Yesterday was another day of sorrow and joy: I preached in the morning about ten lessons that Jesus wants to teach us from the death of Jordan Kamp, a dear young man in our church family who died at the age of 18 last week. Please continue to pray for the mourning Kamp family and our mourning church family, including the grieving peers of Jordan, that God will bring great good out of this past sad week for His glory.

Then, in the evening, Dr. Kuivenhoven led us in preaching from Ruth 4 and baptizing five infants. One infant was a grandson to the grandparents who had to bury Jordan the day before. It was touching to see the grandmother take the child out of church after baptism to care for him. One day she saw one grandchild buried; the next day, she and her husband witnessed another grandchild baptized. God’s ways are above our ways. He knows how to balance our sorrows and our joys. Though His ways are mysterious, faith confesses that He makes no mistakes.

Another infant baptized is a source of great joy to the couple below who tried in vain to have a child for about fifteen years, the last seven of which they have been waiting for an adopted child. One day some months ago, they received a call that a child had just been born in a local Grand Rapids hospital and they had been selected as the adopting parents but they would need to come to the hospital as soon as possible to take the child home with them. This precious, beautiful girl has brought so much joy into their lives! Pray that the children baptized will grow up in the fear and nurture of the Lord and know Him in spirit and truth.

A pastor’s life is often a mixture of sorrow and joy. That was certainly my experience in the last 24 hours. Last night David Woollin (RHB’s CEO; see picture) and I dedicated the new building (44,000 square feet) of Reformation Heritage Books (3070 29th St. SE, Grand Rapids) to the glory of God in the presence of 100 invited guests (pastors, employees, donors—some who came from far).

Then, for most of the day today was the funeral and committal and fellowship in memory of dear Jordan Kamp, a young man in our church family who died suddenly in an accident this past Monday—just five weeks after he graduated from our Christian school and eight weeks before he was planning on making public profession of faith before our church. More than 500 gathered for his funeral this morning in our church building where Dr. Kuivenhoven spoke fittingly and powerfully from John 11, especially on Jesus’s statement, “I am the resurrection and the life; believest thou this?” Most of the people also attended the committal at the cemetery where I spoke primarily on, “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Phil. 1:21). From there we spent another hour or two with the mourning family and friends at our church where we had good fellowship and prayed with several of the mourning family. I was grateful to also learn a bit more in fellowship with others about Jordan’s spiritual life.

After this day full of God’s encouraging and convicting word and gospel—and with human emotion, Mary and I went back to Reformation Heritage Books for the last few hours of the first day that the new store was officially open for walk-in customers. Scores of people filled the store, I was told, all day long, and more than $5,000 worth of books were sold. By God’s grace, we are off to a good start.

Now I am back into sermon preparation for tomorrow morning when I hope to bring our church family a solemn but encouraging message on ten lessons that Jesus is teaching/showing us through the loss of Jordan Kamp. Pray with me please that this sermon, together with the funeral memorials today, might serve as a healing and strengthening balm for the mourning family and for believers, and an awakening and convicting time for unbelievers. Pray that God will grant us all the four needed “R’s” (repentance, revival, reformation, and renewal) in our lukewarm and backslidden day.

Please pray for us. We are grieving as a church family.

A young man in our church family, Jordan Kamp, was working with two friends on getting a camper into a barn Monday evening when a large commercial garage door fell on him and took his life at the age of 18. Please remember his parents, Eric and Brenda Kamp, and their children, Levi, Landon, and Savannah, the grandparents, family, and friends, as they grapple with this overwhelming, sudden loss.

As pastors, we were with the mourning family for hours shortly after Jordan died, repeatedly reading portions of Scripture, praying, crying, and being silent before the Lord and each other, as well as listening to testimonies of Jordan’s only hope for salvation being in Christ. Personally, I am grateful for a hospital visit I had with Jordan a few years ago during which he definitively affirmed that Christ was his only hope for salvation.

Visiting hours will be on Friday, July 16, from 2-4 p.m. and 5:30-8:00 p.m. at Heritage Life Story Funeral Home, Alt & Shawmut Hills Chapel, 2120 Lake Michigan Dr. NW, Grand Rapids, Michigan. The funeral will take place on Saturday, July 17, at 10 a.m. at Heritage Reformed Congregation, 540 Crescent St. NE, Grand Rapids, with the graveside service immediately following the service at Fairplains Cemetery, 2056 Diamond Ave, NE.

The funeral service will also be live-streamed through Facebook, SermonAudio, or our church website. There will be a time for fellowship and refreshments at the church immediately following the graveside service.

Please continue to pray for the family and our church in this heavy trial.
A Gofundme has been set up on behalf of the Kamp family to help pay for funeral costs and other uncovered expenses:
https://www.gofundme.com/f/funeral-and-related-expenses-for-jordan-kamp

For those who wish to provide meals, a Meal Train has also been set up: https://mealtrain.com/lz5zz4

I received a surprise package today of “Teologica Pratica: um estudo sobre João Calvino e seu legado” (350 pages; São Paulo: Editora Trinitas LTDA)—a Portuguese translation of “Theology Made Practical: New Studies in John Calvin and His Legacy” (by Michael Haykin, David Hall, and me). Pray that this book will help enlarge and mature the growing Reformed movement in Brazil.

