René Grotenhuis was former general director Cordaid and vice-president VKMO.

Faith, reflection, courage.

13 December 2021 — In a bus we are on our way to the refugee shelter of the Jesuit Refugee Services in Bucharest. It's the middle of winter, early 2003. It will be a bizarre confrontation with asylum seekers. Even for our company, which participated in the annual conference of refugee relief organisations in Europe. The refugees we met there came from Afghanistan and the Middle East and were unloaded by smugglers in Romania, in an area with German names and street names. You're in Germany, she was told. We delivered and figure it out ourselves. But at the time, Romania still had hermetically closed borders with the West!

There was one other Dutchman in the van on his way to the Jesuits. As Vice-President of Refugee Work Netherlands, I wanted to know who that modest, friendly person was in the backseat. René Grotenhuis and he ran Pharos, the service that mobilized and organized medical aid for refugees in the Netherlands. He soon announced in the confidentiality of the trip that he had been nominated to become director of Cordaid and therefore actually my second successor. After Hans Kruijssen, he would soon take over the helm at Cordaid, which was co-created from the former Cebemo. I immediately liked that choice on him from the then board of the great Cordaid.

It wouldn't be the last time our life paths and responsibilities crossed. René was willing to succeed me as chairman of the Society for International Development Netherlands (SID) and later he came as treasurer on the board of SID International, and again later I may see him function as Vice-President of the Association of Catholic Social Organisations (VKMO) which we had set up with some kindred spirits in the late eighties. In response to the failed visit to the Netherlands in 1985. René fascinated by that unique combination of deep faith, reflection and drive. And that led him to take responsibility for matters that needed courage. Courage and vision. He deliberately withdrew from the then somewhat protective frameworks of pastoral work to "take that responsibility in the world" but also to fall back on the sources of his inspiration. René prayed and reflected, but he also lived for the austerity to which the Gospel had summoned him, and above all he knew that phrase from the letter of John: "You will be recognized by your actions." Not just because of what you're telling me to stand for.

But that institution required courage, courage and conviction. Within the church itself where courage was needed to continue to commit without critically following all regulations and structures. Encourage also to rekindle the indispensable fire in Christian-social organizations where even the staff should not assume the self-evident of identity and act accordingly. And courage to stand up for the public relevance of your beliefs in a culture, in society and politics, where reference to transcendent values and inspiration are rarely understood or even tolerated. It is within that triangle, that currently the struggle takes place to the public meaning and vitality of the Christian testimony.

At Cordaid, in the period Grotenhuis, that triangle of critical control, lack of support and empathy and sometimes a cold or indifferent public climate was even more marked than in many other organizations. The fierce growth of resources also brought an influx of many, many new staff members, while the recruitment reservoir of Christian identity accessible employees became smaller and smaller. But above all, the tension between the need in so many programmes in the southern hemisphere to provide, above all, merciful and effective (health) assistance to the population on the one hand and the restrictions that they wanted to impose on it by appealing to certain ecclesiastical regulations. And then there was the unexpectedly rapidly changing political climate in their own country, which almost overnight caused a dramatic change in the available budgets. And not only that: precisely on what many saw as the most effective channel for development cooperation, private and basic aid, there was disproportionate cuts. René and his organization had to stay in there and ensure the continuity of the work still so necessary. In terms of the flow of resources, new avenues had to be sought, sometimes with painful choices and the farewell of partners and areas with which decades of trust had worked. And he had to look for new opportunities to remain relevant in this changing landscape and the unabated need for

At Cordaid, in the period Grotenhuis, that triangle of critical control, lack of support and empathy and sometimes a cold or indifferent public climate was even more marked than in many other organizations. The fierce growth of resources also brought an influx of many, many new staff members, while the recruitment reservoir of Christian identity accessible employees became smaller and smaller. But above all, the tension between the need in so many programmes in the southern hemisphere to provide, above all, merciful and effective (health) assistance to the population on the one hand and the restrictions that they wanted to impose on it by appealing to certain ecclesiastical regulations. And then there was the unexpectedly rapidly changing political climate in their own country, which almost overnight caused a dramatic change in the available budgets. And not only that: precisely on what many saw as the most effective channel for development cooperation, private and basic aid, there was disproportionate cuts. René and his organization had to stay in there and ensure the continuity of the work still so necessary. In terms of the flow of resources, new avenues had to be sought, sometimes with painful choices and the farewell of partners and areas with which decades of trust had worked. And he had to look for new opportunities to remain relevant in this changing landscape and the unabated need for

On this third Advent Sunday, which he has just been denied, we read the call "that our kindness should be known to all people." Not those worries, not the gloomy and fearful. When I was almost 20 years ago René first met in that van in Bucharest, I recognized that kindness. But I also saw something else: those eyes that mainly observed and the impressions interiorized; reflected on them and translated into actions of courage. In that sense, perhaps he created a certain distance. I've had trouble with it. But perhaps courage and deep conviction also sometimes require a price of aloofness and loneliness. Last week, our society and the communities of believers and good will suffered an indispensable loss.

13 December 2021

Jos van Gennip

(former Director Cebemo)