|
Téo J. van der Weele was born in the Netherlands (1937). After WWII, he spent two years in childrens homes while his parents were in jail due to collaboration with the Germans. This marked his life. He found Jesus at 18, and after Youth for Christ he went to a Dutch Bible School, where he met Wil and married in 1961. With their daughter Judith they went to Thailand in 1963 with the Christian and Missionary Alliance. Their three daughters attended the C.M.A boarding school in Penang ,Malaysia. Returning home in 1975, Téo became a pastoral specialist in Early Childhood Sexual Abuse in the early eighties and has been working in this area since. He received a B.A. in Bible and Theology from ICI in Brussel, Belgium and an M.A. in Intercultural Studies from Fuller (Passadena, USA). He has traveled extensively in Europe, teaching in over 100 Youth With A Mission Schools. In 1991 he co-founded a summerschool for pastoral (sexual) abuse helpers (www.esarpac.org) in Kolding, Denmark, with locations in Switzerland, Egypt and India. After working 17 years within the Roman Catholic Church of Austria, he decided in 2010 to become to become Roman Catholic as well. The uproar about sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church has given him a wide hearing there. His approach ("About the power of blessing" as well as the advice "not to look at the past until Jesus has given one enough peace to face it") can be read in the book that he wrote: From Shame to Peace (Importantia, Dordrecht, Netherlands). |