Marinus was born in Spijk in 1983 and grew up in a family of four children. After higher technical education in electrical engineering in Groningen, he studied theology in Belgium and Switzerland. As a result he speaks Dutch, English, German and Spanish. During those studies he travelled to Argentina. In Metán, in the province of Salta, he met Mónica in 2007 — daughter of the then pastor of the congregation Casa de Dios. What was meant to remain a journey became a life. It was a great transition: from the Groningen countryside to the northwest of Argentina, to heat, dust and another language. From then on people called him Mariano. It was not only love for Mónica that kept him, but also love for the people here. They remained together. Marinus built their house with his own hands — as many families in Metán do. Brickwork, pipes, roof: not theory from a book, but a dwelling that you raise yourself. In that house they learned what it is to put down roots here: the neighbourhood, Mónica’s family, the table, the Sundays, the ordinary life of a town that knows few extras and much of one another.
Mónica was born and raised in Metán. Her father, pastor Andrés Márquez, served the congregation Casa de Dios; the pastor’s house and the family home lay close to each other. She studied German in Switzerland. There her path and that of Marinus crossed in the language. At the beginning they spoke German with each other — not Dutch, not Spanish, but the language they had both learned outside their own country. In this way German unexpectedly became the bridge between Groningen and Metán. In 2007 Marinus was in Argentina, during his theology studies. What for him was a distant journey was for her her own town. She showed him the family, the customs and the north. Shortly after their marriage they went together to Belgium. There they remained for a year: he in the world of his studies, she in a country that was not yet hers. Then they returned. Metán became home. While he raised the house with his own hands, she made a home of the stones. Since 2017 they have also served as pastors of Casa de Dios. Metán is no longer a stopping place. It is home: the house they built, the language he learned, the congregation in which Mónica was raised, and the family God gave them. Together they have three school-age children.