Corrie ten Boom, Her Story (continued)
15. Freedom
IT WAS 3:30 a.m. I woke up, and my first thought was, Roll call. | looked around me. Clean windows, a chair, a table, a picture on the wall. I was no longer in prison.
I was free!
I could sleep for several more hours but I did not. I got up and started to write down what [ had experienced in the three prisons. Those writings became my first book, A Prisoner and Yet... . It became a best seller in Holland, because people were interested in reading about what had happened to the victims of the concentration camps.
For many years of my life | had been the leader of Girl Guide clubs (European
Girl Scouts). As soon as I recovered my strength a bit, I got together with all the girls I could locate to tell them what I had experienced, and to find out what had happened to them.
After much talk together, they asked, "What are you going to do?" We were sitting in a clubhouse, cross-legged on the floor. My club girls were interested in all I had learned in prison—that difficult class in life's school.
"Girls, 'm so thankful that all my tomorrows are in God's hands. I want to tell you what happened one night." And this was what I told them: It was midnight in Ravensbruck, and Betsie tried to wake me up. Sleep was such an important thing. You forgot that you were in prison.
"Why are you waking me up? Leave me, please, in the world of dreams, where there are no guards, no barbed wire, and no lice."
JESUS IS VICTOR 407
Betsie put her coat over our heads so that we could talk without disturbing our fellow prisoners. "I have to talk with you, Corrie. God has told me several things which we must do after the war, and I am afraid that I may forget some of His instructions.
"We have learned so much here, and now we must go all over the world to tell people what we now know—that Jesus' light is stronger than the deepest darkness. Only prisoners can know how desperate this life is. We can tell from experience that no pit is too deep, because God's everlasting arms always sustain us.
"W/e must rent a concentration camp after the war, where we can help displaced Germans to get a roof over their heads. I have heard that ninety-five percent of the houses in Germany are bombed out. No one will want these concentration camps after the war, so we must rent one and help the German people find a new life in a destroyed Germany. God has shown me in a vision, a house in Holland in which we will receive the Dutch prisoners who survive the concentration camps. We will help them to find their way through life again."
I asked her, "Must we stay in that camp which we will open for the people here in Germany, or will we be able to stay in the house for the ex-prisoners, at home in Holland?"
"Neither," Betsie said. "You must travel all over the world and tell everybody who will listen what we have learned here—that Jesus is a reality and that He is stronger than all the powers of darkness. Tell them. Tell everyone who will listen! He is our greatest Friend, our hiding place."
A week later Betsie died. A week after that I was set free, and only one week later, the Germans put to death all the women of my age in Ravensbruck.
I looked at my Girl Guides who had listened to my story. "Girls," I said, "I know that you are sincerely interested in what I am going to do. My answer is that I will obey all the instructions that God gave to me through Betsie."
I obeyed. You can read about many of my adventures over the years in my book Tramp for the Lord.
Since I have often visited in prisons, now I want to talk with you about some of these experiences.