A conversation with Fieke Goedhart
Part 2
My life story about war, rejection, and the power of love.
Summary of Part 1
When people tell me I’ve been through a lot, I always think it’s not that bad. Still, my history is full of memories that are quite something. I was only six when I ended up in a Japanese internment camp. My mother died there, and as a child, I literally had to fight to survive. Back then, death was the most normal thing in the world.
But this isn’t a sad story. It’s about growing up with rejection, the power of my faith, and how I eventually learned to forgive. I’ll take you on a journey from Bandung to Noordwijk. Curious to know how I truly left this past behind me? Then read this serialized story.
Two characters, one foundation
Kees comes from a completely different background than I do. As a child, he wasn’t interested in the church and had only non-believing friends, until he met his first love through a short play at a youth group. It wasn’t until later, on the streets of Amsterdam, that he gave his life to the Lord—and that felt completely real to him.
The woman beside the famous man
Kees is widely known in the Netherlands for his work. People often ask me if I have a hard time with that role in the background. Back when we were with Stromen van Kracht, the woman received an equal amount of attention and had an equal say in the ministry; we did everything together, even during our years in missions. When we returned and I became pregnant, that changed. For a while, I wondered: Who am I now that I’m no longer doing anything “spiritual”? My mother-in-law then said something that has always stayed with me: “You are a child of God who, wherever you are, bears witness to who God is. That is your task. Not what you do, but who you are.”
Kees has always given me complete freedom to participate in whatever was needed in the church, and he even encouraged me to do so. I’ve given talks, led training sessions, and helped with courses. Only at large conferences where people only know Kees do I sometimes hear, “Oh, are you the wife of…” That doesn’t bother me. It’s in my nature to prefer staying in the background.
Pastoral care and letting go
Many people have shared their stories with me over all these years of pastoral care. Some stories stay with you; for some people, you keep praying. But most of it you have to let go of—not out of indifference, but because otherwise you can’t keep helping. If you get emotionally involved with everyone, you can no longer truly support anyone. We were once taught this as a wise lesson: listen, pass on what you receive from God, and then let it go.
Disappointment in the church
The most painful thing I’ve experienced in all those years isn’t the sorrow of war, but the sorrow caused by situations within churches and ministries. People you trust who then hurt you, or people you saw fall into sin. At one point, several such situations came together at once, and that caused a real crisis of faith: Are we really in the right place here? Fortunately, we got through it, partly because we had each other. At times like that, you cling to the only thing that’s truly certain.
What made it especially difficult was that, instead of support, we sometimes faced accusations. Someone once called to ask if I knew where Kees went every evening—he said he was going to “Bible study,” but did I actually follow him? Another person literally said she didn’t want any more contact with me, in case something went wrong with Kees’s ministry as well. Strange, hurtful reactions, especially when you’re already so vulnerable at that moment.
Forgiveness has always been the way forward in such situations. You don’t have to feel it with all your heart right away—you just have to be willing to declare it to the Lord: “I want to.”
And He will work that desire out in you, if you persevere. I experienced that myself when, after nearly a year of prayer, I was able to go to my stepmother without any judgment. The deep secret of forgiveness is not only that you’re rid of the burden, but that it changes you. That changes the whole situation; you start to see things with different eyes.
Four years of mission work
Kees and I spent about four years on the mission field, mainly in Saint Lucia. We were already on leave in the Netherlands and had sent our belongings to Trinidad, where we were going to work, when it became clear that the organization back home was collapsing and we could no longer return. At the time, the Opwekking Foundation took care of the missionaries there for another year, so that we could calmly look for a new home base.
We still see the fruits of that work today. Sonny Robinson, to whom we handed everything over at the time, worked tirelessly, and his sons have carried on that legacy. One of them, Timothy, has become the senior pastor of what are now four large churches in Saint Lucia. When that congregation celebrated its fiftieth anniversary, we were invited to deliver a speech via livestream. Many people there often don’t even know that we ever started that congregation; they mainly know Sonny, and that’s exactly as it should be. It’s not about our work.
