CONVERSATION WITH GOD

Before World War II, Corrie Ten Boom and her family served their community by opening a church for the mentally disabled and providing foster care in their home for young children. But when the Nazis invaded the Netherlands in May 1940, everything changed.

Jewish families and other minorities were arrested or forced into hiding. New restrictions caused the Ten Boom family to abandon their charitable work, until May 1942 when a knock was heard at the door. A well-dressed Jewish woman whose husband had been taken away and whose son was missing had heard that the Ten Booms helped Jewish families. Thus began “the hiding place” for those pursued by the Gestapo. The Ten Booms constructed a secret room on the top floor of their home, and many Jewish refugees escaped the Nazi Holocaust by hiding there. The Nazis eventually discovered the operation. Corrie, her sister Betsie, and her father were sent to a concentration camp where her father and Betsie died within a year. In spite of horrifying conditions and the constant reality of death, Betsie often reminded Corrie, “There is no pit so deep that He [God] is not deeper still.”