A foster home for 25 years!

Arise, LORD! Lift up your hand, O God. Do not forget the helpless… But you, O God, do see trouble and grief; you consider it to take it in hand. The victim commits himself to you; you are the helper of the fatherless.

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These words from Psalm 10 were Marike's motivation to start a foster home for deprived Arabic children. And now she has been doing this for 25 years! It is a great testimony how she got her first house. But also in the following 25 years Marike has experienced God's faithful care and guidance for this ministry. This is what she says about it:

"I still have no idea where I got the rent for the first couple of months from. Twice someone gave me a bank note of 1000 shekels and said: 'This is for the rent, but I can't tell you who it comes from.' Also the rest ... household goods, furniture, curtains, bedsteads, bedclothes, carpets, sufficient to make a home for the first two children. The twins Yousef and Louisa, just two years old, came first. They were locked up in their house every day, because their mum needed to work after her husband had left her. Next the two girls Rania and Nadene, who were born in Beirut and came to me after a lot of moving around. And a lot more children! These early days were very hard! There was no money for a washing machine, a vacuum cleaner and other electric machines. The twins wore diapers, which I had to boil in a pan on the cooking range. Then I washed the towels and the other laundry. I also washed the sheets manually, and with the remains of the soapy water I washed the floor. Oops ... Little House on the Prairie circumstances!

I could spend ages with telling about God's faithfulness and the miracles He did for our family. He guided us out of this Arabic village to a safer place when the first Intifada came and the village was disconnected from the outside world. He provided huge amounts of money for tuition fees, so that I was able to send my children with their Christian or Muslim backgrounds to Christian schools. He saved us during the first Gulf war, when we already lived in the Old City. How did we survive the many times that the sirens woke us up at night and all the kids had to put on their gas masks? I still wonder about it."

Most of the children do not live with Marike anymore. They are married, have jobs or attend vocational education. But the social services still appeal to Marike. Apart from her continuing care and prayer for the above mentioned children, Marike is still requested to provide temporary relief for a baby or toddler like Sisi (see picture) until adoptive parents are found. Isn't it wonderful how God's faithfulness, love and care has been made real for all these children through Marike!