Roy and Rita Davison
Heistraten 27
HERSELT
B-2230 Belgium
TEL: +32 14 946039
[Time zone is one hour later than GMT]
Roy and Rita first met while attending secondary school at Radville Christian College in Saskatchewan, Canada. Rita was born in Montana and Roy in Missouri, in the United States.
At Abilene Christian College in Abilene, Texas, Roy became a good friend of Cor van Ewijk, a Dutchman. At his invitation, Roy made plans to go to Holland, and began taking Dutch lessons from Cor.
After graduation Roy was invited to preach for the church in Sarnia, Ontario, Canada with the understanding that after a year he would be going to Europe. While in Sarnia, Roy continued his language study by taking private lessons from a Dutch school teacher.
During the first half of 1963 Roy held two gospel meetings and traveled extensively in Canada and the U.S. informing churches about his proposed work in Europe. During the summer he spent one month in Houston studying Dutch at the Berlitz Language School. He also attended a special series of lessons on world evangelism at the Harding Graduate School in Memphis, Tennessee.
Roy went to Holland in September of 1963 where he worked with Dan Boyd in Utrecht for two years. After gaining a working knowledge of Dutch, he was invited to assist the church in Ostend, Belgium in the fall of 1965. At that time he was the only full-time evangelist for churches of Christ among the five million Flemish (Dutch) speaking people of Belgium and the church in Ostend was the only Flemish congregation.
While in Ostend Roy studied the Scriptures with a family in Roeselare. When they became Christians they started worshipping in their home and invited Roy to help them. He moved from Ostend to Roeselare the summer of 1967.
From 1967 through 1970 Roy was assistant director and instructor at the School of the Bible in Verviers, Belgium. The school closed in 1970 because of lack of personnel and finances.
In the spring of 1968 Roy made an important trip to the United States. He was married on June the 8th to Rita Lewis Hamm. Rita had been a widow for seven years before she and Roy were married.
Roy and Rita lived in Roeselare until the fall of 1972. During the five years that Roy preached there, the church grew to about 20 members. Several men in the congregation had learned to teach and preach.
In 1972 the Davisons moved to Beverenwaas, near Antwerp, where a new congregation had begun meeting as a result of the baptism of contacts made through newspaper ads.
While working in the Antwerp area, Roy studied with a man in Boortmeerbeek (near Leuven) who was also first contacted through a newspaper ad. After becoming a Christian he drove to Antwerp each Sunday. When another man in his area was baptized, the two of them formed a new congregation at Boortmeerbeek.
While living near Antwerp, Roy also began studying the Scriptures with a couple in Hasselt. The Davisons moved to the Limburg area in 1976 and established a congregation in Hasselt.
Shortly after moving to Limburg Roy had studies with a couple in Eindhoven, Holland who were baptized and formed the core of a new congregation there.
Roy serves as an evangelist in Belgium. Partial support is received from Christians and churches of Christ in Canada, Europe and the United States.
Since 1978 Roy has also worked as a professional Dutch-English free-lance translator.
He publishes various web sites in several langauges.
