A Conversation with Elsa Waljaard
“You Don’t Need a Conversion Day”
Why an official conversion day was never necessary for Elsa.
Elsa Waljaard grew up in a pastor’s family in Zaandam. Her parents, Piet and Paula, were affiliated with the Pentecostal movement “Kracht van Omhoog,” which gained widespread recognition in the final decades of the last century and had a large number of affiliated congregations. Her father wrote articles, spoke at conferences, and also held a full-time job—since the pastorate was not a paid position at the time. Her mother Paula, of Danish descent, stayed at home. That provided stability, though life in such a family was not without pressure.
“There’s a certain pressure on you when you grow up in a pastor’s family,” Elsa says. “Sometimes spiritual pressure, too. I remember a year when we had seven car accidents. We really said to each other: we need to pray hard about this.”
Still, she looks back on her childhood positively. Her brothers view it somewhat differently, but she attributes that partly to differences in personality. “When I heard a sermon, I’d come home happy. And one of them would come home feeling pretty down. One sees it as a ‘duty’ and gets stressed, the other doesn’t. You really experience it differently.”
She regularly accompanied her father when he had to speak somewhere. She went along with it, rather than resisting. Her brothers did miss out on attention during that time. “One more than the other,” she says honestly. “Ultimately, it’s about a bit of recognition and being seen. But that gets complicated as soon as it’s also linked to God.”
A faith without a day of conversion
Elsa’s faith was never something she had to seek out or conquer; it was simply always there. That sometimes caused confusion, even among the adults around her. She remembers that as a girl of about eight, she went along with a group of leaders. Someone told her she had to dress nicely to present herself and radiate value. Elsa didn’t understand any of it. “Aren’t we just here as ourselves? Who else can you be but yourself? Doesn’t Jesus love me just as I am?” At moments like these, she realized she actually grasped the essence of faith better than the adults.
That naive faith remained with her, but by the time she was eighteen, it started to gnaw at her. In every book she read, there was mention of a “day of conversion,” and she didn’t have one. “So I cycled to the North Sea Canal and sat down on a rock. ‘Okay,’ I said, ‘today I’m giving my life to You. Now I have an official date.’” She laughs about it. “Looking back, I didn’t need that at all. It had been deep inside me for a long time.”
Creativity as a Calling
In her parents’ evangelical movement, the Word was everything: the spoken word, the written word. Creativity was a peripheral phenomenon, intended at most for a youth activity or an event outside of the service. Elsa couldn’t make sense of that. “I thought: how can we sit in church on Sunday morning and be so bored? I just couldn’t wrap my head around that. We act all well-behaved, and only afterward do we get to be ourselves again. I found that unnatural.”
She set out to investigate: what does the Bible actually say about creativity? At seventeen, she left for England with her own savings to take a mime course. The following year, she took a drama course in Sweden, and when she heard that the Americans Todd and Marilyn Farley were coming to the Netherlands to teach, she signed up immediately. “They were truly the best. A biblical foundation combined with incredibly hard work on your craft. I’ve followed that path ever since.”
Fortunately, her parents were open to it. Her mother would sometimes say, “Don’t tell Grandma, because she wasn’t even allowed to whistle at home back in the day.” That’s how strict it was in some circles at the time. But not everyone shared that openness. During a camp week, Elsa was told at the last minute that she couldn’t perform in a dance show with four teenagers. Too unconventional, the leaders thought. “I almost got in trouble,” she jokes. “But I knew: they were wrong.”
She didn’t rebel, but chose her own path. She wrote her own courses and offered them outside the church structures. Together with Gert van de Vijver, Sonja Blok (Smalheer), and a few others, she traveled to countries like Sweden, Norway, and Denmark to teach. Yet she noticed that creativity was often seen as second-rate. “At a Bible school, I slept on a mattress in the kitchen, while the other teachers stayed in a hotel. Creativity is nice ‘on the side,’ but you’re not considered a full-fledged teacher.”
Yet she didn’t give up. She knew why she was doing it. “When I was seventeen, God asked me, ‘Do you want to serve Me in ways never seen or heard of before?’ I didn’t say yes right away, but eventually I did.”
Nuance as a Sign of Maturity
Elsa has been on this journey for years now, and that’s reflected in her worldview. Her faith hasn’t faded, but it has become more nuanced. These days, she speaks at many different churches, including PKN congregations, and chooses her words carefully there. “I adapt. I’m not going to burden people with ‘my’ language if I know it doesn’t resonate with them. But I am clear: if my way of proclaiming the Word doesn’t sit well with you, you don’t have to invite me anymore. We’ll remain good friends.”
