Back to home

A long time ago, a desire began to grow in us to do something in missions. During an information evening at our church, “Grandma Magdalena” shared about her work in Namibia. That evening, both my husband Daan and I felt very strongly, “This is it!” We each prayed about it separately for another week and asked God for confirmation. For me, the greatest confirmation would come through the reactions of our children, who at the time were about 10, 12, and 15 years old.

Our middle daughter struggled with the idea, but after praying about it herself for quite some time, she said, “I find it very difficult, but I still think the Lord God is saying that we should go.” After that, we took more than a year to prepare everything properly: putting our house up for sale, resigning from our jobs, helping our children say their goodbyes, and so on.

To Namibia

When we traveled to Namibia once beforehand as part of our preparation, and set foot on land for the first time, we both had a very special sense of being home. In every step we took, we continually felt: this is what God is asking of us. We never doubted. Not long after, we left for Namibia with the whole family.

Our home support team worked closely with the (fairly new) organization we were serving with. Because we ran into various issues, we sat down together to talk. During that conversation, we were told that we could return to the Netherlands. We had only been in Namibia for three months, and our belongings had just arrived. Their reason was that our house still hadn’t sold, even though we ourselves were trusting God for a solution.

Back to the Netherlands

Within two weeks we were back in our old, cold house, completely devastated. We began to doubt everything: Did we really hear God’s voice correctly? Did we do the right thing?

Someone encouraged us by saying that we can indeed walk in God’s will, but circumstances can still change in ways we cannot control. Not everything is in our hands.

We needed a long period of recovery, but I can now see how God has turned things for good—also in the lives of our children.