Remembered Generosity: Blessing a Young Church 75 Years Ago

Two west-coast churches celebrated anniversaries recently, recovering the memory of a cross-border gift. In 1951 a communion serving set no longer used by the then 50-year-old First Christian Reformed Church in Lynden, Wash., was gifted to the newly established Ladner (B.C.) CRC.

The need had been brought to the Lynden congregation’s attention by Rev. Paul de Koekkoek, who served as what was then called a “home missionary” for the denomination. De Koekkoek, who lived in Washington state, served the home mission-supported churches in British Columbia as an itinerant pastor, preaching and administering the sacraments of holy communion and baptism as well as presiding over marriages and funerals. (The CRC’s home and world mission agencies were joined as one in 2017 and are now known as Resonate Global Mission.)

In a handwritten letter dated June 4, 1951, the Ladner CRC council thanked the First Lynden CRC for “the beautiful gift from your congregation, namely a complete communion set. We hope we may use it for many years.” The silver-plated set was polished and used in Ladner CRC on communion Sundays until they replaced the set with a new service set and individual communion glasses in the late 1960s. Ladner packed up the set, and it was stored away.

In 2013 the communion set was rediscovered, its story remembered, and the Ladner council arranged for it to be returned to the Lynden congregation. The set was on display at Lynden’s 125th anniversary celebrations in July.

In searching through archival documents for the Lynden 125th anniversary, Galen Laird, chair of the anniversary committee and chair of council, unearthed the memory.

Joe Schalk, chair of the Ladner council, remembers the discovery in 2013 and the decision to return the communion set to the gifting church. Schalk recalls that in January 2014, Ladner CRC church member and granddaughter of de Koekkoek, Elaine de Koekoek Smit, returned the set to Lynden CRC. The communities were both originally primarily farming communities 36 miles (about 60 km) apart, separated by the USA/Canada border.

First CRC in Lynden was the first Christian Reformed congregation established west of the Rocky Mountains. In October Ladner CRC gathered for its 75th anniversary. The congregation was one of many CRCs founded in the 1950s, ministering to a wave of immigrants from the Netherlands to Canada.

A total of 22 Christian Reformed congregations celebrated 75th anniversaries in 2025, all having been established in 1950. Two-thirds of them (14) are in Canada.