The birth of Gods Embassy
The story of 'Gods Ambassade' (= God’s Embassy) starts in 1992, when Hugo Van Leemputten was called by a professor of the last year of the medical faculty at the KUL (= the Catholic University of Leuven). He asked Hugo to come and testify for his students about divine healing. "To be honest, at first I thought it was a joke. However, it proved to be true, so I went to Leuven with my wife Inger. There I told my story to the students of the tutorial 'physicians and faith'."
My story? In 1988 the doctors gave me only a few more months to live. I had a very aggressive form of the non-Hodgkin lymphatic disease, a blood cancer. My wife and I were Christians. Our son Sam was 7 months old when they diagnosed this. Fortunately, we were very well supported by our local church in Mortsel. Together we started searching the Bible for whatever could be found on healing. We tried to surround ourselves with others who were also involved in divine healing, and we attended special meetings. Faithful friends surrounded us with prayer and actual support. AND: God cured me completely!
So, four years later I stood before these medical students and testified about my recovery, and it impressed them deeply. Together with the professor we also organised special weekends for doctors, to arouse their interest. Because of this, several doctors accepted the Lord, and one day we were asked to give assistance to a group at a doctor's home. This doctor who had been involved in alternative medical practice, converted and decided instead of having regular consultations on Tuesday evenings, to pray with patients who were interested The first evening Inger and I, that doctor and his wife and a few patients were present. A few weeks later the waiting room was crowded. People accepted Jesus, we prayed for healing and recovery of spirit, soul and body, and for every other problem in their life. The testimonies flew in, and the meetings on Tuesday have never stopped since. The group virtually bursted at the seams there in that doctor's room, so we moved to a larger room behind the house of two regular visitors. For years we had prayed for a revival, now we were in the midst of it.
As a matter of fact, we didn't even have the time to do all this, so I took a career break. Together with Ann and Nadine, both physicians, the church was initiated officially in 1994. Our vision can clearly be found in John 10:10: "The thief only comes to steal, to slaughter and to destroy; I have come so that they may have life and abundance".
We believe that already too much time has been spent on the first part of this verse, and we consequently concentrate on the second part: life and abundance in all its facets. Our goal is to turn Belgium into one of the healthiest countries on earth by bringing people into a living relationship with God, who sent His Son to this world to die for us on the cross, a replacement death for our sins, our diseases and our poverty.
When we led the church together with Ann and Nadine, we had the impression God told us to start a healing school. This thought stuck with us and after quite some time, prayer and study, we decided to go for it. I myself had already quit my civil service job for a while, but in order to realise this project Ann, Nadine and Inger needed to leave their jobs as well. Ann and Nadine stopped with their general practice in October 2004. Inger left her job as nurse in November of that same year. The Healing School then started officially in February 2005. To us the healing school is not just a place where people can come and receive healing. Here you learn how to live in good health on a biblical ground. The next step is obvious to us: becoming healthy, remaining healthy and sharing it with your fellow men. The school is not meant for sick people only, but for everyone – both Christian and non-Christian- who is interested in divine healing. We also aim at caregivers in every field who can apply what they learned in their jobs.
When we speak about healing we certainly don’t only mean physical recovery. When Jesus talks in John 10:10 about life and abundance, it means health in spirit, soul and body. Mental illnesses, including depression –sometimes leading to suicide- occur very often in our society. We have many testimonies in this field.
For us the Healing School is not just another project in the Belgian healthcare. We notice that our country gets international press coverage mostly with ‘’bad news’’ stories. As a Christian, you can be anti many things in government policies, but experience teaches that being anti rarely rears interest in faith. Consequently, and very decisively, we offer a positive alternative, as a matter of fact this is what Jesus did too.