew up in the city.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As his friendship with Jason grew and he saw the impact of discipleship in his own life, Joel started to feel called toward discipling others. Joel discovered a heart for the nations after doing summer missions in Malaysia, and was surprised when he felt the Lord leading him to do missions full-time in the Netherlands through the Navigators iEDGE<\/a> program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI actually have a lot of family who\u2019s from the Netherlands. A lot of my history is from there,\u201d Joel says. \u201cAnd even though it was not what I envisioned when I thought about cross-cultural ministry, the Lord ultimately led my heart to decide to go to the Netherlands.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ministry in the Netherlands<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In 2016, Joel moved abroad to work with international students in Amsterdam. Through his time there, Joel met his wife, Libby, who had also had a similar calling to the Netherlands. Together, they moved to continue their ministry full-time, eventually heading to the city of Leeuwarden where Joel\u2019s grandparents had grown up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Amsterdam had more of an international feel, with a variety of students from other cultures and countries, students in Leeuwarden were more difficult to draw out and reach. The Dotingas were nearly the only Americans in the city, so building friendships in a new culture was a big hurdle. Yet, God placed relationships in their path to help them get connected and reach new people with the gospel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After joining a church in Leeuwarden, Joel and Libby quickly got to know a family who had a daughter who was the same age as their own. As Joel and Libby got to know the parents, Noah* and Hannah*, they found out that both of them had only recently given their lives to Christ.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One day, Joel asked to meet up with Noah, hoping that they could talk about doing a Bible study called Every Man a Warrior<\/em><\/a> <\/em>together. <\/em>As they were getting coffee, Joel brought up the book, asking if Noah would be interested. To his surprise, Noah in turn pulled the same study out of his bag, saying, \u201cI was going to ask you <\/em>if you wanted to do this with me!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt felt like such a God moment, that in God\u2019s kindness and sense of humor, He brought us together with the same idea of wanting to go through a relatively little-known study,\u201d Joel says. \u201cIt was like the Lord saying, How obvious can I make this?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Joel got to know Noah, he not only got to see Noah grow in his walk with the Lord, but he gained another friend to walk together through life. \u201cI was able to see how Noah grew in his faith over the following years, but it also grew me to have another peer my age,\u201d Joel says. \u201cWe were both new fathers together, and we were able to walk through a discipleship pathway together.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Running for Relationships<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Joel also saw the Lord bring relationships through unexpected, creative ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As an avid runner, Joel had always had \u201crunning buddies\u201d in the past with whom he could stay active and have deep conversations while running. Thinking of a way he could make new connections, he decided to try to find running buddies in Leeuwarden by posting on a Facebook meetup page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through this, Joel got connected to a young man named Alvin*. Running together, they had deep conversations about the gospel, and Alvin began attending their evening Bible studies. While Alvin has not put his faith in Christ yet, he continues to reach out to Joel about spiritual questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was struck by the amount of ground that we were able to cover through doing a shoulder-to-shoulder activity like running,\u201d Joel says. \u201cI got to see God slowly poke holes, using Alvin\u2019s curiosity to dive deeper into what was going on in his heart.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Lasting Impact<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Though Joel and Libby are now back to doing ministry in the U.S. after several years abroad, their ministry in the Netherlands is a powerful reminder of how important relationships are in the work of discipleship and sharing the gospel with those who are without Christ.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By committing to make yourself available for Life-to-Life\u00ae<\/sup> discipleship <\/a>\u2014 whether in Amsterdam, Leeuwarden, or the U.S. \u2014 God can create amazing opportunities for the gospel to take root in people\u2019s hearts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe place I saw the most fruit was through doing life together,\u201d Joel says. \u201cSo the question is, what are the relationships God is giving us? And how can we follow those relationships?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Discipleship Tip:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes, the best thing you can do to start a discipleship relationship is to simply extend an invite. Whether it\u2019s grabbing coffee with a neighbor or asking someone to go running with you, there are so many creative ways to create close, Life-to-Life relationships. Consider activities you are already doing in your life. Where can you extend an invite to someone around you?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
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One-Verse Evangelism: How to Share Christ\u2019s Love Conversationally and Visually<\/h3>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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A large part of the Dotinga\u2019s ministry abroad was sharing the gospel with their international friends. As believers, we are called to evangelize and share Christ\u2019s light with those around us. Are you interested in learning how to evangelize to others, but don\u2019t know how? One-Verse Evangelism <\/em>is a simple, interactive way to start a gospel conversation, based on asking questions and sharing truth simply.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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LEARN MORE<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

*Names changed for privacy<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Joel and Libby spent the past several years sharing the gospel in the Netherlands. Learn more about their story and how God moved in their ministry!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":266081,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_helpful_pro_status":1,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,6337],"tags":[1483],"mission":[58],"topic":[44],"class_list":["post-266127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-disciplemaking","category-ministry-impact-stories","tag-disciple","mission-navigators-world-missions","topic-discipleship"],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/www.navigators.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/042225-Article-Web.jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"The Navigators","author_link":"https:\/\/www.navigators.org\/staff\/thenavigators\/"},"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.navigators.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.navigators.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.navigators.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.navigators.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.navigators.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=266127"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.navigators.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":266129,"href":"https:\/\/www.navigators.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266127\/revisions\/266129"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.navigators.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/266081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.navigators.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.navigators.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.navigators.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266127"},{"taxonomy":"mission","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.navigators.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/mission?post=266127"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.navigators.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=266127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}