Protestant Reformed Missions, Years of Rebuilding: Missions Revived (1954-1961) (3)
This article by Rev. Wilbur Bruinsma documents the Protestant Reformed Church's domestic mission efforts in the late 1950s, focusing on the establishment of PRC mission work in three small South Dakota communities (Isabel, Leola, and Forbes) among German-immigrant populations. The account traces how missionary Rev. George Lubbers, under the direction of the PRC Mission Committee, extended the church's outreach to these declining rural towns after completing earlier mission work in Colorado.
About 100 miles northeast of the Badlands of South Dakota, tucked away between two Indian reservations, the Standing Rock Indian Reservation on the north and the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation on the south, lies a small grain-farming community with the name Isabel. This small town in western South Dakota was established in 1910 and named after a railroad employee's daughter. Through the years this town has dwindled in size so that today it numbers 145 people and about 38 families. In the...
Full article available on sb.rfpa.org