Anniversary 14

When I woke up in the early morning of February 10, 1999, the country was covered with a fresh layer of snow. Beautiful!  This day I was going to marry Cees Molenaar. He was probably on his way already since it would take him more than two hours in our little white Peugeot 205, on the slippery roads. Thank God, he arrived safely, in his smart dark blue suit. My ivory dress matched his shirt and we were ready for this one-in-a-life-time event!

The day was wonderful and what really stood out for us was the church service! My dad preached from Psalm 90. Powerful, encouraging, promising and comforting with the beautiful concluding prayer: “May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us; establish the work of our hands for us, yes, establish the works of our hands.”

Fourteen years later we are driving together in our big white Toyota Land cruiser through the lush green tropical country of Africa. We are on a date to celebrate 14 years of marriage. A very interesting and adventurous journey: five anniversaries in The Netherlands, two in the United States, five in Zambia, and now the second in Malawi. God knows if we will celebrate more, and where. What a blessing! We just follow the ‘pillar of fire at night and the pillar of cloud by day’, as was mentioned in our wedding church service.

We spent our one night date at a cottage on Lake Malawi. Thankful to our South African and German friends who were willing to take our kids into their care! After a cup of strong Malawian coffee (of course!) we took a lovely beach walk. It is so special to have time together to look back upon God’s faithfulness throughout the passed fourteen years.  

When we were exploring the residential area (mostly fishing villages) we met a leader of a local Presbyterian church. He invited us to his home and pretty soon we were sitting in his house, greeting his (extended) family. How proud he was at his wife and daughters! Mr. Lennart shared some of the blessings and burdens that come with his responsibility in the community and church.

This is how we got to spend our anniversary in the midst of a local African congregation, shaking hands, singing hymns, preaching on the Prodigal son, praying the Lord’s prayer, and having fellowship with brothers and sisters in Christ. Our prayer and desire is to be used by God to help strengthen the church in Africa where many people hunger for solid spiritual food and many leaders need to be equipped to prepare and preach that.

On our way back home we saw the rainbow, God’s sign of faithfulness. We serve a wonderful, gracious and loving God! Too bad our next anniversary(date) is still a long way off…