Together with our 3 children, Sefanja, Mischa, and Manoah, since December 2021 we are living and working in Knysna, South Africa , where we have been committed to the poor and underprivileged community living in the townships.

 

We have been married since 2002 and both come from Leeuwarden in the Netherlands. Already, in the first years of our Christian life, we had a heart for missions. We never thought we would ever take that step into mission work ourselves, although there as always a desire to dedicate our lives to it.  In 2011, during a presentation given by missionaries from our home church, the Opstandingskerk in Leeuwarden, they told everyone they were moving to South Africa to do missionary work.

 

Out of nowhere, there was suddenly a strong revelation that this was for us too. It was really a miracle because before that time South Africa had never been in our minds.

From that time on, we started to delve into South Africa, the missionary work and the workers there. In the years that followed, we were involved in various missionary organizations. And we were part of a home front committee of missionaries who were also working in South Africa at the time. The desire to go to South Africa remained, but you don't just take such a big step, so we kept putting that desire on hold, because to take such a step with a family was a tough task to undertake. We had built a lovely life for our family in Leeuwarden, and leaving that was a difficult decision. Martin worked as a prison guard and Tirzah worked part-time in retail.

 

Everything changed for our family in 2018. Martin had to undergo severe lung surgery. However, after the first operation, there were major complications that required him to have another operation that same day. It was an extremely heavy and demanding time. Martin almost lost his life. A strenuous and long recovery followed. After recovery, the strong desire to go to South Africa returned. We then decided not to wait any longer as we had just seen that life could be over in a moment. The two of us traveled to South Africa in Februari 2020 to discover whether this was actually the step we could take for God and our family.

 

During and after the journey of discovery in South Africa we had enormous peace about the situation and started taking steps in faith. Miraculously, God has blessed every step we have taken since then and has opened every door for us. We are still grateful for it every day.

 

The first year we were in South Africa we worked at an existing foundation. We learned a lot there, but the desire arose to set up our own foundation. In this way, we can use our gifts and talents even better for God's Kingdom.

In 2023 we founded the ComeMission Foundation.

 

The name ComeMission primarily represents the Great Commission that Jesus gave us in Matthew 28: 19: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, learning to observe all that I have commanded you.”