#Mark van overloop driver#

A great education was given, which fully equipped one for the ministry in our churches. The love the professors had for God, for His truth, for the church, and for the Protestant Reformed Churches was a love they sought to instill into their students. They worked hard, and they expected the seminarians to work hard. First, there was the hard work required by the professors. The four years spent in the Protestant Reformed Theological School were good years, filled with activity. The seminary was situated in the basement of old First Church, located at the corner of Fuller and Franklin in Grand Rapids, Michigan. As a result of this plea, in September of 1968 I began attending classes at the Protestant Reformed Seminary. Herman Hanko, agreed to teach the remainder of the pre-sem requirements for these collegians, as well as all of the regular seminary subjects. So the Synod and the Theological School Committee of the Protestant Reformed Churches urged the men who were taking pre-sem courses in college to come to the Seminary. At that time there was much concern about the education received in the colleges. Studies at Calvin ended after only two years there. Then it was on to Calvin College, where I enrolled in a pre-seminary course of study. This education was also a part of the means God used to prepare me for the ministry.Īfter graduating from Hope School in 1963 I attended Unity Christian High School in Hudsonville, from which I graduated in 1966.

Strong memories exist of a solid education, with a Protestant Reformed basis. Teachers who later had to put up with me were Miss Delores Mensch, Mr. My first teacher was Miss Jessie Dykstra. During my years at Hope God blessed the school with good growth, so that the school expanded a couple of times. When I began attending Hope, there were only four classrooms.

#Mark van overloop driver#

An interesting note is that the bus driver during my eighth and ninth grades was a young man who was in his last two years in the Protestant Reformed Seminary. There was a long bus ride to Hope School on a route which included stops as far west as Beaverdam, but that would not stand in the way. So my parents moved to Hudsonville, to a house on 32nd Avenue (just two blocks from the present location of the Protestant Reformed church in Hudsonville). As well, they were very conscious of the vows they had made at baptism, namely, to see their child “instructed and brought up in the aforesaid doctrine…to the utmost of their power.” They would do whatever it took to have their child properly educated. For them this move was necessitated by their love for God and for their children. There were no bus routes from Byron Center to Hope Protestant Reformed Christian School in Walker. When it was time for my elementary education to begin my parents saw the need for a move. Love for God and His Church overcame any obstacles created by distance. At that time the efforts to establish a Protestant Reformed Church in Byron Center had ceased, and those in this community who desired to be Protestant Reformed traveled to the northwest about ten miles to attend the Protestant Reformed Church in Hudsonville. Gerrit Vos as a member of Hudsonville Protestant Reformed Church.įor the first four and half years of my life I lived on 84th Street in Byron Center, Michigan (just a block away from the present location of the Protestant Reformed Church in Byron). God gave Gordon and June Van Overloop a baby boy on February 13, 1949.