The Danish woman who became a mother in Israel
“I’m not free to commit myself just now. There’s something I have to settle first. I know this must sound foolish, but I keep asking myself, is there something more to life than just a career and an apartment, and nice furniture and a pension at the end of it all?”
This was Lydia’s spontaneous reply to the moment she had been waiting years for; her “ideal match” had just romantically proposed, and marriage would complete the picture of her successful life so far. Her reply surprised them both.
At 36, Lydia was the director of domestic science in one of Denmark’s modern schools, had a generous salary, lived in a beautiful apartment in Korsor with her own maid, and enjoyed the luxury of fine dining and fashion, along with the pleasures of the dance halls and theatres.
However, the recent death of her father had put the question of eternity in her mind, and she wanted answers to the sudden sense of futility she felt over her achievements.
Shortly after, it was while singing a hymn at the large family Christmas gathering that she realised that the answers she was seeking were to be found from God. Religion had not played a part in her life nor of her equally “successful” family, though they all classed themselves as “good Lutherans” which was the state religion.
That Christmas after returning back to her apartment, she spent the remainder of the week alone with the Bible that she’s only used on occasion for school purposes. While reading the Gospel of Matthew she was met with a command that halted her. “Ask and it shall be given seek and you shall find” (Matthew 7:7-8)
She as already seeking, but hadn’t yet asked. After wrestling for a while as to what to do, she knelt and began to pray aloud, really for the first time in her life. “O God, I do not understand who is God, who is Jesus, or who is the Holy Ghost….but if you will show me Jesus as a living reality, I will follow Him.”
Looking up she saw a person standing over her wearing a white garment with arms stretched out to her. “Jesus!” she said while trembling all over, then He was gone. The Lord had answered her prayer immediately and she saw that Jesus really was alive, and a peace that she had never known filled her being and her home.
She was filled with great joy and prayer and praise was suddenly effortless and hours were passed in communion with The Lord. Very soon she was baptised in the Holy Spirit and was speaking in tongues, something she knew nothing about, and she was delivered from a lifelong habit of smoking. She also saw a vision of a lady dancing with a clay pot on her head and men sat in a circle on the floor clapping; a vision that would later lead her into a new direction.
In a short time, she was led to a small Pentecostal home group who could relate to her experience and there she found fellowship. Wanting to fully obey God, Lydia knew that water baptism was next even though it was highly controversial matter as Lutherans believed only in infant baptism and then confirmation.
Nevertheless, Lydia was fully immersed in a tin bath in the middle of the kitchen floor in her poor Pentecostal pastor’s home, surrounded by a handful of witnesses, one of whom to Lydia’s surprise was a mother of one of her students.
News quickly spread at Lydia’s school that she was speaking in tongues and had been water baptised, and the once popular teacher soon became an outcast amongst colleagues and the source of mockery for students. Nevertheless, the peace and joy that she had was worth more to her now than anything.
Such were the expectations at the time, Lydia’s conversion made national news; the headlines reading “Can a Tongues Speaker Remain as a Teacher in a State School?”
Great debate arose which caused immense embarrassment to her conservative family and friends who didn’t understand or believe Lydia’s encounter with Jesus. She tried to explain to her prospective husband who was also a teacher at her school, but he was baffled by her behaviour and considered her actions irrational.
God had answered Lydia’s prayer and had revealed Jesus to her, and all that mattered to her now was that she was faithful to follow Him. No cost was too high as she had found the pearl of great price!
Eventually the Ministry of Education allowed Lydia to continue at the school, though she had an anticipation that there was to be a clear cut separation from her current life to enter something new, though she didn’t know what that was to be.
Over the space of a year or so, God parted her from her inheritance money by having her donate it to a mission in the Congo, and led her to see that the vision she’d had when she was baptised with the Holy Spirit was one of the people of Israel, and it was to Jerusalem that she was being called of God to be a missionary to.
She had been used to fine living and a good income, and knew that she would be taking little money with her, would have no financial support, and would have no job to go to. Could God provide for her in a strange land amongst strangers?
She asked The Lord to confirm that He would by having someone give her $5 by the end of the day. She thought it was a silly thing to pray as no one would have any reason to give her any money, and as the day came to an end she wondered at her own faith in even asking for such confirmation of God’s faithfulness.
