White light ablaze in red-light Amsterdam: forty years ago, Rolf and Georgine Boiten set up home in one of Amsterdam's sleaziest quarters.

Forty years ago, Rolf and Georgine Boiten set up home in one of Amsterdam's sleaziest quarters. Digna Hintzen visits their `extended family'.

A few minutes' walk from Amsterdam Central Station and the Queen's palace, Dutch glory and shame stand side by side. Narrow 17th century patricians' homes, with their quaint architecture and sculptured gables, house rampant prostitution and drug dealing.

It is 9 am on a winter's day and the doors of the marijuana museum, the live sex shows and the tattoo museum are still closed. But at 100 Oude Zijds Achterburgwal (known to many as OZ 100), a white light summons people to enter the door of Everyman's Chapel of St George and join the Spe Gaudentes (rejoicing in hope) community for morning prayers.

Those who live in the community's homes have already arrived--among them seven toddlers and a baby who are looked after while their mothers work. After hymns from the multilingual Taize song book, a piece is read from a bible on a wrought iron stand, decorated with an icon.

The stand is at the centre of a floor of natural stone which spreads out in circles beyond the chapel to the outside pavement. Rolf Boiten, who with his wife Georgine initiated the community, says that they felt that everything received in the chapel had to come from `above'. So there is an opening in the centre of the ceiling from which a light falls on either the altar or the pulpit, whichever is placed there.

The chapel forms the heart of the community, which also has a cafe where people can come for professional help with their problems; a workshop where people do manual work, partly as therapy; homes where people who have nowhere to go can stay as part of the community for a limited period; a school for children of North African immigrants, where lessons include basic teachings from the Qur'an; and a medical centre called Kruispost (Cross post).

How did all this come about? Rolf and Georgine Boiten married in 1955 after completing their theological studies. The questions most on their minds were: how can the Gospel be present as a driving and inspiring force in today's secular cities, and what should the church of the future be like?

They started their married life with two worker-priests in a poor part of Paris. They came to the conclusion that the church needed to be centred around ecumenical communities of people who shared an aim, a practical task and part of their daily lives. They believe that the inner cities are microcosms, showing overtly the problems that exist everywhere beneath the surface.

`As we did not believe in coming in like bomber pilots, dropping our message and then flying off to a safe home, we decided to live right in the middle of this remarkable district,' says Dr Boiten. The only place they could afford was a ruin, next door to a sex theatre. But `our lack of funds and building skills were our greatest blessing. Soon people came by, took pity on us and lent a hand--and became the first members of our extended family.'

Once the Boitens had settled, they opened a restaurant with a bar as `the most easily accessible place' for people in trouble. Instead of the bar-keeper sympathizing with tales of woe by offering another drink, the volunteers would suggest an appointment the next morning with someone who could help. `Some people have a real gift for this,' says Dr Boiten. `We had an ambassador's wife who was great. Everyone called her "Madame"! Among our customers we had Hell's Angels, pimps and prostitutes. One of these girls became so involved that whenever she saw from her window that we had lots of guests coming in, she would rush down to help pour coffee. Quite a shock for visiting provincial women's groups to be served by her in her working outfit!'

Volunteers flocked to help, and money began to come in. The municipality funded social workers. And, thanks to the volunteers and their sober lifestyle, they were able to launch many non-funded social initiatives.

But by 1964 something new was needed. Some of the community showed symptoms of burn out, while some of the volunteers lacked commitment.

On the night of Halloween, Rolf Boiten proposed that those who felt so called should bind themselves to God and each other by a vow, for a limited period, of poverty, chastity and obedience.

In Boiten's book, the vow of poverty means `all we have belongs to God', and being good stewards of it. Every member was asked to find a spiritual director outside the community with whom they could check their decisions on matters of money.

Being chaste did not mean living without any relationships but having no relationship to the detriment of another person or existing relationship. The basis of chastity was a love which would never try to possess or exploit another person. Newly married couples resign from the community for one year so they can consolidate their own union.

Human authority is only legitimate in so far as it is willing to be led by God, says Boiten. Decisions on minor community matters are made by vote. Unanimity is required for important decisions. If this is not achieved, the Prior has the final word.

Those in the community who do not envisage full membership can take a vow of `sharing the journey' or the lesser commitment of `partaking'. (At present 10 have taken the full vow, seven are in the second category and 40 are `partaking'.) Once a year all the vows are renewed at a festive occasion.

The community has many links with the existing churches. Some of the members work part-time for their own church, and Spe Gaudentes holds no Sunday services so that people can worship in their own churches.

The community's medical work dates back to the early 1980s when plans were made to move all Amsterdam's hospitals to a huge new medical centre out in the polder. People were concerned as to what would happen if someone was stabbed after the doctors' surgeries had closed. Some said to the Boitens, isn't it one of a Christian's main tasks to look after the sick?

Then the owner of the building behind OZ 100 decided to sell and offered the Boitens first option to buy. They decided that it was a sign. To the Boitens, the initiative seemed to come from `the other side'. Doors opened, as well as bank accounts, and many volunteers responded to the new challenge. Now, 13 years later, there are 40 doctors, 11 nurses and 27 receptionists who work a rota without salary. There are also two paid social workers and a coordinator. Their annual budget is [pounds sterling] 60,000 of which one third comes from official sources. The rest comes from what patients can give and from donations. Last year some 6,000 patients from 125 countries were treated. Over four fifths of them had no medical insurance, in a country where there is no free national health service.

Behind the statistics are stories of lives saved. A Dutch-Turkish doctor tells of a Turkish man with an unsightly skin complaint that alienated him from the people he lived with. He had earlier been treated unsuccessfully but the doctor was able to tell the man in his own language what the illness was, and what to do about it. The man left the surgery saying he was `almost happy'.

Many immigrants and refugees get depressed, and this tends to show itself in physical complaints. `Above all they need proper communication in their own language,' says Dr Boiten. `Someone who listens and shows them what they can do.'

Kruispost also gives middle class citizens the chance to serve those without the security of a family, a nationality, an education or a job. No distinction is made between the helpers and those who need help. `We are all like beggars showing each other the way to find some bread,' says Boiten.

I ask him what his six children felt about growing up in such a colourful extended family. It turns out that two married daughters and their husbands are at the heart of the community, two others make their homes in places that serve those around them, the son is involved in a similar project in Norway and the youngest daughter who is still at school comes in to help on Sundays.

So they have not rebelled? `They felt no need to experiment--they had no illusions about where drug taking and free sex would lead,' he replies. `We left them free to find their own way.'

Recently the outreach of the OZ 100 community has growth, with projects in Tatarstan and near the Rwandan border in Uganda. The former links teaching simple new agricultural methods to training in drug prevention, while the latter provides medical aid and teaches basic skills. The community also runs a farm in the north of the Netherlands for people who need a break and want to work with their hands. Volunteers, say the Boitens, are always needed.

The striking thing is that Spe Gaudentes's social work is not an end in itself but the outward expression of their service to God--like the work of Mother Teresa. They provide a channel for God's love to reach some of his neediest children, as well as giving a face to Christianity in our day and age.