Following the call: A unexpected story of faith across three continents

When Jean Wolfert looks back over her life, she doesn’t see a series of random moves from one country to another. She sees God preparing each step long before she understood why.

Born in the Netherlands, Jean never intended to immigrate to North America, let alone spend 18 years serving as a missionary in Brazil alongside her husband, Simon. Together they planted churches, raised a family, embraced new cultures, and touched lives that continue to bear fruit today. Even after returning to North America, Brazil never really left their hearts.

Now a longtime Elim resident, Jean reflects on a lifetime of unexpected turns, remarkable adventures, and the quiet faith that carried her through them all.

Did you ever imagine you would spend so much of your life overseas?

No. I was born in Almelo, the Netherlands, in 1938. I never planned to come to Canada; it just happened. My boyfriend had immigrated to the United States because he wanted to farm there. I stayed behind and decided to go to England after high school because I’d studied English, German, and French, but I’d never actually spoken English. I was only 17 years old. I worked for a year in a little hospital at a girls’ boarding school where Princess Anne had been a student a few years earlier. At Christmas, the school closed and the nurse didn’t know what to do with this little Dutch girl, so she arranged for me to spend Christmas at the Windsor Castle grounds helping there. After that, I stayed with a family where the husband was an actor in the Shakespeare plays and his wife made all the costumes. It was quite an adventure.

How did you meet your husband?

He was the brother of a girlfriend of mine. He was always working somewhere in Holland, preparing to immigrate, so I hardly ever saw him. Then one day he was home. We knew it. We felt it for each other. When he left for the United States, I stayed behind in Europe. For three years we wrote letters back and forth. They took weeks to arrive, but we kept writing. I had no idea what was all ahead of me. After he’d been in the United States for a couple of years, he became involved with a church that ministered to Mexican migrant workers. Every Sunday they picked them up for Spanish-language services. One day he told the farmer’s wife, “I want to become a missionary to South America.” That changed everything. I had been thinking I’d become a farmer’s wife. Suddenly I had to think about becoming a missionary’s wife instead.

How did you become missionaries?

I eventually immigrated to Michigan and worked while he studied. We went back to Holland to get married because both our families were there, then returned to the United States. After he finished seminary, he studied at the Free University of Amsterdam. We thought we’d be sent somewhere in South America and I started studying Spanish. Then the Board of Foreign Missions told us they were sending us to Brazil—the only country in South America that doesn’t speak Spanish. So we went to Brazil and it was back to school again to learn Portuguese. I was 23 years old when we arrived in 1967, and our daughter was only two and a half.

What was it like arriving in Brazil?

For me, it was an adventure. The missionaries all went to language school. The men studied in the mornings, the women in the afternoons. I’d drop my daughter off at kindergarten on the way to class, and she picked up Portuguese right along with the other children. We were the first missionaries from our denomination in that area, so my husband travelled around looking for places where people themselves were asking for a church. We worked alongside the Presbyterian Church of Brazil. We didn’t start Christian Reformed churches—we started Presbyterian churches because that was the main Protestant church for Brazilians. The first town was very simple. There were no paved roads—just mud during the rainy season and dust in the summer. The people had been waiting for a pastor. There weren’t even benches to sit on, so we fixed all that up. We bought a little organ, and I played it for the services. Then we moved to another town that was even poorer. We met on the porch of a little house and sometimes on top of a hill where several families lived. When we left, we left enough bricks behind so they could begin building a church of their own.

A Dutch colony called Castrolanda was looking for a pastor. They wanted someone who could preach in Dutch and Portuguese and also knew English. They came with an official invitation asking my husband to serve there. At first we said no. We didn’t want to leave the people we were already serving. Nine months later they asked again, and it was a very difficult decision. We prayed about it and finally felt we had to go. We stayed in Castrolanda for six years. After that we moved again to another little town, where rich farmers and poor labourers worshipped together in the same little church. Those people became such close friends. We couldn’t even find a house to rent there until the owner of the vegetable store moved into his shop so we could live in his house.

Looking back, can you see God preparing you for that life?

All the way from beginning to end. Why did I go to England to learn English? I didn’t know I’d immigrate to the United States. Why did my dad insist I learn to play the organ when I didn’t even want to? Then one of the first things we did in Brazil was buy an organ, and I had to play it. My husband thought he was going to be a farmer, then God changed his heart while he was working with Mexican migrant workers. I thought I was going to be a farmer’s wife, and instead I became a missionary’s wife. When I look back now, I clearly see God from beginning
to end.

How did you end up in Canada?

We had moved back to Michigan and were living in a rented house with nothing of our own. A church in Toronto was looking for a pastor. They had asked several times before, but we kept saying no because we didn’t feel ready to step into a North American church. Finally we said, “Let’s just go for a weekend.” After the service, I started talking with people and discovered so many of them had family members we knew from Brazil. It felt unbelievable. The church called my husband as their pastor and we stayed in Toronto for 10 years before we moved to B.C.

How did you come to Elim?

We had always wanted to go back to Brazil. After we’d left, the church invited us to return for Christmas to help out, so we did. While we were there, my husband had a major stroke. I had to bring him back to Canada in a wheelchair. For two years I cared for him at home in Maple Ridge. Eventually I knew I couldn’t manage it anymore. The house and garden were simply too much. I didn’t want to come to Elim at first but a friend suggested we come and have a look. Marian Heemskerk (Director of Community Life at the time) said, “Why don’t you stay in The Emerald for the time being?” It had just opened. After about nine months we moved into The Bowron. I’ve lived at Elim for about 20 years now. I was very happy in my apartment in The Bowron. It’s the longest I’ve ever lived in one place. I like Elim. It’s beautiful.

Jean’s story was published in the summer edition of CONNECTION, Elim Village’s community newsletter. You can read the full issue here.