Restoring a church is a long-term endeavor. It can’t be done without great dedication and many years of commitment. The story of St. Francis Church in Oudewater illustrates this. The work—repairing, cleaning, and painting—is carried out with meticulous care. Not just for the sake of it, but out of a passion for the craft and a love for the church. The “lucky ones” restoring this church share their stories.
Ulrike Nagel filmed and edited this report for Katholiekleven.nl.
“For me, this craft is absolutely a passion. I have paint running through my veins,” says Gonny de Jongh, as she paints the grout lines on the bricks in the arches, centimeter by centimeter: “You won’t make me happy if I have to paint a window frame outside. This building is steeped in history. I think of the people who worked here before me with such immense passion. They didn’t have the resources we have today—for example, when it comes to scaffolding. How on earth did they manage that? We’re the lucky ones who get to restore what they created back then.”
Chiel van Dijk is a parishioner. He was baptized in this church, received his First Communion here, and was confirmed here. He was married in this church and had his children baptized there. Because he worked in construction for many years, he is now the ideal person for the church’s maintenance and restoration committees. He explains how, over the centuries, the groundwater level dropped, causing the piles on which the church was built in 1882 to become exposed and begin to rot. The church began to sink. Chiel points out how this has caused the paint on the pillars to peel.
“Everything here was sinking,” architect Gerard Vreugdenhil adds. “Upstairs, a few beams were holding everything together to prevent the vaults from collapsing. I had been asked to restore the church. But actually, we had to start with the church’s foundation.”
Grada Nederhof is a member of the board of the Pax Christi parish, which oversees the church. “People in Oudewater are very fond of the church. They’re enthusiastic about its continued existence, the restoration, and everything related to it. A restoration of this magnitude can only take place if it’s supported by the community. After all, so many volunteers are involved, in addition to the professionals doing the work. As a parish board, we can only be very happy about that—that these people are willing to take the lead and that this national historic monument can be preserved in this way.”
One of those people is Geer Zijleman. She works one morning a week at the office of the St. Francis faith community and was a member of the foundation that organized fundraising efforts for the restoration for over eleven years. “I’m proud that this is happening in our church, that it’s been made possible. I’m happy and proud to be part of this faith community.”
“It’s a truly beautiful church. You can see from every angle that it was built to the glory of God,” says the architect. Painter and restorer Rob Bremer shows how he discovered a detail in the church’s dome that one of his predecessors painted there in 1979 among the stars and planets in the sky.
