The way back

Heather and Ivo Pyper met (and fell deeply in like) when they were 14, but life took them on different and winding paths. Still hurting from previous marriages, and both with young children, they found their way back to each other. Next year, they will be appointed corps leaders at Upper Hutt Salvation Army, while in their second year as cadets.
 
Heather and Ivo’s stories are as divergent as their characters. Heather holds a quiet spirit and is slow to speak, while Ivo can easily spin a yarn. They come from differing backgrounds, and their journeys of faith took them in opposite directions. But today they stand as one, preparing to follow God’s calling to become Salvation Army officers.

Heather was brought up in a Salvation Army family—her parents Neil and Merle Adams are retired Salvation Army officers. Her brother Robert Adams and sister Christine Foreman are both officers as well. Was it just a matter of time until she, too, drank whatever was in the water where they grew up in Napier?

Surprisingly, Heather admits she struggled to believe in God as a young girl. ‘I grew up learning about God, but I questioned it a lot. I struggled to believe because God wasn’t tangible to me and I couldn’t see and touch God,’ she recalls. Not that she outwardly rebelled.

It was at youth group that she first met Ivo and they dated for an entire year. Ivo looks a little shame-faced as Heather jokingly describes how Ivo ‘dumped’ her. Neither was heartbroken—they were 14 and simply got on with being teenagers.

By the time Heather was 20, she was dating someone else. She still attended the corps, and it still didn’t entirely ring true. All that changed during a ‘weird time’, when she was doing a stint as a counsellor at a US Salvation Army camp. ‘There was a lot of spiritual stuff going on at that camp,’ describes Heather. ‘It’s not surprising because we were trying to input spiritually into kids’ lives.’ One day, Heather walked in on a séance. Other strange things happened too.

‘I didn’t have a very strong faith at the time, but I remember waking up and feeling this presence on me. It was really scary, but I prayed and felt this release, and this peace came over me. I felt like some unhealthy things in my life were broken, and that completely changed me. I needed that tangible experience, and at that moment my faith became real to me,’ says Heather.

She married her boyfriend at the age of 21, and her faith continued to grow—she even went with her husband to Russia as a missionary.

How great thou art

Ivo and his parents emigrated from the Netherlands when he was six. They were never interested in Christianity, ‘except with fists up in the air at anything religious’. But, when Ivo was nine, his mum started attending the local spiritualist church in Napier. ‘They would run church meetings on Sundays, and we would sing old school songs like “How Great Thou Art”. We did healing with crystals, and would pray that God would protect us from the evil spirits,’ he recalls.

Ivo has a vivid memory of a spirit channelling through one man. ‘He had a naturally high-pitched voice and all of a sudden his eyes rolled back and this big booming voice came out, giving a message. Everyone thought it was fantastic to be used in the spirit world like that.’
Yet Ivo does not judge. ‘They were just normal people, seeking,’ he says. Ivo recalls seeing people’s auras, and told his friends that he was psychic—much to their amusement.

But when Ivo was 14, his mother quite suddenly and radically came to faith through Christian radio station Radio Rhema. She tuned in to the local Napier station one day and rang up to ask for a pamphlet. The guy at the other end of the phone drove straight around and took her through a prayer of salvation. In a beautiful twist, it was a friend from her spiritualist church who invited her to The Salvation Army. Ivo remembers his mum fully embracing her new faith and ‘throwing herself into church life’.

One day, Ivo’s mum asked him to come along to church as a Mother’s Day present (very cunning, Mum!). After that, Heather’s brother Robert—the corps youth worker—invited him to a youth service. ‘There were all these girls there and I got heaps of attention from them, so I loved it. The guys were really friendly, and Robert was into surfing, so I thought he was really cool,’ recalls Ivo with a laugh. Robert hooked Ivo up with the local Christian Surfers group, who picked him up every Saturday at 6:15 am for a surf.

Ivo’s faith grew, and he committed himself to Christ. He starting dating Heather, and was quick to share his faith with friends, who also started going to youth group. But by the time Ivo left school, he says, ‘Youth group became a bit naff. I got more into surfing and went to polytech and drifted away.’

Ivo met the girl who would become his wife and they moved to Waiheke Island together. He was drinking and drugging, but never doubted the presence of God. ‘They say that Johnny Cash was the only one who could love Jesus and cocaine at the same time, but that was a bit like how I felt,’ he says. And God never stopped walking with Ivo—the week they moved to Waiheke, he met the local AOG pastor, who gave him a job as an outdoor plasterer and became a mentor and friend.