She has also sometimes had reservations about the prophetic. “People sometimes shout in meetings: ‘Come forward now, because the Spirit is present!’ And I myself don’t experience anything at all. Then I look back and see that ninety percent of the room just stays seated.” She sees people standing up out of fear that they’re missing something. “Then I think: oh, those sweet people. At the same time, I do believe in the prophetic.”
In Scotland, during a conference Elsa was involved in, that difference became painfully clear. While her fellow speakers/colleagues went into the hall after the service for prayer and healing for those present, Elsa remained calmly seated. In the back, she saw two teenagers. She walked over to them and simply sat down next to them. A team member reacted irritably: “You’re not doing anything; you’re just sitting there.” Later, they talked it out. “I shouldn’t operate from an anointing I don’t have. This is how I work.”
Walking as a Method
Although Elsa recently completed training to become a walking coach, she has actually been walking with people her whole life. The training simply gave her the structure and the terminology. “I love learning. Now it became official: objectives, conversation styles, methodology.”
According to her, walking works fundamentally differently than a conversation at a table. “Especially for young people, eye contact can sometimes be too confrontational. Walking side by side makes talking much more comfortable.” For that same reason, during the years of dance classes and performances, she also drove a lot with teenagers in the car. “You’re both looking ahead. Then suddenly, all sorts of things get shared.”
After completing her walking coaching training, she was immediately assigned two complex cases: a girl who was completely mentally stuck and a transgender journey in which the parents asked if Elsa could “fix” their child. “I said right away: no, I’m not going to do that. But I did go for walks with them and learned a lot from it. I didn’t have the answers either.” She fell back on her basics: walking, being present, without the pressure of a formal framework.
The Dutch concept of “fixing”
One of Elsa’s greatest motivations is the way we deal with suffering in the Netherlands. We want to solve it, explain it, or apply a Bible verse to it. “Here in the Netherlands, we often have no answer to suffering. Not even non-believers do. We want to fix it and avoid suffering as much as possible.”
She has written plays about this, together with others, such as Draw Life, in which they ask whether, as a believer, you’re still allowed to doubt. “In many circles, that’s not allowed; then you’re immediately ‘torn between two stools.’ But are you also allowed to simply grieve? We often have no explanation for the pain.” She quotes a saying that has always stayed with her: “The Westerner asks: where is God in my suffering? The Easterner says: there is suffering, but God is there.”
The accident that changed everything
At the age of twenty-one, Elsa was in a serious car accident. She suffered a double whiplash injury that wasn’t recognized at the time. The hospital sent her home with the message that it would be over in three weeks. It wasn’t. For five years, she searched in vain for help, while people suggested it was “all in her head.”
“I was a gym teacher. I’d come home crying and go to work crying. For five years.” When the diagnosis finally came, she slept almost nonstop for six weeks. The reality was harsh: a steady job was too much. She had to set her own pace. A foundation was established, and she began living off donations. “I thought: what can I still do? Movement is good for my body. Talking and moving—that’s the core.”
She made it her work. “With the idea: Satan, you tried to bring me down, but I’m going to keep going and turn this into something good.” She doesn’t know how her life would have turned out without that accident. “I can’t regret it. It’s part of who I am.”
Monday through Saturday
Elsa firmly believes in the value of the weekday. “Sunday is a celebration, a time to thank God. But real life happens from Monday through Saturday. That’s where my passion lies.”
She walks every day, regardless of the weather, plays the guitar, and regularly babysits her young cousins. In addition, she was active in local politics for years. She spoke with mayors and aldermen of all political persuasions. “Politics is the easiest place to be a Christian. You stand for the ChristenUnie; the label is already stamped on your forehead.”
What did she learn there above all? Speaking through the chairperson. “That’s wonderful. You can launch the fiercest attack and then just have a beer with that same person. The church could learn a lot from that.” But she also knew when it was over. “I’m pragmatic. In politics, you have to make plans for ten years down the road. That’s not how I’m wired. It was an educational time, but at a certain point, the season was over.”
Jesus as the Foundation
At the end of every conversation—and perhaps at the end of every life—only one thing remains, according to Elsa. Not a pious cliché, but a sober observation.
“Whether things are going well or badly, whether someone is healthy or terminally ill: in the end, the circle becomes very small. And then, really, only Jesus remains.” She says this to her neighbors and to people in deep pain. Not as a ready-made answer, but as a profound truth. “I continue to bear witness to that. But I always add: what can I do for you right now?”
That is Elsa Waljaard: someone who believes with her whole being. Who walks, dances, writes, and asks—always asks—what the other person needs.
@wimvanputten