When I consider the state of the world and the church with all its conflicts, confusion, discouragements, anxieties, fears, and anger I ask myself what is needed to give confident leadership for the future. In times of trouble I look back to what and who made a difference to me in my formative years. In 1955 when I was fourteen years old I was struggling with the meaning of life, and the power to become the person I wanted to be. I wanted to accomplish something in life but I didn’t know what it was and how I could do it. My local church sponsored a mission week in which a 63 year old Dutch woman spoke about her experiences. She had been a prisoner in a German concentration camp for helping Jews to hide from the Gestapo. Her stories enthralled me. She radiated joy and hope despite her terrible ordeal. I wanted to know more about her life and after the meeting I enquired about it. She asked me if I had received Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. I stammered out that I had recently been confirmed but that did not satisfy her. I bought one of her books, entitled Amazing Love and read it from page to page. She began by describing the plans her sister Betsy had shared with her in the camp.

“The most important part of our task will be to tell everyone who will listen that Jesus is the only answer to the problems that are disturbing the hearts of men and of nations. We shall have the right to speak because we can tell from our experience that His light is more powerful than the deepest darkness. Surely, nothing could be darker than our experiences here. I keep telling myself, ‘things cannot possibly grow worse’, but every day we see that misery only deepens. How wonderful that the reality of His presence is greater than the reality of the hell about us!”

Her eyes did not see the dirty throng around us. She was gazing into the future, and a glow of happiness brightened her emaciated face. Three days later she passed away, and ten days later, just one week before all women of my age were killed, I was released from the concentration camp. In this book I shall describe some of my experiences during the first year of my wanderings. Why should I do this? Because I have discovered that there are many people who need this message. Human hearts are amazingly alike. I find the same need, the same ignorance of what we can be in Jesus Christ, if only we accept the Bible in a simple, childlike way as the Word of God, the Word that teaches us the foolishness of God that is wiser than the wisdom of men, the love of God that passes all understanding. When we read the Bible we should never use as our guide the wisdom of men or the standards of our own reason.

Radar sees reality through the clouds and the dark. The reality of the victory of Christ can be seen only by faith, which is our radar. Our faith perceives what is actual and real; our senses perceive only that which is limited to three dimensions and comprehended by our intellect. Faith sees more.

I am not a scholar, but much of the little I do know, I learned as I faced death in front of the crematorium in Ravensbruck. That is why God sometimes uses me to help people who know far more that I.

During that mission week in my home church, where I had been baptized and confirmed, I committed my life to Christ, and have never regretted it. We sang this hymn by Charles Wesley from which Corrie took the title of her book.

And can it be that I should gain an interest in the Savior’s blood?

Died he for me, who caused his pain? For me, who him to death pursued?

Amazing love! How can it be that thou, my God shouldst die for me?

Long my imprisoned spirit lay fast bound in sin and nature’s night.

Thine eye diffused a quickening ray; I woke – the dungeon flamed with light!

My chains fell off, my heart was free, I rose, went forth and followed thee.

Amazing love! How can it be that thou, my God, shouldst die for me.

This is what the world needs: the Amazing Love of Jesus Christ.