All Articles For In Memoriam

On November 17, 2020, Bernard J. Woudenberg entered his everlasting rest, at the age of 89 years and 9 months. He had served the PRCA in her active ministry for forty years. We remember him and the works that God accomplished through him with praise to God for raising him up. Bernard J. Woudenberg was born on February 16, 1931 in Grand Rapids, MI, in a house less than a mile from the First Protestant Reformed Church on the corner of Fuller and Franklin. He was baptized in First PRC. Part of God’s plan for preparing him for the ministry included...

As I reflect upon the gift of God that Prof. Robert Decker  was to the church of Jesus Christ, I write this article in  memory of him from two perspectives. First, the man known to the churches as Rev. Decker,  and later as Prof. Decker, was to me always and  only “Uncle Bob.” I am the youngest son of Prof.  Decker’s younger brother, and because of our relative  ages, many who did not know our family well would  often assume that Prof. Decker was my grandfather.  My memories of Prof. Decker are those of a nephew.  It is fitting that...

“Come and get it, Jay.” Those words, recalled Rev. Jason L. Kortering some fifty years later, were the exact words spoken—at his graduation from seminary in 1960. We’ll return to them in a moment. Suffice it to say, now, that informality seems to have been the order of the day. Have you been at the seminary on Ivanrest recently? If so, you were greeted by a full-time receptionist. Just to your right, you would have seen an office for the registrar, one of whose duties is the calculating of cumulative grade-point averages and of the regular reporting of them to...

Rev. VanBaren. PRCA.org. RBO. P.R. Special Ed. Not many today, I think, could put those four enti­ties together in one short sentence. But it can be done. In fact, the Covenant Reformed News could well be added to the mix. Protestant Reformed Special Ed plays an important part in the work of many of our Protestant Reformed schools. Who today remembers, or even ever knew, that it was Rev. Gise J. VanBaren whose initiative led to the formation and development of the Special Education So­ciety. Four girls at Hudsonville, way back when Rev. VanBaren was pastor there, needed special catechism...

To die is gain. Phil. 1:21b Funeral services for our deceased brother, the Rev. Wm. Verhil, were held in Grand Rapids in the Fuller Ave. Church, on April 7th. From the West, where also services had been held on April 5, there were present two delegates from the consistory of the Protestant Reformed Church of Edgerton, Minn., and the four pastors of our churches in Sioux and Lyon Counties, the Revs. A. Cammenga, J. Blankespoor, M. Gritter, and P. Vis, who also served as pallbearers. April 7, was the day for the meeting of Classis East of our churches, and...

My friendship with Rev. Bekkering goes back to the mid-1960s when we worked together at a local grocery store. Interestingly, that is also where we both met our spouses. Rev. Bekkering and I attended Calvin College together, as well as the Protestant Reformed Seminary. Then we served together in the ministry of our churches for nearly four decades. Rev. Bekkering served churches in Randolph, WI; Houston, TX; Jenison, MI (Faith); Pella, IA, and finally as missionary in Ghana, Africa. For the most part our contact with each other was limited to our work on the broader ecclesiastical assemblies. For a...

*The contents of this article are derived from a number of sources, including personal interviews with Rev. Breen and his wife Pauline during our many visits, the family, and especially his grandson, attorney Mr. Ben Veldkamp, to whom I am indebted.   Although the year 1919 began with the nation mourning the death of Teddy Roosevelt, optimism seemed to abound. The flu pandemic that snuffed out some 30 million lives, was beginning to fade. World War I, the four-year quagmire that swallowed up another 18 million souls, had just ended (and with it the furor in West Michigan over a...

Our thanks to Rev. Langerak for writing this memorial. The editors apologize for it coming a year late. Late Sunday evening, September 21, 2014, the Lord took Rev. Dale Kuiper to live with Him in Paradise. That he lives where there is no more death, sorrow, crying, or pain was comforting for family and friends, especially because for several years prior, Rev. Kuiper suffered the debilitating effects of a stroke. It was difficult to see this man who enjoyed being outdoors, confined to a wheelchair; one who loved visiting others, needing company himself; and one whose work depended upon a...

Early this morning, March 24, I received a telegram from my friend, Arnold Schildre at The Hague, informing me that his brother Klaas, the well-known Dr. K. Schilder had on the previous day, Sunday, March 23, passed into his eternal rest. I was deeply shocked. For although I certainly did not agree with him in regard to the question of the covenant and the promise, I nevertheless esteemed him for his work’s sake, esteemed him, too, as a highly gifted scholar, and, above all, as a brother in Christ. And now Dr. Schilder is no more. It would seem to...

I first came to know Lau Chin Kwee in Singapore when I was called there to be a missionary to the Gospel Literature and Tract Society (GLTS). The GLTS was a vibrant group of mostly Chinese new Christians. Chin Kwee was already at that time a leader of the GLTS. He was instructing the group in the Heidelberg Catechism. Many of the members of GLTS were brilliant college and university students. God used the young brother Chin Kwee, at the time a school teacher, in very exciting days, to work towards the establishing of a new Reformed church in Singa­pore....