The Montifiore Manse

A Coming Visitor and How Terry got to Tassie

Dear friends & family,

Due to an amazing and unexpected blessing from the Lord, I was reminded that many of you may not know how I came to be the pastor of the Southern Presbyterian Church of Launceston, Tasmania. In the light of my coming ordination, I thought that it might be nice to share this unexpected blessing with you as well as how the Lord brought me to Tassie.

The unexpected blessing was that last week I received word from my friend Herb Krul that he hopes to come to Launceston for my ordination. I was quite surprised but very thankful to the Lord that Herb could come.

Herb is an elder in the Heritage Reformed Congregation (HRC) of Chilliwack, British Columbia, Canada, and incidentally he was a Tasmanian before he moved to Canada. I got to know Herb and the men and women of the HRC in Chilliwack when I had the privilege of doing an internship in their midst. During that internship, and ever since, the Chilliwack HRC has had a special place in my heart and the people there are never far from my thoughts and prayers.

It was interesting to hear a bit about Tasmania from Herb and his family while I was doing the internship because I had never been there and knew little about it. All I really knew about Tasmania was where it was and a bit about the now supposedly extinct "Tasmanian Tiger" or Thylacine (Thylacinus cynocephalus) from a report I did in high school.

Another reason I was interested in Tasmania was that I knew I was going to visit Australia, thanks to the family of my friend and fellow seminarian Bert Pohl. I met Bert just before I started seminary. Bert is from Adelaide, South Australia, but had moved all the way to Grand Rapids, Michigan to attend Puritan Reformed Seminary. By the grace of the Lord, Bert and I met and we have been good friends to this day. While I was in Chilliwack, Bert told me that his family wanted to fly me to Australia for a month once studies were finished (Bert and I were in the same graduating class, but I was bumped back a year because I needed to complete my extended internship in Chilliwack to fulfill the requirements of the Seminary Education Committee of the HRC). So after I finished my internship in Chilliwack, I flew out to Australia to spend some time with Bert Pohl, his wife Kryna, and Bert's family.

While we were in Australia, we did some traveling. We spent two weeks in Adelaide, one week in Melbourne, and one week in Tassie. In Melbourne, I had the opportunity to meet and make good friends with the Rev. John Nelson of the Australian Free Church and his wife and family. The week in Tassie would turn out to be one of the most important in my life, though I did not know it at that time.

When Bert, Kryna, and I were in Tassie we stayed at the manse (minister's house) of Rev. Iain Smith who is the pastor of the Southern Presbyterian Church in Hobart. I remember standing on the porch of the manse in the midst of the cool late night air just thinking and praying about how familiar Tasmania seemed to feel though I could not place why. As I looked out over the small mountains and rolling hills, I wondered if it was because I was reminded of British Columbia. I was still missing Chilliwack greatly, so perhaps that was it; but somehow there was more to it that I could not quite place. Somehow this marvelous new place felt familiar in a way I could not explain and in a way that seemed to comfort me and unsettle me at the same time. This feeling only grew the whole time we were in Tasmania.

I did not know why we were in Tasmania. I initially thought it was just a little vacation travel trip, but there was more going on. We were in Tasmania because the Southern Presbyterian Church in Launceston was possibly interested in calling Bert Pohl to be their pastor. He asked if his American friend could come along and they thought it was an excellent idea. Bert, Kryna, and I must have visited almost all the office bearers in both the Hobart and Launceston churches. Bert and I preached one Sabbath in Launceston and on a week day I took a Bible study in Hobart. In the meantime, we saw as much of Tas as we could.

As we traveled and visited the office bearers, I found out a startling bit of history that I personally shared with the Southern Presbyterian Church: we had both been influenced by the small Dutch denomination called the Protestant Reformed Churches (PRC).

The PRC was a split from the Christian Reformed Church (CRC) over the doctrine of common grace. While I was doing my Bachelors degree at Reformed Bible College (now Kuyper College), I came across the writings of one of the founders of the PRC, Herman Hoeksema. Hoeksema was the theological sparring partner the Lord brought to me to help me iron out and define much of my own theological thinking. As I wrestled through Hoeksema's insights and formulations, I considered joining the PRC (this was before I had even heard of the HRC) but did not due to some of his errors concerning the relationship between the doctrine of the Trinity and covenant, and his view of marriage, divorce and remarriage.

The Evangelical Presbyterian Churches had received some theological help from the Protestant Reformed, but soon discovered some of the negative effects their distinct understanding of certain doctrines can have on how children are viewed and on evangelism. These difficulties led to a split and the formation of the Southern Presbyterian Churches. I was stunned to see that the Lord had led me personally in a way parallel to how He led the Southern Presbyterian Churches.

As we left Tasmania, I stored all these things in my heart. Why had Bert Pohl come from Adelaide to PRTS? Why had the Lord joined us in friendship? Why had the Lord inclined the heart of Bert's family to bring me to Australia? Why did I have to wrestle so much with the PRC if I was meant to stay in the HRC? Why did Tasmania seem so familiar? Was it just because it was like Chilliwack? How could it be that the Krul family was living in Chilliwack but was from Tasmania and even knew some members of the Southern Presbyterian Church of Launceston (but did not even know they were in that church)? I knew there may not have been answers to these questions, and even if there were they may not have been significant, but nonetheless I hid these things in my heart and prayed about them.

Upon returning from Australia to the U.S., I soon received a letter from the Southern Presbyterian Church of Launceston asking me to return to Tasmania and spend more time preaching and ministering in their midst as they considered whether they would like to extend me a call to be their pastor. I was amazed, stunned, thankful, overjoyed, hesitant, and afraid all at once. I immediately consulted with my two pastors (Dr. Beeke and Rev. Vander Zwaag) and my friend and mentor Rev. Ray Lanning. As correspondence with the Southern Presbyterian Church continued, I kept them informed.

After much prayer, thinking, counsel, and helping out at the HRC church plant in Yellville, Arkansas, I returned to Tasmania and ministered the Word in their midst for two and a half months. After that time, they extended me a call to be their pastor and the Lord gave me the freedom to accept with the blessing of HRC.

Here I sit today typing up this blog entry and I marvel to see how the Lord has pulled all the threads of my life together, especially the threads of my time studying the PRC, my time with the people in the Chilliwack HRC, and my friendship with Bert Pohl. I could explain how my coming here tied even more threads together but these will have to suffice for now.

I am also very thankful to the Lord that all these threads have been joined before the Lord joins me to my wonderful and precious Martha. I have been praying for her and waiting for her for years, and now, in the Lord's perfect timing, all these things come together.

Who would have ever thought that a man from Grand Rapids who almost joined the Protestant Reformed would meet an Australian in seminary, serve a church with some people from Tasmania in Canada, and eventually become a pastor in Launceston?

The Lord's ways are truly great, deep, and beyond our understanding.