November 10 Today in OPC History

Born into a secular family in California on this day, Margaret G. Falk has served the Lord in Israel, Wisconsin, Maine, Uganda, Eritrea, and Uruguay. Her walk of faith began when she became a Christian in ninth grade. At Westmont College, Margaret married fellow student Jonathan Falk in 1971. They lived in a kibbutz in northern Israel, were introduced to the Reformed faith at L’Abri, and served as pastor and wife at Grace OPC in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, and Pilgrim OPC in Bangor, Maine. Margaret and Jonathan went on to serve as missionaries on three different mission fields in two continents. In Eritrea they were jailed, then expelled—the last OPC missionaries to serve in that country.

Margaret’s missionary service began in 1999 in Mbale, Uganda, where Jonathan taught at the theological school. They were uprooted in 2002 when the OPC’s Committee on Foreign Missions asked them to move to Eritrea to serve alongside Brian and Dorothy Wingard. Jonathan taught in the theological school while Margaret taught English and tutored two boys, one with Down’s syndrome and one hearing impaired. Over the years, the Eritrean congregation suffered from government suppression of the Word. On Sunday, April 29, 2007, Margaret and Jonathan were arrested with the entire congregation after morning worship and sent to prison in separate cells. Margaret’s faith grew while she shared a small cell with twenty-five fellow church women. After they were released four days later, they were expelled from the country.

In 2008, the Falks became the OPC’s first denominationally-sent missionaries to serve in a Spanish-speaking country—Uruguay. They opened that mission field and stayed there until 2011, when they needed to care for their elderly parents in the States.

Read more about Margaret’s sanctifying time in an Eritrea jail in Choosing the Good Portion: Women in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, available on OPC.ORG here.