Regional Synod of Canada - Reformed Church in America

Pioneer Christian Monthly

Date - Mar/82

Contributor - Mrs. Henry Van Essen

Title - Finding Fellow Believers with Serendipity

Topic - Women

I once read a silly fairy tale called, "The Three Princes of Serendipity", as their Highnesses traveled, they were always making discoveries, by accident and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of.

..now do you understand serendipity?

- Horace Walpole in a letter to Sir Horace Mann, January 28, 1754

Going home ... going home ... going home ... Underneath me the wheels of the train sang its own rhythm, and the amazing thing was, that there were words to it. Words coming back with a monotonous cadence. But the monotony was not depressing. Oh no, it was uplifting. Going home, they sang, going home. I was on the way to my mother whom I hadn't seen for six years, and who celebrated her 80th birthday that very day. Sometimes people scold me for calling the place where I grew up "home". I've always felt more or less, that I have two homes, although the one is more important than the other. Home is: my husband and children, our family unit. Home is: the place which I make a home, where we live in close fellowship, in a close relationship with one another, where we can cry and laugh and have our ups and down. Home is: a place of warmth, of love and of rest. What more can I say? HOME is a word that embraces all those things I have mentioned. But before I became a "homemaker", I was trained in another home. I was part of the family in which I grew up, where my mother prepared me for the time when I should have a home. And so I feel that as long as my mother lives, she resembles that home for me. There I was, going home.

I traveled in an enclosed compartment. In it were a gentlemen, three ladies and myself. When I was comfortably seated, I took my knitting out and thus I could enjoy the Dutch scenery and knit at the same time. The canals were frozen and the land lay under a thick blanket of snow. People were skating on ponds and canals and I was amazed at how much these scenes reminded me of the old masterpieces. The way people skate on their speed skates; the ice being swept clean with a broom and at certain places the stalls where hot chocolate, soup and sausages are available.

For some time it was quiet in that train compartment. Everyone was busy with their own thoughts or reading material, until my ball of wool rolled onto the floor and got things rolling. One of the ladies picked it up, looked at it and asked if it was hand spun wool. When I said it was, the gentlemen became interested and for a while we talked "wool". He told us that his mother used to spin and said, "I remember so well, when I was still a child how during the long winter months, at regular times, the neighbouring women would come with their spinning wheels. We would all sit in the big kitchen while the women spun and talked. Those were good times. There was coziness and togetherness, and at the same time work was done, because being idle was of the devil. What a difference then and now!" How interesting, I thought. In our country we have quilting-bees, and yes, I've come together with other ladies to spin, but I'd never though about it as a "spinning bee".

Then one of the ladies mentioned that her son had a sheep farm in Australia, where upon lady number three said, that she had a son in Canada. "And," she asked in one breath, "where are you from?" When I told her that lived in Canada, the interest was focused on emigration, nuclear weapons and people wanting to get away from Europe. There was a feeling of unhappiness, of being scared. As I listened I wondered about the background of these people. One of the ladies had recently lost her husband, the other lady's had died nine years ago. They talked about how difficult it was to adjust to a single lifestyle, and I wondered and prayed when I could share my message of hope, because nothing pointed to any belief in a Comforter. But, oh joy, then lady number three couldn't keep quite any longer and said, "But ladies, don't you believe that we have a Father in heaven, and that He is a Father for widows and orphans? I have been a widow for 13 years and especially in the beginning when it was so hard, I read my Bible, and I prayed and He was always there. Some times I was comforted more than other times, and when I was not comforted at all, I had to tell myself that He would carry me through, because He had promised that in His word, and that's what kept me going."

Wow! ... For a moment it was dead silent in that train compartment. One of the ladies had tears in her eyes and said, "Thank you for saying it that way." The other lady was quiet, but the gentlemen replied how right she was, and all of a sudden we were not strangers anymore. We could share our belief in God and what he had done in our lives. We had fellowship, and we knew it!

I met a lot of people on that trip to the Netherlands. Many of them were church going people, calling themselves Christians, but I had no real fellowship with them. I could not talk about the things close to my heart; I could not talk about a living God and living a life of obedience to Christ, because they did not really understand what I talked about. "By grace alone" seemed a forgotten term. Things that I consider as sinful, according to God's word, are accepted as normal. It seemed that the world had squeezed a lot of people, also churchgoing people, into its mold (Romans 12:2). 1 felt sometimes like being on an island all by myself.

However, God showed me that I was not alone. Every time, unexpectedly, I met fellow believers. I think about my first grade school teacher, whom I visited. She is 76 years old now and she said, "I wonder so often about all the pupils whom I taught the principles of God's love for us, and ask myself, where they are now spiritually. I thank God that you came today so that we could share in His riches. " To my mind comes the lady who sheltered our family when our house was bombed, at the end of the Second World War. At that time she didn't want to have anything to do with the church. I had not seen her since 1945 and met her unexpectedly in the nursing home where my mother is staying. Her husband had passed away, and when she showed his picture, there was a paper clipping tucked in one comer of the frame. I read, "In my Father's house are many mansions". And I said, "Do you believe that?" "Oh, yes," she said, when her eyes lighted up, "if I didn't believe that, where would I go?" At that moment a spark flew from one to the other, and we had fellowship.

Another serendipity occurred when I walked on the main street in my home town. It is said that we live in a small world, and meeting a childhood friend who now lives in the United States, on that main street certainly makes the world small. How can I explain the wonder and excitement when the two of us met. The unexpected, the never thought of, we laughed and cried and shared. We looked in amazement at one another and with arms around each other we prayed before we said goodbye, right then and there. Oh, that unity, when together we could commit husbands and children and self into His care. God's timing is perfect.

For me these were serendipities, but not so for God. He, in His wisdom, planned it all. Every time when I missed the "fellowship", He provided something for me. And fellowship is important. Paul, also, in his travels, was nourished when he was within the fellowship of believers. In Acts 28:14, when he was on his way to Rome, he wrote, "There we found brethren". The brethren were fellow believers in Christ. They could share, they spoke the same language. This is still so today. Through it we will be built up in him, and strengthened in the faith, and through it all we will overflow with thankfulness (Col. 2:7).

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