Yesterday was encouraging. In the morning, I preached the installation service for Rev. Greg Lubbers into his new charge at Covenant Reformed Church (URC) in Pella, Iowa from 1 Corinthians 2:1-5 on “Paul’s Trinitarian Apostolic Model for Ministry” and gave him a personal charge following his vows (picture 1: with Rev. Lubbers and his wife Jennie). The interim pastor, Rev. Ralph Pontier, led the liturgy and gave a personal charge to the church. Church was full—close to 500 people were present for this special occasion, including a good number from neighboring churches. (The occasion was extra special as Pastor Lubbers had come through serious brain surgery only several weeks ago and the Lord made all things wonderfully well.

After the service, we visited with numerous people and then had a noon meal and good fellowship with the Lubbers family and all the relatives who drove from Michigan. Later in the afternoon, we spent a few pleasant hours visiting with Rev. Ralph and Lois Pontier at their home, and then headed back to church for the evening service. Rev. Lubbers preached his inaugural sermon on the theme “Ready to Preach” from Romans 1:15.
After the service, we again fellowshipped with a variety of people, including some whom I had met on previous visits to this church, some who had gone with us on past tours that I had the privilege of leading, and some whom we had not met before, including some children of a good friend, Dr. Stuart Kanis, who passed away some months ago. We closed out the day by going to the new Lubbers home where we fellowshipped with the Lubbers family (picture #2) and relatives from Michigan.

Please pray that God will uphold Pastor Greg Lubbers in his large new charge at Covenant Reformed Church (picture #3) and bless his family and his labors there abundantly to the glory of His name, the maturation of His people, and the salvation of the lost.

Due to our first flight out of Grand Rapids being delayed so that we could not make our flight from Detroit to Iowa, Mary and I decided to drive 7-1/2 hours in order to arrive in time for my installing of Rev. Greg Lubbers in the Covenant Reformed Church in Pella, Iowa tomorrow morning. Here we are driving on the way just crossing the Mississippi River. We hope to arrive by 10:45 this evening.

We had the privilege this evening of attending the Christ-centered wedding and reception of one of our theological students, Ken Kiambati, from Kenya, with Elizabeth VanderWall, from Grand Rapids. By God’s grace, they are a very God-fearing couple—and both the wedding and reception abundantly showed that.

In the three pictures shown, we are first with the wedding couple; second, with Ken’s mother and sister who surprisingly and providentially were able to make it safely from Kenya, Africa despite Covid restrictions; and third, Pastor Mark Raines, one of our PRTS alumni who serves a Reformed Baptist church in Connecticut, delivering a beautiful message from Psalm 34:3 on magnifying the Lord together as husband and wife.

Please pray for Ken and Elizabeth that God will use them mightily for the coming of His kingdom.

We rejoice that one of our Brazilian students, Pastor Breno Macedo, just unanimously passed his Comprehensive Exams this afternoon for a PhD degree he is pursuing at Puritan Reformed Seminary. Now, he will move on to his dissertation. Breno is pictured third from the left here, together with his examining committee, chaired by Dr. Greg Salazar, two of his elders, and me.

The picture is taken in true Brazilian style where men customarily put their arms around each other—especially on joyful occasions like this!
Please pray for Breno that God will continue to carry him through the long and challenging process of writing an in-depth dissertation in the next few years and that he will be greatly used for the furtherance of God’s kingdom.

It is a new month, so we have a new e-book to giveaway at Reformation Heritage Books! This month we are giving away “Living Zealously” by James La Belle and me. Christian zeal is an often overlooked topic in our day. In this book, we aim to mine the riches and depths of Puritan literature on this topic and boil it down for a modern audience. Read this book and ask God to deepen your Christian life with a burning and holy zeal.

You may signup for this free e-book through the link: https://bit.ly/AugustEbookG

Yesterday morning Mary and I took at 5 mile hike through the woods with our niece, Maddy, at First Landing Park in Virginia. Here is a picture of some of the beautiful moss among the roots on the trail.

In the evening we went out for a Mexican dinner with pastor Dr. Josh and Christina Henson and their two sons. The dinner turned into four hours of great fellowship. Tomorrow we are flying back home to Grand Rapids, D.V. Please pray for fruit from our ministry in North Carolina and Virginia over the past week.

We had a wonderful Lord’s Day yesterday with the Grace Covenant Church in Virginia Beach, Virginia. I preached twice for them and Mary spoke once in the afternoon to the women. The church was full and seemed very spiritually alive and responsive to the Word. Between the services we had good fellowship and lunch at the home of the main preaching pastor and his wife, Dr. Jess and Christina Henson.

After church in the evening, we visited with our niece, Maddy Kamp, over snacks. (Her husband, Aaron, is in the Navy.) Aaron and Maddy only live 20 minutes away from Grace Covenant Church.

A few highlights from a great vacation day in Virginia with the Queen!
This morning we had an incredible breakfast—smoked salmon crepes at Lamia’s Crepes. Lamia is a hard-working Algerian woman who worked very fast and yet was very warm (picture #1).

We then traveled north on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel (a 17.6 mile bridge over the Chesapeake Bay which dips down into tunnels twice, so that ships can pass through overhead). We enjoyed several hours in Cape Charles, a quaint touristy town, before heading north another hour to Wachapreague, where we enjoyed a wonderful dinner at The Island House, overlooking the Barrier Islands of Virginia’s eastern shore (picture #2).

After dinner, we enjoyed watching a dozen Black Skimmers catching small fish while skimming over the water behind the restaurant (picture #3).

On the way back, we enjoyed a stunning sunset together (picture #4). It was a relaxing day, enjoying God’s creation and each other.

Today we flew from Asheville, North Carolina and to Norfolk, Virginia, arriving in our hotel around noon. We spent the rest of the day as vacation time enjoying each other, biking to and along the ocean a fair number of miles, and sharing two delicious meals. What a treasure my Queen is! There’s no one in the world I would rather be with than her. God is so incredibly good.

Yesterday was our final day at the ARP conference in Bonclarken, N.C. In the morning, I delivered my final two messages on family worship: its motivations and objections; and family worship in heaven. I felt helped the most in the last address—what a glorious unending family worship will transpire in glory!

We then had a delightful lunch with Dr. Charles and Bridgett Barrett (son of our OT PRTS prof, Dr. Michael Barrett) and their children (1^st picture above). Dr. Charles Barrett gave several addresses to the young people. In the afternoon, I did a QA with Dr. Duguid. We also enjoyed meeting a dear family who have three biological children and have adopted two severely handicapped children with Down syndrome from eastern Europe (2^nd picture above). For dinner, we went to the home of some very dear friends, Dr. Scott and Susie Roberts, who live only four miles away from Bonclarken. Fellowship with them is always sweet in the Lord (3^rd picture below)!

Afterward we took in Dr. Duguid’s last address of the conference on worship (4th picture below) in which he focused on the glorious book of Revelation. We ended up selling all 16 boxes of books that we brought with us except for a handful of titles. Please pray for God’s blessing on this conference—and on the books, that they will bear much fruit.

Now we are en route to Virginia where I will be preaching on the coming Lord’s Day, D.V., for the Grace Covenant Church in Virginia Beach. We covet your ongoing prayers.