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On Saturday I became acquainted with someone from church
history I knew little about, all because of a visit to a credit union. My husband and I were looking for
information about how a credit union might meet our banking needs. During our meeting we found out that the
original name of this particular financial group was “St. Willibrord Credit
Union.” Even more surprising to us was
that it had been started by Dutch immigrants in Southwestern Ontario (Canada)
in 1951.
I thought I knew
all the big names in Dutch history: Dr. Abraham Kuyper, William of Orange,
Erasmus of Rotterdam, Rembrandt van Rijn, Guido De Brès. Now I had to go back much further to
understand why people of my ethnic origin would choose an unpronounceable name
for an institution they were founding.
St. Willibrord was
actually born in England during the 7th century A.D. After being trained at a monastery in
Ireland, he came to the Low Countries as a missionary. Earlier the Dutch and Frisians had resisted
the missionary efforts of the Franks, and they remained worshippers of Wodan[1]
(our day of the week “Wednesday” comes from this god). Through great courage and perseverance,
Willibrord showed the people of the Netherlands that Jesus Christ is greater
than their images of stone. Without
Willibrord as the one to lead the people out of paganism, I wonder if any of
the other names would have made it into a history book.
While his
name is hard to say, Willibrord is a link in the chain of God’s providence
towards my people. For that I am
grateful.
[1] This
information comes out of a book entitled God’s Care and Continuance of His
Church, Volume 1 by John Vreugdenhil, translated from Dutch by John Van
Grouw, ©1991.
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