Nevertheless, very late in the evening an evangelical lady came to Lydia’s home, and hesitantly and apologetically handed her $5 saying she felt she had to bring it. It was a glorious moment for Lydia, and for the faithful evangelical lady!
It was settled. Lydia handed in her resignation, sold her worldly possessions, said goodbye to her confused family and the man who could no longer marry her, and sailed to a land of unknowns with the One Who knows all things.
Prayer and obedience had replaced reasoning and independence, and through a series of testing’s Lydia’s faith grew as she learned the wonder of trusting God daily. Prayer became as natural and as needful as breathing, and it was always a joy!
She had one contact in Jerusalem, a Swedish missionary who was kind enough to welcome her on arrival after her long and trying journey, and by the providence of God after just one night’s stay in the new city, she was led to the small basement room of another missionary, which she was to rent and call home.
After several months, she was in a routine of bible study and was learning both English and Arabic, but was still no clearer on her role there. Her money was dwindling fast when an unexpected offer came in the post for her. It was a school in Beirut that Lydia’s previous school Principle had been in touch with on her behalf. There was a position available for her to teach domestic science to the girls of Lebanon with a good salary and a pension. The basement room she rented was less than cosy, and the offer was enticing.
Lydia put the letter inside her Bible, knowing that she must pray over the matter. On the evening of her arrival into Jerusalem she had read Psalm 137, and this Psalm came back to mind. “If I forget thee O Jerusalem….” The Lord reminded her that she had been called to Jerusalem not Beirut, so she quickly wrote a response to her invite, thankfully and respectfully declining the teaching post. God had called her, and God would keep her.
A week later she had an unexpected visitor, a Jewish man who pleaded with her to take in his dying baby. She refused at first seeing that she had nothing to offer a dying child and suggested the hospital instead, but he had already been turned down there.
“I’m not a nurse, I have no money or milk or baby clothes, no medicine, no nothing” Lydia said. “What did you come to do?
Didn’t you come to help us?” came the desperate reply. Lydia, not knowing what to do asked for his address and said she would pray about it.
After much wrestling, and seeing she had just pennies in her purse, she searched her bible for help. “And the prayer of faith shall save the sick” was underlined. Praying again a verse came instantly to mind that settled it. “Inasmuch as you have done it unto the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto Me.”
Although it was late in the evening and it was dangerous to be out on the streets, she collected the sick baby on foot, brought her home and laid her in her travelling trunk that she’d lined with soft clothes, and anointed her with oil. The baby was called Tikva, meaning Hope.
All night and all day Lydia, the missionary she rented the room from, and an Arab assistant maid prayed for the child’s fever to break, and they surrounded the make shift cot with praise until healing came.
The following week Lydia received financial gifts in the post from Denmark for the first time, an envelope with cash was pushed under her door, and her missionary landlady gave her some money that had been passed to her “to help a Jewish child in need.” The blessing that followed the testing.
Lydia was able to buy supplies for Tikva including a pram to take the recovering baby out for fresh air and sunshine. On a walk out one day she overheard two couples speaking Danish who were looking for the tourist office. Lydia offered directions which started a conversation.
“Is that your little girl? She is so dark, and you are so fair.” “Yes” she replied. “She’s my little girl, but I’m not her mother.” Of course they were intrigued and invited her to share this story over coffee after which they exchanged addresses; one of the ladies slipping $20 into her hand on parting saying that she would hear from them again.
Tikva became Lydia’s joy, but of course she had a mother and father who would be keen to have their healthy baby back. With this at the back of her mind, another challenge arose. The room she rented belonged to a building that had suddenly been sold and they were required to vacate.
Trusting God, she found a two roomed landing to rent in a small Jewish area, and having only half the deposit and no furniture, she made a down payment trusting God to bring the rest. She had learned that provision often comes at the eleventh hour; on the morning that the full amount for her first month’s rent was due she received an unexpected refund from her medical insurance of $169. This was now the pattern for her life!