With two small children, Ivo found his way back to church. Then, ‘just out of left field, my marriage busted up’.

Things fall apart

In Russia, Heather was crying out to God as her life unravelled around her. She had just had a new baby, Noah, when her marriage broke up. ‘It was a difficult marriage, but in saying that, it was still a real surprise to me when [the break-up] happened. I didn’t have any support, but in some ways that was good because I just cried out to God and fully relied on him.

As I cried, there was a moment when I felt this peace that I can’t explain, and I felt everything was going to be okay no matter what the outcome.’

Returning to New Zealand, Heather found support and comfort in her family. She moved back to her hometown of Napier, taking a job nursing part-time, raising Noah, and rebuilding her life. One day, a blast from her past plonked himself down beside her at church. It was Ivo.
He had been on his own bittersweet journey. ‘I remember being so angry when my marriage broke up, wanting to control the situation and not being a very nice person,’ says Ivo honestly. ‘I was just trying to stop the world from falling down around me.’

Every day, after working as a builder, Ivo would get home to an empty house, down some beers and ‘top shelf’ and ‘just lick my wounds’. ‘One day I fell to the ground and cried, “Oh God, I can’t do this anymore, I give you my wife and boys,” and I heard, “Stand up!” I felt instantly sober, and then saw in the Spirit this presence coming down over the whole room. And as it hit my head all these words came through like: “Forgiven, redeemed, if I am for you who can be against you, I love you, you’re my son.” It went down to my feet and back up again,
and as it lifted off I felt light, like the burden was lifted.’

It’s a moment that profoundly shaped Ivo’s faith, knowing God’s love is there, no matter what. Like Heather, he began to rebuild his life. His ex-wife and two boys moved back to their hometown of Napier, and Ivo decided to move there to be closer to the kids. One Sunday morning, he visited Napier Corps, and there he saw a familiar but long-lost friend.

The fairytale

From Ivo’s perspective it was love at first sight (the second time around). ‘There were butterflies, there was definitely still a spark,’ he grins. They met up for lunch with family and reconnected. ‘We made our intentions known towards each other pretty early on,’ he says. They had children to think about, and were burdened about ‘doing the right thing’. It was messy.

‘But it was a fairytale really,’ sums up Ivo. They have now been married for 11 years, and have had three more children together.

Finally, life was good. Ivo and Heather moved to Kaitaia to live the dream—with a house, fishing, a warm climate, good schools for the kids, and a nice plot of land. But there was a knocking at their door.

‘When we moved to Kaitaia we both separately had a very clear word from God about surrendering everything to God,’ recalls Heather. ‘Including everything I do and don’t like about The Salvation Army,’ adds Ivo.

Heather had always felt that officership hung somewhere over the horizon. ‘It was something I always felt I would do. Sometimes I thought, “Is it just a family thing?” But then I thought, “No, it’s more than a calling to The Salvation Army; it’s a call to God’s work, and he’ll use the vessel of The Salvation Army as our path.” ’

Ivo recalls standing on his deck in Kaitaia asking God for some kind of sign. “It wasn’t until [Salvation Army officer] Glenton Waugh told me to “shut up and listen to that still, quiet voice” that I stopped and I thought, “Well, I don’t want to be 67 and think, “I wonder if I should have become an officer.” ’

They decided to give it a go and see if the door opened. Fast-forward to over a year later, and they are coming to the end of their first year as cadets at Booth College of Mission. It was a shock to recently be told that from January next year they will finish their training as leaders at Upper Hutt Corps.

‘It was overwhelming,’ says Heather. ‘But I laid it bare to God and he gave me a clear word that he would be running the corps, not Ivo and I.’ Heather’s passion is simply to ‘see more and more people falling in love with God. That is the bottom line.’

Although they often feel inadequate, adds Ivo, he reflects on the Israelite tradition of reciting all the things God had done for his people in the past. ‘Even when I had little understanding of God, he was still there. Even though I haven’t always been faithful, God has been faithful. He hasn’t changed. So I can stand with Heather and the family, because I know who God has been in my life.’

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by Ingrid Barratt (c) 'War Cry' magazine, 2 December, pp6-9
You can read 'War Cry' at your nearest Salvation Army church or centre, or subscribe through Salvationist Resources.