In conversation with Nynke van Beinum
John en Nynke
A journey of faith, love, and trust
The story of Nynke
“I am truly a grateful and blessed person.” These are the words Nynke van Beinum uses to begin and end her story. They are the common thread woven through her life, full of highs and lows, challenges and blessings.
A peaceful youth as a foundation
Nynke Nauta, now sixty-nine, was born in Vijfhuizen. “My father was from Friesland,” she shares, “and he came to the west after the war because of my mother, with whom he had fallen in love.” It turned out to be a good choice, as Nynke remembers a very kind father and a bright, quick-witted mother who truly loved each other.
Her family was Reformed, but in a way that didn’t truly bring faith to life. “A passage would be read at the dinner table, but it was never really discussed or prayed about personally.” One moment, however, touched her deeply: when it was her birthday, her father would mention her by name in his prayer. “I always loved that. He sees me.” Those words would later take on a much deeper meaning.
Marriage and family: The search for connection
In 1979, Nynke married John, who was eight years older and from the same village. She knew him through his youngest sister. Forty-six years later, she looks back on a marriage that has grown from two people living side-by-side to a profound connection.
“John and I are two extremes,” she admits honestly. “He is very different from me. It remains a challenge, but it’s also a lot of fun because we understand how different we are.”
In the beginning, that deep connection was barely there. “We loved each other, and the children were our joint project, but there were no deep conversations. You didn’t know how to create that.” A year into their marriage, their two eldest children, a son and a daughter, were born in quick succession. The youngest, Jenny, arrived eight years later and was essentially their ‘conversion baby.’ “When I came to faith, I really wanted another child—together with God. She was truly a gift, a child with a golden touch.”
The turning point: A simple prayer
The year 1988 brought a turning point. Nynke came into contact with friends who spoke very naturally about faith and the Bible. “They had truly come to know the Lord Jesus, saw God as truth, and knew you could have a relationship with Him.”
The moment of change was very simple. “At one point, I got on my knees—I can still picture it—and prayed: ‘I want to talk to you again like I did as a child.’ That was really the only prayer.”
The result was overwhelming. “After that, I was just happy. The world became colorful. I gained spiritual insight. And I did nothing to make that happen—God did it in me.” That change was also noticed by John. Where Nynke had often been dissatisfied and focused on material things, she now became a woman who cared more for the home and the children. “It wasn’t something I did consciously; it was simply what God was working in me.”
Adventure and care: A heart for the world
Her faith brought out Nynke’s adventurous side. She traveled to Uganda with the young Jenny, hosted African children from a choir in her home, and went on trips to Romania and South Africa. “I’ve always learned a bit to ‘hang the streamers myself.’ I enjoy that adventurous element, but preferably with a purpose.”
At the same time, she developed a heart for pastoral care. Through the teachings of Noortje Goossens, she learned a lot about how people are wired. “She is an example: despite being intellectual and gifted, she lives with simplicity, without pretension, but very genuinely herself.”
The heaviest trial: Zac
Life took a dramatic turn when Jenny went to India for missionary work. There, she met Cameron, a musician called by God to create gospel music in Hindi. They married and had a son, Zac.
When Zac was ten months old, he fell ill. What began with a fever ended in an hour-and-a-half-long epileptic seizure. He spent three months in the ICU of a Hindu hospital, while COVID restrictions meant his parents could barely be with him and his grandparents couldn’t travel to India.
“Zac came out of it severely disabled,” Nynke recounts. “He couldn’t do anything—he could only lie down and smile. But we loved that child so incredibly much.” Jenny and Cameron returned to the Netherlands and lived with John and Nynke for ten months. “In those years, we had built a house that was big enough for a whole family. At first, we wondered, ‘Do we really need such a big place?’, but that was God’s provision.”
Trust in the darkness
The care for Zac was an intensive, twenty-four-hour-a-day job. “Nothing got better with Zac. We could pray all we wanted, but he was actually getting a little worse all the time. It was very sad to see.”
Still, Nynke’s faith didn’t waver. “You just know deep down: God is good. We trust, Lord, that your way is the best. If you can’t hold on to that, what do you have? You just continue to trust, even against your will.”
When Zac eventually passed away, there was intense grief, but also a strange gratitude. “Zac is with the Lord now,” Nynke says. “He is freed from everything he couldn’t do, and that is a comforting thought.”
But Zac wasn’t the only grandchild they had to let go of. Her daughter Marieke and son-in-law Cor also lost their son, David. He was born at 32 weeks and died shortly after. The grief for David was just as intense, but different in nature: a sudden, raw shock, in contrast to the slow decline they had experienced with Zac.
“We have four grandchildren in our arms and two in heaven,” Nynke says, with that mix of gratitude and melancholy in her voice that you so often hear in people who have gone through something like this. “You ask yourself: why? But then you think: why not? And what does an answer to that question change? Absolutely nothing. It doesn’t fix the grief. It doesn’t change the situation.”
The fruit of perseverance
Now, at sixty-nine, Nynke looks back on a life that has been shaped by God’s grace. Her marriage to John has grown into a deep bond. “We have no secrets from each other. We have also worked through mistakes we’ve made together.”
She has overcome her ‘favorite rotten feeling’—the feeling of being tolerated—through insight and by talking about it with God and John. She still does pastoral work and has learned to recognize her limits. “If I can’t help people any further, I am not responsible for it and I leave the problem with the person who has it.”
A grateful heart
She no longer has grand dreams. “I would like a camper, but John doesn’t want one,” she says with a laugh. What still occupies her is her heart for helping people. “I want to continue with that for a while.”
If there’s one thing that defines Nynke’s story, it’s the simplicity with which she moves through life. No pretense or frills, but a genuine trust that doesn’t waver, even in the hardest times.
“I am a grateful person,” she says at the end of her story. “I am truly a grateful and blessed person.” This doesn’t sound hollow when you know her story—it’s the story of a woman who has learned that God’s ways are not always understandable, but they are always good.
@wimvanputten