Welcome to another newsletter from the Foreign Mission Committee! Since the last update, our church has split into two, with the majority of our church committees following suit in short order. It was decided, however, that we as FMC would remain as one, for an indefinite period of time. Thus, our committee comprises members from both Dunnville East and West. One of the main reasons for this is our equal support as churches of our mission project involving Rev. Kampen and the Reformational Study Centre. May our Lord continue to grant his blessing on the work of our committee, as we directly support, encourage, and interact with Rev. Kampen in his work with br. Jeff Morris and Rev. Jopie van der Linden. 

With that as a quick update from the committee, we pass it off to Rev. Kampen for his report on RSC activities in the third quarter of 2022

Welcome to the first newsletter from the Foreign Mission Committee regarding work at the Study Centre in 2022! It is very unusual that the first newsletter of the year comes out this late; normally you would have already received a spring newsletter from us on work in the first quarter of the year. But the circumstances in Rev. Kampen’s family prevented us from publishing until now. So now the report below will cover the first half of this year. With deep thankfulness we can see that the Lord has continued to guide and bless the Study Centre as well as our missionary and his family, even and especially during a time of trial and refining! With that, let’s turn to Rev. Kampen’s report

Welcome to another newsletter on activity at the Study Centre! As you can read in the following, there is much activity revolving around the recently launched Vox Viva website. This is a special time for the Study Centre, and we give thanks for the Lord’s provision at his appointed time! We could catch a glimpse of the new website at the recent Congregational Information evening in September, and also get a sense of where the RSC hopes to take Vox Viva in the years to come. May the Lord who has blessed the work thus far continue to show the way forward, and prosper the work according to his abundant mercy!

Here follows the report from Rev. Kampen regarding the work done in the third quarter of 2021.

Time again to bring you up to speed on some of the goings-on at the Reformational Study Centre. Before we get to Rev. Kampen’s update, we alert you to a turnover in our Foreign Mission Committee. This spring, Jon Skinner and Mark Vandervelde requested to be relieved of their duties on the Committee as, respectively, council liaison and secretary. In their place, the committee could welcome Don Bos and Ben VanRootselaar, with Ed Kelly Sr. moving over to the role of council liaison. Welcome, brothers, and we look forward to working together! It is also then prudent to acknowledge with sincere gratitude the labours of Jon and Mark during their time of service on the committee. We were blessed to have each of you involved in committee work for various lengths of time, as your various contributions have helped to advance our mandate, our work, and our service in the kingdom of our Lord! We commend you to the LORD and his grace as you continue to serve the church in the tasks he has called you to fulfill.

Let’s then move now to the report from Rev. Kampen regarding recent (and upcoming!) developments in his work at Study Centre.

It’s quickly that time again for another newsletter from the Foreign Mission Committee. This time around, without further ado, we can launch right into the report from Rev. Kampen on Study Centre happenings since the start of 2021.

The calendar indicates that we’re already near the end of January 2021, but hopefully it’s not too late to ask you to look back for a few moments at the concluding months of 2020 and the work of the Reformational Study Centre during that time. With deep thankfulness we can indeed observe that the Lord was gracious to sustain the Study Centre, and even increase its work and usefulness in his kingdom. He has used the pandemic for refining and teaching the church, and if that were all he was doing, it would be far more than what we deserve. But he has also used the pandemic to open up even more opportunities for the Word to make a deep impression in this world, especially in the young church. For the RSC, last year saw more pastors sign up for its services than any other year. The number of pastors that the RSC is helping is now more than 11,000. That tells us not only that there are so many pastors who are in great need of services that we can offer, but also that the Word is making huge inroads on the continents of Africa and Asia! And so we rejoice with the RSC that the Lord is pleased to use humble, weak servants as instruments in his hands for the promoting of his universal reign!

