A Delayed Start
I have nothing but unhappy memories of writing in elementary grades in Holland. No Dutch teacher had heard of hand-eye coordination problems. They were, however, heavily influenced by the then-accepted science of graphology, or handwriting analysis, which was supposed to reveal the writer’s personality and character.

My messy writing proved to them that I was careless, lazy, and probably had a learning defect, so I was forced to spend many hours every week copying out lines of boring text as homework while my buddies were outside playing street soccer. Happily, in this century, graphology is considered a pseudoscience and is no longer accepted as evidence of personality or character defects.

Letter to Oma
I voluntarily wrote my first letter when I was a twelve-year-old Dutch immigrant boy in Alberta. I wanted to please my Oma, my grandma in Holland. I described our old farmhouse home, and the three-kilometres-long cross-country walk with my little sister to the one-room country school, where I loved learning new English words. I told about the firewood I chopped and the water I hauled from the pump by the barn. I wrote about shooting gophers with my slingshot and waking up to the scary howling of the coyotes. I wondered how Oma would like the first letter from her oldest grandson, many pages packed with feelings and experiences.

Weeks later, Dad read Oma’s response to Mom, and I listened to the end, “Much Love from Mother.” Then a P.S. scribbled on the side, “I see Jack’s handwriting is as bad as ever.”

What?! I poured out my heart’s blood on those pages, but all she saw was ink! I never wrote another letter to Oma or to any other relative in Holland. But I did enjoy writing brief diaries and a few stories for school assignments. Then seven years later, I bought a portable typewriter, and my writing life exploded. I could hardly wait until classes were over and I could write my thoughts and ideas that were swirling in my head. And I loved writing letters—not just because I had a distant girlfriend!

Write to Remember
By then, I had become a Christian who avidly read his Bible, and I was excited to find many verses about writing. It struck me that following the exciting story of Joshua leading the Israelites in the battle with the Amalekites, God commanded Moses to write down what had happened as a reminder and to make sure Joshua hears that his victory was due to Moses, holding up his hands in prayer.

I wrote in my short daily diaries the things I wanted to remember, especially the things God impressed on my mind as I read his Word. God told Jeremiah, “Write in a book all the words I have spoken to you.” (Jer. 30:2 NIV)

Write to Inspire
I also wrote to inspire myself and others to action after reading that God told Habakkuk to write His message clearly so that anyone could understand it even if they “read it at a glance and rush to tell others.” (Hab. 2:2 TLB)

I still write the stories of what God is doing in the lives of people as a result of reading or hearing His Word in their own language—all to inspire others to get involved in the worldwide Bible translation ministry.

Write to Create
It was still early in my writing development that I realized that every story, letter, or description I wrote was a creative act. Writing is an art form. I start with a blank screen, and after much thinking, imagining, writing, and correcting, I end up with Something New.

In some small way, I created order out of the chaos of thoughts, ideas, words, and phrases until I had done something like what God did in the beginning, to create order and life on earth out of the previous chaos. (Gen:1-27)

Writers write to Remember, Inspire action, and Create. Let’s remember the positive things in our lives to heal, as in my case, unhappy memories. Let’s inspire readers to build God’s Kingdom.  And let us create writing that honours God.