January 11 Today in OPC History

The Committee on Foreign Missions announced on this day in 1991 that Mark T. Bube was chosen as their new general secretary. He followed in the footsteps of General Secretary Donald G. Buchanan, Jr., and Interim General Secretary John P. Galbraith. A ruling elder in First OPC in Portland, Oregon, Mark became the first general secretary without ministerial credentials.

Born in Princeton, New Jersey on September 10, 1951, Mark spent his first eleven years at Calvary OPC in Ringoes, New Jersey, where his father was an elder. After his family moved to California, Mark, then in junior high, publically professed his faith under the ministry of foreign missionary Henry W. Coray at First OPC in Sunnyvale in 1963. He received his degree from Stanford University in 1973 and married fellow student Kathleen Wiggins on June 9, 1973. Four years later, Mark graduated from the University of San Francisco School of Law and worked as an estate tax attorney with the Internal Revenue Service in Portland, Oregon. At First OPC Mark was ordained as a deacon (1981), then as a ruling elder (1983). He served on the Committee on Coordination and as moderator of the Presbytery of the Northwest (1988-1990) and of the 55th General Assembly (1988).

In 1991, Mark and Kathy moved to Philadelphia. In the mid-1990s, both Mark and Kathy survived bouts of cancer by God’s grace. A ruling elder at Calvary OPC in Glenside, Mark is a member of the Committee on Ecumenicity and Interchurch Relations and on the Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary board. Kathy, a former bank vice president, serves as the administrator of the OPC Loan Fund.

During his twenty-five years of service, Mark has overseen the successful completion of mission work in Korea, the start of seven mission fields in China, Ethiopia, Haiti, Quebec, Uganda, Ukraine, Uruguay, and the resumption of work in Eritrea. He dealt with difficult circumstances surrounding the jailing and expulsion of missionaries in Eritrea, and the tragic accidental death of Haiti missionary Matt Baugh. Mark has sought to encourage the exercise of the outward and ordinary means of grace, which Christ has given His church for the gathering and perfecting of the saints until His return. When not traveling to the mission fields, presbyteries, or churches, Mark and Kathy often are found on their front porch with their Schnoodle Winston.

Picture: Mark Bube as moderator of the 55th (1988) General Assembly