When 18 years old, Dick attended a MRA meeting and was hooked by what he experienced. During World War II, studying medicine at Leiden University, he decided to go into hiding, after having openly protested with many others against the German authorities for having banned Jewish Professors from the University. It resulted in a life long friendship with the family that hid him. The same was true for people in the Ruhr, Germany, where Dick spent much of his early time as an MRA fulltime worker after the war. It was quite unique for people like him, graduated from university, to befriend coalminers, including communist ones, and join them in their fight to rebuild Germany after the devastation of the war. For decades, he kept in touch with some of the miners. Dick used his training as a medical doctor in the MRA centres in Caux and Panchgani, and other places. He and his wife Agathe started to visit Indonesia, a former Dutch colony. Dick had always wanted to work as a missionary doctor and was happy to start building links between The Netherlands and Indonesia on an equal base, not as a doctor but as a friend wanting to rebuild relations. For many years he and his wife lived in and hosted the MRA centres in The Hague and Wassenaar.
