Ps Ronny Heyboer is the venerable “father of the tribe”.

To the hundreds of children he cares for in the jungles of West Kalimantan, Indonesia, he is Pak Ronny (Father Ronny), a term of respect and endearment.

To the missionaries who stay long-term to help or visit for a season to lend their time and talents, he is the man who transformed 300 hectares of tropical wilderness into Living Waters Village (LWV). The place is home to over 900 abandoned Dayak children Ps Ronny and his wife Kay took in.

The children at Living Waters Village whom no one wants are given a new lease on life. They get an education, a chance to hear the Gospel and a warm loving environment in which to grow.

In the 21 years since he started developing the land, LWV has added to the once-inhospitable ground houses, schools, a nursery for babies, teachers’ accommodation, a training centre, a praise and worship centre, clinic, bakery, sewing rooms, administration building and visitors’ quarters.

Living Waters Village began as nothing more than hectares of jungle. Now it is a developed enclave with schools and homes.

But before he became the much-loved Pak Ronny, he was a child of divorce, a rebellious teen, and then an angry young man.

“I really didn’t like my life. Many times, I thought of how to end my life,” said Ps Ronny, 68.

God would take the broken boy and transform him into a man who would champion the rescue of other broken children.

The rebel and his hidden talent

Ronny was born in Australia. When he was eight, his parents, who are Dutch, brought the family back to Holland. He would spend a decade there.

Ronny as a child in Australia.

“I didn’t have a good time.”

His family was Catholic and he was raised to go to church every week. But he “never had a relationship with God, never prayed, never read the Bible”.

When Ronny was 12, his parents divorced. God bore the brunt of the blame.

“I remember sitting in church for what would be the last time and thinking: Where is this God? Obviously, He didn’t care about us.”

Young Ronny was filled with anger and hate. He hated God, hated life, hated school and hated people. He desperately wanted to return to Australia and the life he had as a child.

The next few years of rebellion would end up with him being expelled from school at 16. So he went to work, getting a job at a supermarket.

Ronny at age 17 in Holland.

“That was really God preparing me. It was absolutely the thing for me. I found that I was a really good organiser,” said Ronny.

Within a month, he organised the stocks at the supermarket so shoppers could easily find what they wanted and workers could keep track of the goods. He became the youngest floor manager of the supermarket franchise.

He did not know it then but the ability to rally people and create systems for the smooth running of things would be the very skills he would need to start and run LWV.

The emptiness that would not go away

When he was 18, Ronny returned to Australia. But the void in his heart was not filled as he had hoped. He continued to hate his life and was haunted by thoughts of suicide.

“I wondered: Why am I feeling this way? As I looked at all my friends, they seemed to be happy. They were married. So I thought maybe I should get married to be happy.”

Ronny had a friend in grade school back in Holland who had been “madly in love” with him. They reconnected when she was in Australia. That was whom he decided to marry.

For a year, it was really good. But the emptiness returned. Again, Ronny looked at his friends’ lives. They had money. Ronny did not. He was in debt and lived in a little rented place.

So he thought that he would be happier if he had more money. He got himself two more jobs, clocked in 19 hours a day and soon earned enough for the good life. But the happiness he sought continued to elude him.

“I was still thinking of how to end my life.”  

The search for God

Then Ronny remembered the priests and nuns in the Catholic school back in Holland and how they had always seemed happy. He reasoned that perhaps he was so depressed because he did not believe in God.

“So I started to talk to Jesus like I’m talking to you now,” he told Salt&Light.

“I told Him, ‘If You are here, let me know. I really want to know if You exist.’”

He even made a wager with God. He promised to buy a Bible and read it cover to cover. If God did not reveal Himself by the time he reached the last page, he would look elsewhere for happiness and hope.

Ronny went to a bookstore, got himself the cheapest Bible he could find and spent his lunch and coffee breaks poring through its pages.

“I started at Genesis. The words just jumped out at me. I couldn’t believe this book was so exciting. I couldn’t wait for my next break to see what I was going to read next.”

After weeks of this, a colleague invited him to his home group. Ronny convinced his wife to go with him.

“We were a bit late. When we walked in, we were shocked. I thought these people were fruit loops. They were worshiping God, clapping their hands. I thought it was the funniest thing I had ever seen.”

Whenever Ronny read the Bible and had questions, he would mark the portions. At that meeting, all his questions were answered.

“It was as if the guy had taken hold of my Bible to find out what I didn’t understand. At the place, I saw something that I had been wanting all my life: It was the love they had for one another.”

He could not wait to go back to the next meeting even though his wife refused to go with him again. On his fourth visit, Ronny prayed to accept Jesus into his life.

“They put their hands on my head and shoulder and God zapped me. I wept. I just knew this Jesus was in me.

“My life was not meant to be boring anymore. I was here to do His business and His business was people.”

WWIII at home

When Ronny returned home, his wife noticed that his face was glowing. He told her what he had done.

“World War III started at my place. She didn’t like me going to church or being a Christian.”

As Ronny abandoned the lifestyle he once led – drinking, smoking, swearing – his wife “doubled down and stayed in the world”. Their lives diverged and they “didn’t’ do anything together anymore”.

She would stay out late at night. Sometimes, she did not come home till morning.

“When I asked her where she had been, she would tell me to mind my own business in the most colourful of language.”

People around him encouraged Ronny to divorce his wife.

“My flesh would love to but my spirit said, ‘No way.’ God challenged me as well to love my wife and pray for her salvation even though I couldn’t see it.”

Beauty from ashes  

After eight and a half years, quite beyond his expectations, Ronny’s wife got down on her knees and gave her life to Jesus. They went to the home group together and for 18 months, they lived the life he had always wanted.

“I had my best friend back.”

Then he got a call one day.

“They told me my wife had passed away in a car accident. Our two children were with her and were so badly injured that they would not make it through the night. The doctor added that even if they survived, they would be vegetables.

“I remember going to the morgue and seeing my wife and thinking: I don’t understand this. After all those years of hell, I finally had her with me. Why did You want to do that?”

But Ronny was not angry with God. He was thankful for the 18 months of bliss he had with his wife before she died.

“I just had this prayer, ‘Give me the strength to say goodbye to my kids.’”

Friends from all over the country came to pray with Ronny. Six weeks after the accident, he was able to take both children home, whole and healed.

Their neurologist was baffled because the children were so badly injured there was nothing that could be done for them medically, so the doctors had done nothing.

“If God can do that, God can do anything,” said Ronny.

“I realised that nothing happens to us without God’s permission. That is not to say that nothing bad will happen to you. But whatever comes our way, God permits.

“I look back at my life. All these horrible things that happened in my life. I learnt to survive. I learnt how God had been protecting me.”

God would take the loss and turn it into something wonderful. Looking back, Ronny realised that every hardship he faced was training for the work he would later do at LWV.

“If I hadn’t gone through all these things, I would have run away a long time ago.”

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