A Memoir of Faith and Friendship
When I met Anneke Bjikersma, I was an eighteen-year-old
exchange student newly arrived in South Africa in 1991. I was scared and
excited to be attending an Afrikaans high school, and knew only a few words of
the language. Anneke, as fresh-faced and sweet a young woman as one could
imagine, with shining dark hair and bright eyes, welcomed me with such sincere
warmth and affection that it made me nervous. Unbeknownst to me, she was loving
me with her deeply spiritual heart, and was seeing me through God’s eyes. I was
completely unaccustomed to such a gaze.
But I got comfortable with the unexpected and undeserved
kindness, and we built a friendship over language lessons and shared classes. I
would only learn years later that “unexpected and undeserved” are other words
for grace.
Anneke coached me for hours as I struggled to master unfamiliar
pronunciations and awkward syllables. Afrikaans, thankfully, has its grammatical
roots in French, which I knew, but its Dutch and German vocabulary and sounds
left me spitting in frustration. Anneke persisted and to this day, continues to
take delight in my success.
In a friendship spanning now two decades, we both thought
for a long time that her greatest teachings were the language, history, and
culture of her country. It would take heartbreak and tragedy for us to realize
that her greatest gift to me was faith.
