Dutch law states that the police cannot enter a building "intended for religious or reflective meetings of a philosophical nature, during the worship or reflection meeting".
Bethel Church in The Hague has therefore got a back-to-back rota of preachers and church members to be in the building 24/7 so the Tamrazyan family cannot be deported.
They live in Holland but are originally from Armenia and have not obtained a residence permit.
Premier spoke to Reverend Theo Hettema, the chair person of the General Council of the Protestant Church in The Hague, who spoke at the very first service on 26th October.
He explained "We've started this service to give protection and safety to an Armenian family, the Tamrazyans, who had fled to Holland nine years ago, have applied for a resident permit which was denied again and again, given and denied again."
The Tamrazyan family includes a mother, father and three older children (21, 19 and 15) but their request for a 'children's pardon' has been rejected, despite the fact they meet the requirement of having children integrated for five years of Dutch education.
Listen to Rev Theo Hettema, the General Council of the Protestant Church The Hague, who started the first service off, speaking to Cara Bentley here:
Theo Hettema explained: "This was surely the case for this family but they were not fortunate in applying for this children's pardoning...and then they received an order that they would be expelled and be sent back to Armenia and they have actual evidence that it's not safe for them to return.
"The Father has been politically active in Armenia, has been threatened there and we have good evidence that he will be threatened again when he returns to Armenia and he knows that himself so the only way was to flee to a church".
The family were initially at a church in Katwijk, north of The Hague, where they had been members themselves. Police respected that for a time but as their patience wore thin, the Protestant Church in The Hague stepped in.
On 26th October at 1:30pm, Bethel church started inviting speakers to come and anybody who wanted to to visit as well.
Volunteers have joined in alongside staff and the family have been attending some of the services but are also given a private room in the church building to sleep and relax. They have now been there over a month.
"That's indeed quite a bit of organisation," Theo said, "we had in mind that we had to fill a schedule hour by hour, we started with pastors from the Hague, operating in that schedule, but we made a call to people in the entire country and this morning I heard that we have some 450 pastors, priests and laymen who are willing to fill an hour or more in the schedule".
Rev Theo fills some of the gaps himself and arranges some of the practical needs for the family as well as explaining to the community their reasons for doing it.
He told Premier: "Certainly as church, it's our Christian obligation to receive our neighbours who are in need and we want to express our love to them, it's a simply Biblical commandment to love God and love neighbour. Well, we think that by hosting this church service and giving time and space and safety for them is our translation of this commandment of love".
One of the children, Hayarpi, frequently posts about life in the church:
De estafettekaars werd overgedragen
— Hayarpi (@hayarpi_3) November 13, 2018
Dominee Rijnsburg --> Amsterdam #bijzonder #dank #kerkasielBethel #kinderpardon pic.twitter.com/kAwaxonoe7
The church say their aim is to 'continue the services as long they can, to create time for there to be dialogue about the family's future.
Politicians have been invited to speak and local authorities say they respect the activities, as long as public order is upheld.
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