Visitation and Memorial for Bob Heerspink
Memorial services will be held this week for Rev. Robert Heerspink, director of Back to God Ministries International, who passed away on Saturday morning following a three-month battle with pancreatic cancer.
Meanwhile, praise and prayers are being offered to God throughout the Christian Reformed Church and around the world for Heerspink and his family, who were at his bedside when he passed away on Saturday morning.
"On Bob's behalf, I am saying for him, 'Goodbye to all my dear friends around the world till we meet again in our Heavenly Father's Kingdom. Remain steadfast in your faith and love. God be with you all," his wife, Edie, wrote on Bob's CarePage a few hours before he died.
Visitation for will be at Matthysse-Kuiper-DeGraaf Funeral Home, 4145 Chicago Drive in Grandville, Michigan (see map) at the following times:
- Monday, October 3 from 6-8 pm
- Tuesday, October 4 from 2-4 pm
- Tuesday, October 4 from 6-8 pm
The funeral service will be at 1 p.m. Wednesday at La Grave Ave. CRC, 107 La Grave Ave. SE, in downtown Grand Rapids (see map). The service will be followed by a lunch at the church. There will be a committal service for family and friends at 4 p.m. in a cemetery in Grandville.
Heerspink was director of BTGMI, the media ministry of the Christian Reformed Church in North America, since 2006. During that time he had visited with and developed close relationships with BTGMI staff around the world.
Ordained in 1979, Heerspink had been pastor of four CRC congregations and served as an adjunct faculty member at Calvin Theological Seminary prior to being named director of BTGMI in 2006.
He leaves his wife, Edie, and children, Eric and Katie, Joel, and Amy Heerspink.
"Bob will be sorely missed by his family, by all who knew him, by the staff at Back to God Ministries International and his many colleagues and friends. Please remember the family in your prayer," said Rev. Peter Borgdorff, interim deputy director of the CRC, in an announcement on Saturday.
CRCNA staff members gathered in Grand Rapids, Mich., Palos Heights, Ill., and Burlington, Ontario, on Monday afternoon to honor Heerspink’s memory, intercede for those who mourn his passing and give thanks for his life and ministry.
An announcement on the BTGMI website asks people to "pray for Bob's family — his wife, three children, aged father and other extended family — who are grieving his loss. Please also pray that the Back to God Ministries International staff may continue in the work that he so tirelessly carried out with us for the last six years."