Adjusting to a new home in a new area wasn’t easy. She was the only European amongst Jewish homes and for the first time she experienced some persecution. She sought advice from her former landlady who encouraged her by saying she was an ambassador for Christ, that she had been put in her new home to break down barriers and fears of suspicion that had been there for centuries. This helped Lydia and she grew in love for her new neighbours.
Lydia had cared for Tikva for five months when her father suddenly arrived at their new home to take her back. His wife had left him and he reasoned that she would come back if he had the child. Against her own inner protests, Lydia gave him the
beloved child with some clothes, milk and the pram and watched him take her away. She knew he wasn’t able to care for her, and how her heart broke, but despite this The Lord had her surrender the child back to the father.
The weeks that followed was full of turmoil and worry, and since her money had ran out she was led into a time of fasting. On the third day without food, The Lord spoke to her about Tikva, saying that she had given her back to her father but she hadn’t given her up to Him. The moment she responded and gave Tikva to The Lord, peace and calm filled her being and her room.
On the fourth day while walking, she bumped into the Swedish missionary who had welcomed her on arrival, who was relieved to see Lydia no longer had the baby. “It will make the journey back to Denmark easier for you.” Go back to Denmark? Missionaries were preparing to leave Jerusalem as tensions were increasing.
Lydia received a letter that day from her mother saying that news had reached them over the radio of expected trouble between the Jews and the Arabs, and had included a large sum of money for her travel back to her homeland. What was she to do? She opened the second letter she had also received. In it was $10 and a simple note saying “For your work in Jerusalem.”
A cross roads! She prayed and asked The Lord, and her heart became filled with love for the people of Jerusalem. Though circumstances were changing, her prayer was “Not my will but Yours,” and she knew her place was in Jerusalem. She wrote to her mother and sent her travel money back.
The following week, Tikva’s mother came to Lydia’s home asking her to take Tikva back. The father was in Tel Aviv with the child, and the mother didn’t want him back and felt she couldn’t care for the little one. She handed over an address where he could be found, and with that Lydia went straight to the bus station, praying that God would give her the words to bring Tikva home.
When she reached the address, the father was out looking for work and Tikva was in her pram in the same dress she had been taken in several weeks before, though now she looked very dirty and uncared for. The landlady had let Lydia in, and it was not long before the father returned, who was shocked to see Lydia there.
“Your wife sent me to take Tikva. She is sick again and you are not able to care for her. If you keep her here she will die.” He was unable to speak. Without fuss or argument, she said “Help me with pram please down the stairs,” which he did without a word, and going to the station together he helped her put the pram on the bus. As they left, she turned to see the father waving and smiling for the first time, as though a great burden had been lifted. She knew Tikva was now hers, she had become a mother in Israel.
The city was in unrest, and just six weeks after Tikva came back home there was fighting in the streets with two Jews being killed by the Arabs. Homes were barricaded and the streets were deserted for some time, but The Lord kept Lydia safe.
This was the beginning of a remarkable ministry that was to see Lydia care for over seventy children over the space of twenty years, eight of whom were adopted as her own. Her work with the children opened the hearts of both Jews and Arabs, the Arab women especially responding to the gospel message, many coming to faith in Jesus.
Lydia remained a faith missionary, and taught all the children to trust and pray, many were baptised by The Holy Spirit at a young age. As her children grew in number, The Lord moved her on to larger premises, and in 1946 at the age of 56 she met and married a British soldier called Derek Prince who had recently been born-again.
It was a match made in the heavens, as Derek was twenty five years her junior, and he was only thirteen years older than Tikva (who was in her late teens when the wedding took place.)
Jerusalem had been in great unrest for years, and came to a climax in 1948 when the State of Israel was born. Twice Lydia and Derek had fled their homes with their children in the middle of the night, and so reluctantly they left Jerusalem with their eight daughters to start a new chapter of their lives in England.
God led them continually through different seasons, from pastoring a church in London for six years, teaching in a training college in Kenya for four years (where they adopted their ninth daughter,) to travelling the world with a teaching ministry which gave birth to Derek Prince Ministries, and Derek Prince Publications.
This VERY condensed account of Lydia’s testimony has been taken from the book “Appointment in Jerusalem” written by Derek and Lydia Prince. It is the most wonderful book, and while you have here the general gist, I highly recommend it’s entirety!
LIFE ON THE ALTAR 