Golf balls ?

 

“All deflectors are for the mission.” That is how 83-year-old Martien van Leeuwen sums up his ‘golf ball business’ in one sentence. He has been selling golf balls for twenty years to financially support an orphanage in Kenya.

The counter now stands at more than 40,000 golf balls sold. But that is far from enough for Martien, who was sent to Kenya as a Mill Hill missionary in 1974. “I often visited an orphanage there, because the manager was a Mill Hill sister. Mill Hill is an English missionary congregation within the Roman Catholic Church.”

When he returned to the Netherlands, he often walked past Edese Golf Club Papendal. “I come here regularly because my formation to become a Mill Hill brother was here. This used to be our farmland. I ploughed, sowed and harvested it back then. When I returned after thirty years of missionary work in Kenya, I was very curious about what I would find. I had already heard that it had become a golfcourse. Still, it feels like I’m walking on my own territory.”

“I enjoy finding golf balls while walking. I enjoy it just as much as the people on the golf course”

Martien saw golf balls lying outside the course and picked them up. He decided to sell the balls to raise money for the Rang’ala Baby Home in western Kenya. “I had built up a bond with the children there, so I wanted to help the orphanage. They get nothing from the local government or the Church. I saw things going downhill, so I said I would support them financially and I have been doing that for forty years now.”

“Every ball I find is an opportunity for a child”.

Martien’s motto is clear: ‘Every ball I find is a chance for a child’. He charges 35 cents per golf ball and sells them in sets of a hundred. For 35 euros you support the project of the golf ball priest, as he is known. “The maintenance of the buildings and buying medicine, food and clothing is the biggest problem for them. We as Westerners can do something for those people. Everyone should do something for someone else, that gives you a lot of pleasure.”

Martien does not play golf himself. He did it once in Kenya, but due to lack of time it stayed at that. “For me it is fun to find golf balls during a walk. I enjoy it just as much as the people on the golfcourse. I usually go out for 2.5 hours and then I find an average of fifteen to twenty balls. I sell about 1,200 euros worth of balls per year, but unfortunately I cannot run an orphanage with that. That is why I hope to be able to sell more.” The counter is now at more than 40,000 balls sold.

(Article from Mill Hill newsletter)