Here then follows a report from Rev. Kampen on some of the recent developments related to the ministry of the RSC over the final few months of 2020

In church life, May and June are usually months of transition. The conclusion of Catechism classes and study society seasons gives way to public professions of faith as well as the turnover of office-bearers. With the current pandemic, much in church life has been disrupted. Here locally, however, the novel coronavirus has not appreciably interfered with the usual events occurring during the months of transition, with profession of faith being the notable exception. A lesser-known, but rather important occurrence during transition time is the completion of terms of service in various church committees, and the coincidental appointment of replacements to such committees. This did happen also this year at the usual time. And as it applies to our Foreign Mission Committee, the turnover was not insignificant. A total of four committee members concluded their respective terms: brothers Brian Bratcher, Henry Jansema (as council liaison), Arthur Kingma, and Jon Skinner. Those found able and  illing to replace them are brothers Ed Kelly Sr., Jeremy Muis, and Mark Vandervelde, with, thankfully, Jon Skinner being found willing to serve now as council liaison. Welcome aboard, all! As committee we gratefully acknowledge the contributions of the outgoing members, their valued service, and commitment to the work of supporting the church’s mission projects, and we wish them the blessings of the LORD moving forward. It is in the case of our brother Arthur Kingma that we may be doubly certain that he truly is enjoying greater blessing than any of us can imagine, the blessing of living now by sight in the immediate, glory-laden presence of his Lord and Saviour. Arthur’s graduation into glory happened unexpectedly, just two weeks after his final FMC meeting. Heaven’s gain, for which we rejoice and yet grieve at the same time, as it means a deep loss for those who loved him here. Our thoughts and prayers continue to be with his wife Gloria, his children and grandchildren. May the Chief Shepherd bless and keep them all within his everlasting arm.

As committee, we offer to you the following update from Rev. Kampen on some of the work of the Study Centre in

Part of our rationale as Foreign Mission Committee in giving you a newsletter every three months is that a lot happens at the Study Centre in such a timeframe. Hopefully the reports confirm that for you—even if our reports only share a portion of the work of the RSC every quarter. Yet while much can happen over three months, we’ve all recently learned that it takes far less time than that to have your whole life flipped around. Seven weeks ago, none of us could have imagined having our lives characterized by social distancing, home schooling, working from home, self-isolating, hand sanitizing, and washing grocery packaging! But that’s today’s reality, with COVID-19 trending frequently in the news as well as in our minds. It’s then to our comfort to know and profess that the future belongs to our strong God, to the one who has reigned over every pestilence and plague throughout human history. And so we, also at the Study Centre, are striving to think along the lines of what the apostle writes in 2 Corinthians 4:17, that “this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.” COVID-19 is undoubtedly an affliction, but along with the suffering of the rest of this age, it is a light momentary affliction in comparison to the glory to be revealed at the return of Christ and our promotion into everlasting glory in his presence. 

That perspective is what the Lord is using to guide the Study Centre as it carries forward with the work. And so we then want to again bring you up to speed on the labours of Rev. Kampen over the last bit.

At the dawn of another year of our Lord, we thank him for his steadfast faithfulness to his promise to preserve and increase his church. A Scripture passage commonly read at the turn of the year is Psalm 90, where Moses, the man of God, concludes his prayer by declaring, “Let your work be shown to your servants, and your glorious power to their children. Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us; yes, establish the work of our hands!” The Lord whose work is beautiful and weighty is the one to whom we must turn for help and blessing so that our work may have any measure of worth, beauty, and weight. Only he can promote our work to something useful in his kingdom! And so we now renew our petition at the start of 2020 that he would continue to use us as vessels for his glory, in all he gives us to do. He has promised. He is faithful. 

With that in view, we then share with you some of the work of Rev. Kampen for the Study Centre over the final few months of last year. While the report is among the shorter, its content reveals some very significant happenings in the mission work

Welcome to another newsletter on the work of the Reformational Study Centre! It’s our joy to once again share with you some of the activities and developments in the work over the past few months, with the hope that you give thanks along with us to our gracious Lord for his church gathering work in this world