
Storytelling using visuals was a big factor. The purpose of the clubs was to teach the girls the Gospel along with fun activities such as gymnastics. Soon other Haarlem’s Girls’ Clubs were formed, including the Triangle Girls, a Christian Girl Scout movement which Corrie piloted. Reaching out to others, Corrie and her sister, Betsie, began a Church Walk Club for teenage girls. Corrie had always helped her father in his shop, and at the age of thirty-two she became the first licensed woman watchmaker in Holland. The ten Boom family fostered seven children at one time in the Beje. As soon as World War I ended Corrie and her sister looked for ways to help German children, who were suffering from malnutrition, and later took in the children of Dutch missionaries. In her early twenties she received a Bible school diploma. She loved to travel and attend Bible conferences. Her belief in the sovereignty of God took root and she began to grow in the knowledge of her faith. Corrie realized the Lord had other plans for her life and she never married. Corrie’s father encouraged her to ask God for another route for her love to travel. LEARNING TO LOVE GOD’S WAY Corrie experienced heartbreak as a young woman when the man she thought she would marry, following his parent’s wishes, announced his engagement to a woman of wealth. Corrie’s father, Casper ten Boom, a jeweler and watchmaker, demonstrated gratitude, anticipation of the second coming of Christ, and a personal relationship with the Lord. Conversation flowed naturally into prayer. Corrie’s parents, her brother Willem, sisters Betsie and Nollie, and three maternal aunts gathered daily around an oval table in the dining room at the Beje, their house in Haarlem.


Corrie ten Boom with her family The entire Ten Boom household considered Jesus a member of their family.
