How the life of Brenda began
Brenda Toet was born in Amsterdam in 1969. She grew up as the eldest daughter of a teenage mother in a loving family, together with another younger sister and brother. When she is 21 Brenda gets married and has two daughters. Her mother becomes severely sick at a young age and dies at 41 years of age.
Brenda is barely 24 years old. Because of the loss of her mother and the sadness that it brought with it, Brenda becomes derailed and ends up on the wrong path. Out of a fear of dying young just like her mother, without having ‘lived’, she dives into drinking, drugs and seeks entertainment in the nightlife. She leaves her first husband and ends up in a second marriage where she is forced to work in a nightclub.
Without any self worth and heavily addicted, she meets Johan in 1996. After one week they already lived together and quickly went on a path of self-destruction, they lived as Bonnie and Clyde, inseparable, lost in drugs and crime. In her relationship with Johan she feels rejected again and often not good enough, this causes her to feel even more lost. When Johan gets deeper into drug trafficking and the parties become more intense, this doesn’t help their relationship.
The life of Brenda Toet in Portugal
Because Johan was on the run from the police in the Netherlands, Brenda and Johan diverted to Portugal. Here they lived as in a movie with a lot of luxury, money and drug use. Finally the curtain falls for Johan and Brenda in 2002 when they both get arrested in Portugal for drug trafficking and organized criminal activity.
After almost two years of detention in a Portuguese cell, Brenda is released in december 2003. Johan is sentenced to twelve years* and also still has six years to go in the Netherlands. Brenda and Johan are inseparable and because of this Brenda decides to wait on Johan while she slowly tries to pick up her life in the Netherlands again. Together with her daughters from her previous marriage and with her son that she has together with Johan.
Johan comes to faith in 2005 in his cell after an encounter with God. And in 2011 after ten years of detention he comes back home. He takes Brenda with him to a church where she gives her heart to Jesus. Brenda’s life is never the same again.
In 2014 Brenda is called and she starts her education at Charis Bible College. And in 2016 she is sent out together with Johan into the ministry and together they founded the One in Him Foundation.
* Eventually the whole sentence is merged to an unconditional sentence of 15 years.
The mission work now
Johan and Brenda Toet now have a mission house in Brazil where they hold missions , to equip and disciple other Christians. Together they visit slums, speak in churches and hold open-air campaigns worldwide. Brenda has a passion for women. Her heart goes out to the broken and lost women in the world that nobody cares for. She reaches these women in slums, rehabilitation centers and on the street. She shares her testimony and the Word with them.
But also by holding women-events, where she can share the Gospel with them. Her motto is: ‘What God has done for me, He wants to do for everyone’.
Together with her husband Johan she travels the world for the Gospel and they live fully from gifts and partners.
