Francina de Pater is the national director of the international student ministry department of IFES Netherlands and the international student ministry coordinator for the regional team of IFES Europe.
Francina graduated from the Agricultural University in Wageningen, where she met her husband Arie. While she was working in research and getting her PhD in medicine from the University of Amsterdam, she began to volunteer with a ministry reaching out to Spanish-speaking prostitutes. It was then she felt called to leave her academic career to pursue ministry full-time.
Apart from her roles with IFES, she also has her own coaching and counselling practice, and enjoys being involved in her local church leading a ministry that reaches out to the many tourists that visit their church each year. She and her husband also helped plant an international church in Gouda, Netherlands, through which they have connected to many refugees and other internationals from around the world. Francina and Arie live in Gouda and have three children, Iris, Nathan, and Micha.