PRCA FOREIGN MISSIONS IN THE PHILIPPINES
NOVEMBER 2017 NEWSLETTER

Rev. D. Kleyn (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
Rev. D. Holstege (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
Rev. R. Smit (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)

Dear members of the Protestant Reformed Churches and our sister churches,

The past five months have been eventful. He whom God set at His own right hand in the heavenly places and gave to be the head over all things to the church summoned Rev. Richard Smit to return to the Philippines as our third missionary. He also led our Synod to recognize the unity of the Spirit that exists between the PRCA and PRCP by approving a sister church relationship with them.

Let us go back and briefly trace these eventful months. Last June, Rev. Heath and Deb Bleyenberg visited the Philippines while considering the call to be a third missionary. Although the head of the church did not summon him to this field of labor, we enjoyed their visit immensely and greatly appreciated their help and fellowship.

Later in June, and into August, Mr. Matt and Sarah Kortus arrived on the field for an eight-week mini-internship. Matt had finished his second year of seminary and was given the opportunity to spend part of the summer in the Philippines. While they were here, Matt accompanied Rev. Kleyn, Rev. John Flores, and Bro. Eric Mescallado on a trip to the Protestant Reformed Fellowship in Leyte (one of the Philippine islands); he joined Rev. Holstege and Rev. Ibe on a trip to Gabaldon (a town on the same island as Manila, but a fair distance to the northeast); and he went on the trip to Negros where he also gave a lecture. In addition, Matt gave a word of edification several times in the churches here, taught catechism to the children at Provident Christian Church, and with Sarah experienced life on the mission field for a while. We appreciated and enjoyed their visit very much as well.

In August, the Kleyns went to the U.S. for a four-week furlough. Many of you saw the presentation that Rev. Kleyn gave on our work here. The Kleyns report that many of you showed great interest in our work here in the Philippines, for which we are glad.

Last October, a delegation from the PRCA Contact Committee came to the Philippines, Rev. Smit and Elder Dave Kregel. Their mandate was to attend the Classis of the PRCP to convey officially and in person that the PRCA Synod approved a sister church relationship with them. Elder Kregel said to the Classis, “You were our daughter, but now you have become our sister, and that is an amazing thing.” We all rejoiced in the work of Christ who has prospered our feeble efforts for the coming of His glorious kingdom.

Also noteworthy is that the PRCP Classis declared the fellowship in Leyte to be their first official mission work. The PRC in Bulacan was appointed as the calling church, and the Classis advised them to send monthly delegations to Leyte until a missionary can be called and sent.

No doubt like all of you, we here in the Philippines celebrated the 500th anniversary of the Reformation on October 31, 2017. We held an all-day conference at Provident Christian Church in Marikina. Rev. Kleyn gave us an overview of the history of the Reformation. Rev. Smit spoke on the legacy of Martin Luther. Rev. Holstege presented John Calvin’s doctrine of providence. You can find these speeches on our website (prcaphilippinesaudio. wordpress.com). During the conference, our book manager, Mrs. Sharon Kleyn, sold a ton of RFPA books. My wife Leah managed our four active little ones. Thank you, ladies, for being such faithful wives, for your excellent attitudes, without which we simply could not do our work. Over 150 people attended the conference, including many young people. From what I could tell, everyone enjoyed it thoroughly.

Speaking of Rev. Smit, as indicated earlier, the Lord led him to accept the call to be our third missionary in the Philippines. This is the first time, as far as I am aware, that our churches have put three missionaries on one field. These are exciting times because now the work of establishing a Protestant Reformed seminary here in the Philippines can go forward. That is necessary because the calls to come over and help are many, but the laborers are few. The PRCP has three pastors, one of whom is approaching retirement age. We will soon have three missionaries on the field, but we are not fluent enough in Tagalog, or the other dialects, to be able to communicate the gospel clearly and build the church effectively in some parts of the Philippines. What has always been true throughout the ages is still true today: the church must establish a seminary to train indigenous pastors who can be sent to preach to people of their own culture. This is especially where we can help, as the PRCA. With the arrival of the Smits, Lord willing, at the end of this year, the work of establishing a seminary can go forward. Rev. Kleyn and I, Doon PRC and the Foreign Mission Committee, all rejoiced greatly when we heard the news of Rev. Smit’s acceptance. We are also glad to hear of the broad and solid support that exists among all of you for this work of the church in the Philippines.