It wasn’t until we returned to the Netherlands and campaigned for a church building of our own on St. Lucia that the congregation truly gained the stability it needed to continue. In that culture, where large Roman Catholic churches dominate the streetscape, you need your own, fully-fledged building to be taken seriously as a congregation.
We also experienced literal miracles during those years. At a time when we had to return all our furniture because we couldn’t pay off the loan, we received two letters on the very same day: one from a friend who suddenly offered to send furniture, and one from a girl in Canada who had dreamed that we were sitting in the dark crying and urged us to “open the windows.” Shortly afterward, during a service in Apeldoorn, someone spoke—without mentioning any names—about a missionary in need who required 3,000 guilders. A woman waiting outside for the speaker turned out to have just received an inheritance of exactly that amount and immediately thought of us. In this way, we have often experienced God being there at exactly the right time—never too early, but always at the right moment.
Changing times
When I look at how missions and the church have changed over the years, I see a lot of improvement. In the past, missionaries were simply sent out without any preparation for the language or culture, and without any guarantee of financial support. Now they’re given time to build a solid home base before they go. Kees always says, “The last bit of uncertainty that remains—that’s faith.”
As for the church in the Netherlands, I see both hopeful and concerning developments. On the one hand, especially among young people, there is a renewed hunger for God, and that gives me great hope.
On the other hand, there’s a risk of superficiality: that faith is supposed to be a nice, easy story, and that the image of God becomes disconnected from the Bible—as if God is nothing but “love,” without the rest of who He is.
Every generation seems to have to reinvent the wheel and have the same discussions all over again. The danger is that faith becomes “hearsay”—that you believe what your parents believed, without having had a personal encounter with Jesus yourself. And that encounter—that’s what it’s all about in the end.
Who Jesus is to me
When people ask me who Jesus is to me, I don’t have to think long about it. He is the foundation of my faith and of my entire existence. When I have questions—like last night when I couldn’t sleep—He is the One I talk to. I have something tangible to hold onto, something I can always turn to, something I’m certain of—even though I don’t yet know Him fully.
I find it unfortunate that in some circles, Jesus is slowly fading into the background, as if it’s all about “God” in a general sense. But the Scriptures testify specifically about Him, even in the Old Testament. If the Lord Jesus disappears from preaching, or becomes a minor figure, we’re on a dangerous path. Then we lose the heart of the gospel.
My first encounter with the faith also came through Jesus: Someone who did many good deeds and showed who God really is—not a scary, punishing figure, but a loving Father who loves us. That makes the gospel much more accessible to people who are still unfamiliar with it than if you start right away by talking about judgment.
Looking back
When I look back on all of this—the camp, the rejection at home, the years in missions, the disappointments in the church, and the miracles that happened time and again in between—I see, above all, a common thread of grace. Not that everything was easy, and not that I understand everything. But I’m grateful that, despite—or perhaps because of—everything that’s happened, I’ve come to know Someone who has always stood by me: Jesus. That’s the only thing I’d like to share with people who carry their own stories of pain and loss: forgiveness isn’t just about losing something; it’s about you yourself changing. Experience that you can LIVE again.
See Ezekiel 16:6–8. That Bible passage is also my testimony.
When I passed by you, I saw you thrashing about in your blood, and I said to you in your blood, “Live!” Yes, I said to you in your blood, “Live!” I made you as abundant as the crops in the field. You grew up, you became tall, and you attained great beauty. 16:7 to great beauty—Literally: to the adornment of adornments. Your breasts became firm, your hair grew, but you were naked and bare. When I passed by you, I saw you, and behold, your time was the time of love. So I spread My wing over you and covered your nakedness. Then I swore an oath to you and entered into a covenant with you, says the Lord GOD, and thus you became Mine. (Ezekiel 16:6–8)
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