Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;
Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.
Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.
Longfellow’s Psalm Of Life
In all eternity, there is but a moment of time that we have been given to serve the Lord. The Bible says,
Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.
Our lives are like a vapor; here one minute, then completely gone without a trace. Four or five years after we pass, our names are rarely mentioned. Then a few decades go by, the next generation passes, and our lives are forgotten. But there are a few soldiers of Christ who made a mark on history that will never be forgotten. One thing they all had in common was that they took no thought of their own ambitions or their own lives, but dedicated their short time on earth to a worthy purpose. Brother Heino Buitenkamp is one of those gallant men who gave his life to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
As a boy, his family in The Netherlands risked their lives to hide Jews from the Nazi killing machine.
Brother Heino heard about Brother Branham while he was in bed with a badly injured foot. He was given a Church Age book to read, and that was all he needed. He not only recognized Brother Branham as the prophet of the age, but devoted his life to telling others about the Truth that he had found.
He risked his life to carry Brother Branham’s books and tapes across the Iron Curtain, into the Soviet-controlled nations.
He worked with translators, smuggling manuscripts in and out of Communist countries to make sure the people had the Message in their own language.
He brought his family with him on many of these dangerous trips. This instilled the burden to spread the Gospel into his son Gerald. Brother Gerald then taught his children the same thing, making three generations of fearless missionaries in the Buitenkamp family, not to mention Brother Heino’s father who also risked his life to save God’s people, the Jews.
Brother Heino has been our loyal representative in Holland for many years, overseeing the complicated work in Europe where we deal with more than 20 different language translations and many different countries.
He was the loyal shepherd of a little church in The Netherlands where he stood against all odds, proclaiming that the Voice the Seventh Angel is on tape and God has given us ALL the opportunity to hear It.
We could never say enough about this gallant man of God. He fought a good fight, he finished his course, and he kept the faith. Now there is laid up for him a crown of righteousness.
Brother Heino went Home last Friday. We ask that you keep his wife – Sister Lammy, their children (a son and three daughters), their grandchildren, and the church in Wildervank, in your prayers.
Thank you, our dear friend. Your work has made a mark on history that will never be forgotten, neither in this world nor in the world to come.