So why do we need three men? Well, because there is a lot of other work here in addition to establishing a seminary. Rev. Kleyn has been occupied with a wide variety of activities, including preaching at Bulacan, Maranatha, and occasionally at Provident; teaching church order at Maranatha and catechism at Provident; making monthly trips to Negros (another one of the Philippine islands) where he gives classes to a large number of pastors who are eager to become Reformed in all respects; advising committees of the PRCP; and more. Rev. Holstege has been occupied especially at Provident, preaching twice on most Sundays; teaching the church order and leading a youth Bible study; teaching the Canons of Dordt midweek and engaging in evangelism work; chairing Steering Committee meetings; attending Tagalog classes every Tuesday and doing the homework; and more. We cannot just stop all of these things and establish a seminary. But we need a seminary greatly. So Rev. Smit is a welcome addition to our mission work and we are very excited about the future.

May the Lord bless you and keep you in His care.

Pray for us often.

Rev. Daniel Holstege

PRCA FOREIGN MISSIONS IN THE PHILIPPINES
JUNE 2017 NEWSLETTER

Rev. D. Holstege (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) Rev. D. Kleyn (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
PO Box 1173 ACPO, Antipolo City, Rizal 1870, Philippines

Dear Members of the Protestant Reformed Churches and our Sister Churches.

This newsletter will be a little different from the usual. Rather than writing a summary of the various areas of our work, I give you instead some snippets of news that my wife has recently written. Hope you enjoy these. Hope too that they give you a little window into our lives and into the work here.
**************
Sunday, March 12
Today we were in the PRC in Bulacan. I have to say, I really enjoyed being there again. It had been a long time. Rev. Kleyn preached the first service and Rev. Flores the second (in Tagalog). The singing was really enjoyable – they do a good job and already know the Psalter well. I enjoyed seeing how the little children had grown and it was great to catch up with everyone. We had to leave soon after the 2nd service as Rev. Kleyn needed to attend a Steering Committee meeting in Provident. We got to Provident before 2:00 and Rev. Holstege had just started the meeting with the other men. I drove Leah and the kids home. The guys came home later when their meeting was finished, and the Holsteges came over for supper.

Thursday, March 16
We had a young man drop by for books who had been here once before. He belongs to a Reformed Baptist church, is a student at a Bible College, and has bought the Confessions, Psalter, and some books on Calvinism. He read through all the Confessions and said he learned a lot about what Reformed is. This time he bought Reformed Worship, but wanted to talk about a-mil and pre-mil. He stayed for more than an hour and asked many questions.

Saturday, March 18
Rev. Kleyn had the twice-monthly 7M pastors’ classes this past Tuesday in Maranatha PRC in Valenzuela. On Wednesday evening we had supper at Holsteges. The Ibe family was also there, which was really nice. All the kids got on well together and had fun playing together. And of course, the adults enjoyed good fellowship, too.

Sunday, March 19
We were in Maranatha today. The group of 4 young adults from Victory Church (which is Pentecostal and Arminian) who now attend Maranatha has grown to 5. I think that makes a total of 7 (2 go to the Berean PRC). These people are all friends and were in what they call a cell group of about 12 of them in Victory Church. They still get together now and then as a group and have many discussions about what they are learning and what they believe. Who knows – there may be more in that group that come to our churches. The ones on Sunday asked Rev. Kleyn a lot of questions about sanctification. Some of them email questions to him every couple of days, too.

Tuesday, March 21
We were in Negros today (central Philippines) for the pastors’ classes in Sipalay. It was an interesting day again. The classes were well attended (15) and there were many questions and a lot of good discussion. It’s so rewarding to see some of the men (also some of the more recent ones) really starting to get it. Some of their comments were spot on. We had loads of luggage this time because we had two large book orders and a few smaller ones. We took along about 60 books. Now again I have orders for next time.

