By Ted Staunton

Love remains young for Willene and Peter Kruk.

“Jokingly, I had said to this friend of mine – Barry Lepin, he was a fellow school administrator – ‘Barry, I need you to find me a good Christian man!’ – because it was hard to find someone on the same wavelength as me,” she relates.

“Three weeks later he phoned me up and said, ‘Guess what? I found somebody you will like. And he already goes to your church.’ ‘No! I can’t believe it,’ I said. I thought I knew everybody in my age-range at Johnston Heights.

“Well, Barry arranged for us both to meet at his place for a cup of coffee, and three weeks later Peter asked me to marry him. And he claims he’s shy!"

Peter’s journey

Peter Kruk was born in the Netherlands, in the city of Amstelveen, in 1936. He was the sixth of 12 children. Peter's father carried papers from the occupying German forces, excusing him from military duty.

They lived near the Schiphol airport, which was frequently bombed by Allied planes during World War II as they attempted to prevent the Luftwaffe from using it as a base to launch attacks on Britain.

Peter remembers often watching aerial dogfights that took place as German fighters attacked Allied bombers en route to the Ruhr.

“I left school at 14,” Peter recalls, “and did a variety of menial jobs before being drafted into the Dutch Army at 18. I really enjoyed that experience . . . But then I met my wife Tina and we began to form other plans; so I decided not to make the army my career.

“My elder brother Art had already emigrated to Canada, but he was homesick. He wanted some family to come and join him, so he kept writing these glowing letters home about how great it was. I was the only one that took the bait.”

Peter and Tina arrived in Coquitlam in 1960, with precious little money and practically no English skills.

Peter went to work for Art – who had established himself as a house-builder – and became foreman of the framing crew. Eventually gaining the confidence to try the building business for himself, by 1982 he was doing as many as 100 home renovation projects a year.

Meanwhile, his family had expanded. Ed arrived in 1960, Harold in 1962, Peter Jr. in 1964 and Lorraine in 1969.

Peter was also becoming involved in  church, where his expertise as a builder and businessman were welcomed.

“My background was in the Christian Reformed Church  (CRC) tradition, Christian school included,” says Peter. “Tina and I attended a CRC church for a while, but then fell away.” They then moved on to a Presbyterian church.  

“I became very involved there, and served as an elder for many years, while Tina was the church treasurer.

“ But gradually, I became more and more disillusioned with all the emphasis on church finances, and eventually dropped out.”

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It was not until after Tina’s death in 2001 from ovarian cancer that Peter felt the urging of the Holy Spirit to return to church. Attending Johnston Heights Church in Surrey with his daughter, Peter at last found a basis for fully embracing his deeply-grounded Christian faith.

“My Christianity had always been based on habit,” he admits. “But I began to understand my need for a personal relationship with Jesus, and decided to get baptized."

Willene’s journey

Willene Scott was born in New Westminster in 1938. Her dad was an entrepreneur, supplying wood, coal, sawdust and oil to local homes and businesses.

“As a four or five year old, I remember standing by my parents’ side when we looked at a house on Edinburgh Street in New Westminster, and my dad saying, ‘That's the house we're going to buy.’ It cost $5,000 – an awful lot of money in those days!

“What a wonderful childhood I had there. We kids played and played.

“In 1948, when I was 13, I went to a Baptist summer camp on Keats Island. It was there that I accepted the Lord, and my mom and I were baptized together soon afterward, at Edmonds Baptist Church in Burnaby.”

She remembers having three important wishes as a girl: “To go to the Duke of Connaught High School, because I wanted to play in their bugle band; to go to UBC; and to become a teacher. I was to accomplish all three.

In 1958, she married Rod Loewen. “We had six children over the years: Jordan in 1960; Michele in 1962; Tracy in 1963; Rodney in 1966; Scott in 1968 and Brent in 1971 – the latter was only three months old when we left Canada to go to Ethiopia as missionaries, mostly doing famine relief, teaching and medical work.

“It was a very turbulent phase in that country’s history. We were under house arrest for a while as the Communists tried to wrest control of the country.”

They returned to Canada in 1977. “I went back to university to get a degree in education and became a teacher. However, in 1995 Rod left our family to begin a new life for himself in Winnipeg.

“That was a difficult time for me, but with the help of prayerful family and friends, a challenging teaching position, my new goal of obtaining a master’s degree in education at Western Washington University, and – most of all – a deep sense of knowing that God was directing my path, my life gradually became stable and exciting again.”

Onward

After their marriage in October 2003, Peter sold his home and came to live with Willene at her beautiful home in the Fraser Heights area of Surrey.

He is now deeply involved in home improvements (naturally!), installing oak floors and granite tiles with the help of his son Ed, who is also a versatile handyman.

In the back yard is a neat, fully-insulated workshop Peter has built, along with many other garden improvements to be expected of a Dutchman.

Some of their 18 grandchildren (and two great-grandchildren) live nearby, so there are often little hands reaching toward the cookies on the table!

January 2008