Martin and Christina Veenstra on retirement in your nineties

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Little did Christina Veenstra know, more than six decades ago, that meeting her future husband, Martin Veenstra, at Reformed Bible Institute would help her preparations for retirement. I recently had the opportunity to interview Christina and Martin, and as she explained, prayer was a part of her life then, and is all the more so now, in her nineties.

“I went to Reformed Bible Institute (RBI). I wanted to go into nursing, then, but [as a recent Dutch immigrant] I didn’t know enough English yet, after three years, so they advised me to take [other course work first]. So I went to RBI and that’s where I met Martin. He was in his first year, and I was in my last year, and for me, it was love at first sight. But he had other plans, and he had other girlfriends, but I prayed for three years. When I was in nurses’ training, I prayed for three years that the Lord would give me Martin.

“I was a C student in nursing at RBI, but I always passed everything. But then I did not pass my state boards for nursing, because it was multiple choice, and I still was having some problems with dealing with English, so my mind went blank. So I became a graduate nurse. And after I graduated, I think it was either the same week, or the week after, I got a letter from Martin [asking] that we would correspond. Then I knew that’s what the Lord meant me to be, that the husband I prayed for would become my husband.”

While we do not always get the spouse that we desire, even when we pray for them, in the grace of God, Christina’s three years of prayer brought her two great spiritual benefits: a partner to pray and serve with, and practice in persistent prayer, which she carries on now in her retirement years.

Partners in prayer and service

God did see fit to grant Christina the husband who, sixty-three years later, continues to join her in prayer for the people they care most about.

Martin: “Now that we’re retired, and we’re both 90, I think that our service is more here [in Emmanuel Home], because I don’t drive anymore either. But we do get a ride to church every Sunday. So we talk to people here, the people here who don’t know the Lord. We hope that we can help to mold them, and talk to them at hymn sing.”
Christina: “We have a hymn sing every Monday evening. Martin plays the organ, and I more or less lead it. We have 50, sometimes 60 people come, and some of them are not from the church. So we are so happy about that. I pray the Lord that I can sing until the day I die.”

Practice for persistent prayer

Three years of earnest prayer for a very specific thing is good practice for the life of prayer that is now the focus of Martin and Christina’s retirement.

Me: “What do you see right now as your role in your own family?”
Martin: “Prayer, and more prayer, and then some more prayer, because we have some grandchildren or great-grandchildren that don’t walk with the Lord. They all love us, and we love them too, but they need the Lord.”
Christina: “That’s why I pray every morning for the whole family, every one of them, in the morning.”
Me: “What do you think is your greatest challenge in life right now?”
Martin: “The greatest challenge is prayer, and just, to live daily for the Lord. And hopefully that somehow, in time, rubs off on our children, that they say, ‘We love the Lord.’”
Christina: “The Lord can change the heart. As long as we are alive, we’ll pray for them until the very end. The Lord can change their hearts and lives.”

“Living the dream”

Of course, a life of prayer is not what our culture sees as ideal “golden years.” Back on May 20, 2000, John Piper told a crowd of 40,000 college students to aim for more than just comfort in their retirement:

“I tell you what a tragedy is. I’ll read to you from Reader’s Digest what a tragedy is: ‘Bob and Penny took early retirement from their jobs in the Northeast five years ago when he was 59 and she was 51. Now they live in Punta Gorda, Fla., where they cruise on their 30-foot trawler, play softball and collect shells.’

“That’s a tragedy. And people today are spending billions of dollars to persuade you to embrace that tragic dream. And I get forty minutes to plead with you: don’t buy it. With all my heart I plead with you: don’t buy that dream. The American Dream: a nice house, a nice car, a nice job, a nice family, a nice retirement, collecting shells as the last chapter, before you stand before the Creator of the universe to give an account of what you did: ‘Here it is Lord – my shell collection! And I’ve got a nice swing, and look at my boat!’

“Don’t waste your life; don’t waste it.”

Is that “Freedom 55” attitude still around? It seems to be harder to achieve now, but many of those who have the money still want it.

Recently, as I was waiting in line at A&W beside an older gentleman, he said that it was good that “we” retired people (I guess I look retired) had plenty of time to kill. So I asked him what a typical day was like for him. He told me that he spent six months every year in Arizona, playing softball and tennis. Living the dream?

A counter-cultural daily life

Martin and Christina have certainly not bought into that “American dream.”

Me: “In what ways are you staying close to the Lord?”
Martin: “I love to read Scripture. One thing we learned at Bible school; we fell in love with our Bibles. We love our Bibles; we want to read it more, and I should read more, and now I have the time, so I can. There’s some wonderful things in there that we can know, and remember, and put into practice.”
Christina: “I do it in the morning. I’m an early bird. I’m up at five, and Martin gets up at seven, so I have my devotions in the morning.”
Martin: “So I read more at night.”
Me: “Do you have any things that you share, Bible readings that you share?”
Christina: “More or less all day long. If he finds something, then he will tell me, and if I find something in my Bible reading….”
Me: “Do you have a list of people that you pray for?”
Martin: “Mostly family. We pray for people when we hear about the need, but it changes all the time…”
Christina: “And people from the church…”

Greatest joy in life

So, what is retirement like without the 30-foot boat, the shell collection, or even a driver’s license? For Martin and Christina, it is, even with all the problems of aging, a time of joy:

Me: “What is your greatest joy in life now?”
Martin: “You raise a wonderful subject. Yesterday [Sunday] we heard about Levi, who is a tax collector who came to know the Lord. He could instantly know the Lord. I think the greatest joy is that we can serve the Lord, and we know that we are His. He made a covenant with us: ‘I am your God, and you are my people,’ and we take that to heart, and believe that, and we rejoice in that. I do think that sometimes there may not be joy enough in this place. We need to dwell on that more. The joy of the Lord is our strength.”
Christina: “What is your only comfort in life and death? That I belong with body and soul to my Lord Jesus Christ.”
Martin: “I think He strengthens us daily for the walk that we have with Him, and if we want to live with Him, we get reminded of that daily. He wants us, daily, to read the Scriptures, how He loves and cares for us each day….”

While Christina needs a walker for her daily walk, because of peripheral neuropathy – ”The outlying nerves don’t like getting old, so they let me know” – she also finds joy in the Scriptures, and the opportunities she has to serve others less formally.

Christina: “Over the years, the Bible means more and more to you – how much the Lord means to you. It’s just wonderful. I love this age. You have all the time in the world to be of help, or to read the Bible. When I see somebody that looks a little bit sad, I do encourage them, as much as I can.”
Martin: “You want to encourage people as much as you can. When people live in a community, it gets very lonely for people, especially when their spouse dies. So when somebody says, ‘Hi, how are you today?’ – sometimes that’s all it takes.”
Christina: “We love it here. We do believe that God put us here….”

Unlike Bob and Penny from John Piper’s illustration, who have cause to tremble at their eventual meeting with their Creator, Martin and Christina are not wasting their lives. They are, instead, living in genuine hope in the time that God continues to give them on this earth, as the final Bible passages we discussed show.

Me: “Is there a specific Bible passage that lifts you up at this time in your life?”
Martin: “Philippians 1: ‘For me to live is Christ; to die is gain.’”
Christina: “‘The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The LORD is the strength of my life.’ (Ps. 27).”
Martin: “Or [Psalm] 103 would be a good one: ‘Bless the LORD and forget not all his benefits.’”
Christina: “He is in communion [with us] all the time.”

Interview responses have been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.