Friday, April 14
This past Wednesday through Friday was the youth camp for the three churches here. Rev. Holstege and Rev. Kleyn went, but Leah and I and the kids stayed home. There were three speeches at the camp by the local pastors. Rev. Holstege and Rev. Kleyn led devotions and helped with the games and transportation. The theme of the camp was “Love not the World” with speeches on Youth & Money, Youth & Technology, Youth & Society. They had discussion groups after each speech and Rev. Kleyn said he was impressed with the young people – some of them talked for 5 to 10 minutes about the speech and what was relevant to them. It was so nice that the youth from the different churches could interact with each other, get to know each other and grow together. They also had teams and many organized games. One of the games was that one of the members of your group had to recite Psalm 23 and
another member, Lord’s Day 1. The game Rev. Kleyn was in charge of was that they had to find peso coins in a bowl of flour. BUT, they had to find the coins with their mouths, and that after FIRST sticking their face in a bowl of water. Wow. A little gross, but pretty funny how they looked afterwards. The staff said they put Rev. Kleyn in charge of that one because then the kids wouldn’t dare argue or put up a fuss about it. Haha.

Sunday, April 30
Rev. Kleyn preached in Provident so Rev. Holstege could preach in the PRC in Bulacan. Rev. Holstege had not preached there before, so I went with them to show the way. Traffic was heavier than normal and we were running late by a good half hour. And to top it off, the road in front of Bulacan church was being torn up, so we couldn’t park there. Instead I dropped everyone off at the church and then took the car back about a kilometer to a member’s house for parking. We had to block traffic for a while by the church (almost caused gridlock I think) trying to turn the car around to go back. A member of the PRCB came along with me and we eventually got it parked, but then had to wait for a tricycle to take us back to church. Finally, at that point, my sense of humor took over, and I could get a little bit into the local mind-set of not worrying so much about time. ☺ We had lunch at church. The Holsteges and the visitors who were with us (from both Singapore and Northern Ireland) really enjoyed meeting all the people there. We left church about 2:00 and traffic was actually better on the way home, so we were home before 4:00. From the point of view of the catholic church, we had a beautiful Sunday. We had God’s people together from 4 closely related denominations and from at least 6 different nationalities. A pretty good representation of the universal church.

Saturday, May 20
Rev. Kleyn started teaching catechism in Provident again, after a summer break (he is still helping out a little in Provident so Rev. Holstege can have time for his Tagalog learning). Leah and I went and met the ladies and children once catechism was finished and we all headed to a pool near the church. The children had fun swimming and we ordered in Jollibee chicken meals for lunch. We stayed until about 2:00.

Sunday, May 21
Rev. Kleyn preached in Maranatha PRC today. We were supposed to have a Church Order class too (Rev. Kleyn is giving a brief overview of the Church Order for the congregation), but it was cancelled because of the heat. The men had a Consistory meeting after lunch, so I sat and chatted with three of the ladies. We had a nice visit. We talked about movies (started by the recent article in the Standard Bearer about the new Disney movie promoting the homosexual agenda). We talked about witnessing at work – how terrible the talk is at their work places and how many homosexuals they work with. And we talked a bit about Rev. Kleyn’s sermon on The Communion of Saints. The Consistory meeting didn’t last too long and we got home about 4:30.

Thursday, May 25
There is a neat story about the book, Saved By Grace. A man who attends Provident has had business meetings with a man from the Netherlands and gave him two copies of the book – one for him and one for his boss. The boss back in the Netherlands wrote back and said, “I am excited to receive such a book from a business friend, which is really uncommon! The title Saved by Grace is very close to my heart, and the faith in God through Jesus Christ, grounded on the Bible, is my daily source of life. Also, I fully underwrite the Calvinist doctrine, which is the closest to the Bible.” He attends a Reformed church in the Netherlands.

Saturday, May 27
Today we had a Reformed Discussion Table meeting in our home. There is a group of young adults (headed by some of the young adults who are members of the Berean PRC) who get together twice a month for doctrinal discussions. They asked Rev. Kleyn to speak on Common Grace today. So we had about a dozen young adults here. Rev. Kleyn taught catechism in Provident in the morning and then picked up a few of the young adults at the train station on the way home. The rest arrived over the next hour or so. Holsteges were here as well. They were all bombarding the men with questions about all kinds of things. Then at 3:00, Rev. Kleyn spoke for about an hour and that was followed by an hour of questions about the topic. I said to Rev. Kleyn, “I wonder how many questions you and Rev. Holstege were asked today?” Dozens probably. Leah helped with the food for supper. They all left at about 7:00.

**************
In conclusion, I’m thankful to report that both our families are doing well. The Holsteges are settling well into their life and work here and both we and the saints are very glad to have them here. We thank God for His daily care and blessings. We also thank you all for your continued support and prayers.

Until next time, in Christian love,
Rev. Daniel Kleyn