About Me

My story

I was born on the mission field in Belize, where my Dad served as a missionary school teacher. We moved back and forth from Belize to Canada a few times, and when I was nine years old, my family moved to Belize again - this time in a different community. My dad was a missionary pastor; my mom taught in a Christian private school. Over the next five years, I grew up watching the Gospel change people's lives - inside and out. These people had never clearly heard the good news of Jesus Christ before, because no one had ever shared it with them in a language they actually understood.

Who we work with

Who are Colony Mennonites?

That language is Plautdietsch - Low German. It's the heart language for an estimated 500,000 Colony Mennonites living across North and South America.
And most of them have never heard the Gospel in it.
Colony Mennonites trace their ancestry to the Reformation in northern Europe, migrating from northern Germany and the Netherlands to modern day Poland, on to present day Ukraine, then across the Atlantic to North and South America. Over the course of hundreds of years, their faith and way of life has turned into a system of works based salvation and top down control.
Colony Mennonite communities are deeply isolated - geographically, culturally, and spiritually. Church services are conducted in High German, a language that almost no one in these communities understands anymore, including the community and church leaders themselves! The spiritual message that comes from this system is severe and hopeless: obey every rule, and you have a very small chance that God might allow you into heaven. You can't ever truly know if God has saved you. And the most severe form of discipline and control is the ban. This form of excommunication not only cuts you off of your community, family, and livelihood here, but colony members are taught that it also locks you out of heaven entirely.
This results in a lot of people living in constant fear and hopelessness. You can't ever know if you're going to heaven, but if you try to leave, or break any of the rules (and there are many!), you won't get into heaven at all! These people aren't looking for entertainment, they are looking for hope.
So when they hear the message of the Gospel - in their heart language - the response is incredible.
People used to come to our home in Belize under cover of darkness, arriving in their horses and buggies after nightfall, because being seen with us risked excommunication. Night after night they would come searching for answers.
At evening programs, you could hear their horses just outside the ring of lights. These people had come to listen but stayed just out of sight. During one trip to Bolivia, a teenage boy attended a program we were singing at against his parents' will, because he was searching. His father found him and beat him so severely he spent weeks in intensive care. And there have been many others. I have played at events where people told me that coming would likely mean excommunication within the week - and they came anyway.

What we do

Why music?

Music works in these places in a way that the spoken word can't. While Colony Mennonites sing in church services, they are all centuries old hymns, sung in High German, without any instrumentation. So when they hear music in Plautdietsch, with harmonies and instruments - combined with the full hope and power of the Gospel - the reaction is astounding. And the other beautiful part of music is that you can take it anywhere. Many of these people will keep a pocket radio or a smartphone and listen to music, even though it's forbidden.

D'Friesens Music & More

As part of the D'Friesens team, I write, record, and perform Low German music, create printed Christian resources, travel to Colony communities to sing, preach and teach, and share the Gospel. I help develop Bible study material, Sunday school curriculum, family devotionals, songbooks, and more, all in Plautdietsch. Our music is sent and broadcast across North and South America via radio and online, and our printed resources get sent across Canada, US, Mexico, Belize, Bolivia, Paraguay and beyond.