Wanswerd was and is part of Ferwerderadeel whereas in the 19th century (and the better part of the 20th century) Birdaard was part of the municipilaty of Dantumadeel. Wanswerd and the neighbouring town of Jislum had one Reformed Church and so did Birdaard and Janum.
On January 6, 1836 a church service was held in Wanswerd by Rev. van Velzen. Right after this event the Christian Reformed Church was instituted and it was a very small congregation: 5 members to start with. One of them was Akke Arjens Slim, widow of Albert Gosses Kingma who had passed away on November 5, 1834 at the age of 26 years. She remarried later on to Gerrit Sierds Riedstra, a shopkeeper at Birdaard. Akke has served the small church well a.o. by putting her home available all the time for meetings and services. An other member, Pieter Symens van der Woude, was the leading Seceder in Wanswerd-Birdaard and took care of the sermons.
A week after the institution of the church -on January 13, 1836 to be precise- constable Jan Sybrens Douma received orders to keep an eye on the Seceders and fine all attendants if a meeting would exceed the maximum of 20 persons.  He refused and was fired after which he joined the Seceders.

The first 5 members of the Wanswerd-Birdaard congregation were:

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Source;
"De Afscheiding van 1834 in Friesland - Deel 1: de classis Wanswerd (Dokkum) van de Afgescheiden kerken" by Dr. J Wesseling.
Published in 1980 by De Vuurbaak which kindly granted permission to copy above information from the book.

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