April 7 Today in OPC History

On April 7, 1993, Linda R. Posthuma, administrative assistant to the Committee on Foreign Missions, was in her second day of speaking to those assembled at the nineteenth annual Southern California OPC Women’s retreat. What Linda could not have anticipated when she left Philadelphia the day before was that she should have packed boots as an unseasonable snow storm fell on the hilly camp grounds of the conference center in Idyllwild, Calfornia. The ninety-nine women weren’t anxious, however, since Linda spoke about “being content whatsoever the circumstances.”

Over Linda’s thirty years working at the OPC offices, she has spoken at many churches and retreats, talking about the work of the COFM and its missionaries. Linda grew up as the child of a Christian Reformed Church pastor/home missionary, who served on two Indian reservations in New Mexico as well as in churches in Washington, Arizona, and Oregon. In 1973, she graduated from Calvin College with a secondary education degree in German and History, which she used for thirteen years as a teacher at the Phil-Mont Christian Academy in the Philadelphia area. She came into the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in 1973.

In 1986 she began work for the COFM under then general secretary Donald G. Buchanan, Jr. She later served under interim general secretary John P. Galbraith before Mark T. Bube took the position in 1991. Linda is one of the few OPC staff who began work at the well-known “7401” Old York Road office building, moved to a temporary site in Horsham in 1990, and arrived in 1995 at the current location in Willow Grove.

Over the years she has assisted many missionaries and missionary associates in numerous ways as they are so far from the U.S., including logistics to move on and off the field, handling visas and financial matters, helping with the needs of retired missionaries, hosting COFM meetings and conferences, and managing the COFM office with the help of ten different secretaries over the years—and, of course, speaking on behalf of the committee in all types of weather.