You can order the book from www.editoratrinitas.com.br

It was great to be with our young people yesterday at our annual Youth Camp. The addresses have been excellent and the young people have been greatly blessed. Last evening several of the elders and their wives from our church joined the young people for dinner and for Dr. Jerry Bilkes’s outstanding message on gleaning wisdom from the book of Proverbs for persevering in the Christian life.

After his address, Mary and I got roped into playing an intense game of basketball with the young people (unfortunately, I missed the shot that I took below but connected on a few others; we ended up losing by one point—but not for lack of trying—and wow, are we ever sore today!). From there we went to the campfire, where Dr. Bilkes (seated below) and I answered a number of the young people’s excellent questions. After doing some counseling, we returned home by a bit after midnight.

Ministry to young people is just wonderful—what a privilege to have these opportunities! Pray for the camp as it finishes up this afternoon that God will use it for true conversions, growth in grace, and His own glory.

Saturday evening we enjoyed a wonderful time of fellowship at a local restaurant in Canton, South Dakota with Pete and Linda VanBeek (Linda is Mary’s sister; we are staying with them) and Rev. and Mrs. Bart and Clarice Elshout (in the foreground of the picture). Yesterday I preached twice for Bart (a very good friend of mine for more than half a century) in Hull, Iowa (second picture). It was good also to reconnect with a number of people who I had the privilege to pastor back in the 1970s in Sioux Center, Iowa.

Right after leading the memorial service of Orie VanderBoon yesterday, Mary and I flew to Sioux Falls, South Dakota via Charlotte, North Carolina. (Two rows in front of us, a large dog filled the aisle of the plane for most of the flight—see picture.) We are enjoying our time today with Mary’s sister and her husband, who live in eastern South Dakota. Tomorrow I hope to preach twice for the Heritage Reformed Church in Hull, Iowa. Many of the older folk in this church were members of my first pastorate here in northwest Iowa 43 years ago which then consisted of nearly 700 farmers and their families. It is always good to see these friends of decades ago.

Every blessing to you and your loved ones for the Lord’s Day tomorrow. Don’t forget to pray for our very needy, sinful, and divided country this weekend as we commemorate our 245^th birthday. Pray for national repentance, national revival, national reformation, and national renewal.

Yesterday was the memorial service for one of our oldest church members, Orie VanderBoon, who passed away at the age of 95. In a very real sense he was the patriarch of his large family of numerous children, grandchildren (49!), and great-grandchildren (85!). He often struggled spiritually, but did have times when he was able to trust in Christ alone as his only hope and righteousness. His walk of life gave abundant testimony of God’s grace in him. His tangible hunger for God and His righteousness, his astonishing generosity to his family and employees and hundreds of others, and his noteworthy integrity in every area of his life were evident to all who knew him. Close to 500 people attended his funeral and many more listened on line. I preached on Isaiah 38:14b, which in many ways was a summary of his life, “O Lord, I am oppressed; undertake for me,” and Dr. Kuivenhoven gave the committal address at the cemetery. It was particularly touching how close his grandchildren and great-grandchildren were to him. Please pray for this large family as they mourn their loss. Pray that they may be, as my father often prayed of our own family, “an undivided family reserved for the heavenly mansions above.”

I am excited to draw your attention to a unique and new publication by Reformation Heritage Books entitled, The Puritan Path. My friend Dr. Michael Haykin says this is “A superb piece of work.”

If you already love the Puritans, or if you would like to learn more about them and see with your own eyes where they lived, ministered, worshipped, and even were imprisoned or died, then you must have this treasure which you will want to go through time and time again. It is a book to benefit your soul and all those whom you share it with.

During the filming of our documentary, Puritan, the talented production team toured major sites that were significant to the Puritans across Europe and North America. As well as shooting film, they took amazing high quality photographs for this beautiful coffee-table style, cloth-bound book. Alongside the photography is commentary, and an exposition by myself of the wonderful and classic explanation of the ideal Puritan by John Geree who was a Puritan himself.

If you have ever met me in person you know that one of the joys of my life is to recommend good books to people. Well, this is a stunning book you will not want to miss, and RHB have allowed me to offer it at half off the retail price, that is just $30. To get that special deal, all you need to do is enter this code when you reach the checkout at heritagebooks.org – ‘BEEKEHALFOFF’.

I pray that you will enjoy this journey with the Puritans, enjoy these amazing photographs with your friends and family, have your heart warmed by the stories they tell, and be encouraged in your walk with our God and Father in and through the Lord Jesus Christ.

https://www.heritagebooks.org/products/the-puritan-path-from-the-reformation-to-the-modern-era-a-pictorial-witness-beeke-and-mccaskell.html

I am grateful for the publication of my “Getting Back into the Race”—a book on backsliding and how to recover from it—into the Slovak language. Pray that God will bless it to many in our needy day when backsliding is prevalent in the church and all around the world.

It can be purchased here: https://www.dobrasprava.sk/kategoria/osobna-zboznost/navrat-na-trat-liek-na-duchovny-upadok/