March 18 Today in OPC History

The Rev. Henry Buikema was ushered from the church mili­tant to the church triumphant on March 18, 1993, which also was his 75th birthday. After his graduation from Reformed Bible College in 1945, Mr. Buikema served as a lay evangelist in the Christian Reformed Church for twenty-nine years. In 1975 Mr. Buikema joined the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and began calling upon people door to door as a lay evangelist in the Grand Rapids area inviting people to the Grandville Avenue Gospel Fellowship. The small group that formed became the Griggs Street OP Chapel and then Griggs Street OPC. Mr. Buikema was ordained on September 23, 1979 to serve as pastor. In 1989, the Griggs Street congregation changed its name to Harvest OPC. Upon his semi-retirement in 1981, Mr. Buikema and his wife of fifty-four years, Wilma moved to Florida and were supportive of OPC mission endeavors in Melbourne and Titusville.

Picture: Henry and Wilma Buikema