Last week, Elizabeth Musser visited the Netherlands on a book tour for her novel From the Valley We Rise.
The story brings us back to France during World War ll.
But I do not want to bring you back that far this time. It was great to be at an interview as part of her book tour at another Salvation Army location in Utrecht. The interviewer asked her a lot of personal questions about her mission and heart for Europe. It brought back lots of shared memories of the time when we worked for the same mission organisation.
Every two years, we had a Europe-wide conference, during which we made sure that we at least shared one lunch together.
One time, I remember vividly: the tables were laid in long rows between the apple trees in the orchard at this beautiful conference centre (highly recommended). We shared inspiration, fears and failures, and Elizabeth was always eager to share how to get one’s book published. She was a motherly figure for all of us.
Here, in 2022 with Fanny Benitez who lives along the Camino and writes about hospitality in Spanish and Julia Kramer who writes children books in German.
Elizabeth wrote the forward in my book: The World Around My Table.
In this book, I wrote about what brought us to a life out of our home country. It includes interviews of some friends I met along the way and even two stories from our children. The final part of the book is the often-forgotten period: How to come home, when home has changed and so have you…
I highly recommend her book, From the Valley We Rise, but I would also like to draw your attention to her precious words in the forward she wrote for me.
For The World Around My Table: Forty stories of wayfinding in South East Europe and Homemaking in the Netherlands, Elizabeth writes:
I met Janneke Huisman several years ago at a missions conference in Germany and was immediately struck by her enthusiasm, energy, and heart for people. All people. At this conference and in the years following, I had the privilege of hearing more about not only the Huisman’s work in Croatia but also Janneke’s love of the written word.
We clicked. We were both writers.
One evening, joined by several other missionary-writers, we shared the stories of our writing journeys, and I learned of Janneke’s blog. When I read a few of the entries, I learned something else: she had a beautiful way with words.
A few years later, Janneke invited me to participate in one of her silent retreats. Although the timing turned out to prevent my attending, I followed with interest, admiration, and joy as she shared the results of these ‘mini-retreats’ for those seeking spiritual rest and renewal.
The World Around My Table is a collection of blog posts that describe her family’s journey from The Netherlands to Croatia to work among the Roma. Janneke eloquently shares the joys and struggles, the questions and doubts, that so many of us in full-time ministry face.
I was honored that Janneke asked me to write a forward to this, her first book which reads like a combination of story and devotional. The World Around My Table is a love-offering to those who have followed Janneke’s journey and a call to all of us into a deeper relationship with our Creator God. She mixes the sacred and profane in her search for what she calls the Invisible, the Great Unseen. As I savored her words, I often paused to reflect on simple, yet profound truths. I am sure you too will be blessed to journey with Janneke, around her table.
Enjoy!
~Elizabeth Musser, pastoral care missionary with International Teams/One Collective and best-selling author of twelve novels, including, The Swan House, The Dwelling Place, The Long Highway Home, and The Promised Land
Wondering if you can still order The World Around My Table?
Kind Regards,
Janneke, here with Elizabeth Musser in the Netherlands last week, Sept,’25
