Last Updated: January 07, 2013

Bentheim and Bethlehem

Pastor John Byker – Hamilton CRC

December 2008 Hamilton Herald

          So small!   That’s what struck me most about the County (Grafschaft) Bentheim during our Germany tour this past October with thirty-four members of our local International Bentheim Society.  All 14-miles-wide by 25-miles-long of Grafschaft Bentheim can snuggle nicely into just nine of our 24 NW Allegan County townships!

County Bentheim in Germany, juts like a sore right thumb into the belly of the Netherlands, between Drenthe and Overissel provinces.  Bentheim   County Germany numbers about 133,000 people living on 350 square miles.  Our Allegan County is home to 113,000 people spread across 827 square miles.

Nevertheless, through the years, Grafschaft Bentheim immigrants have greatly impacted our land.  The Bouws descendants from the village Emlichheim formed Russ’ Restaurants and from the descendants of the Meijers clan, in little Lage, so it has been said, came our huge midwest Meijers chain.

Immigrant ancestors from Emlichheim produced an early Calvin College President Henry Schultz.  Other theological giants were immigrants descended from Veldhausen (Geerhardus Vos), Uelsen (Wm. Masselink), and Hoogstede (Wm. Rutgers).

My great grandfather Steven Snieders came from Georgsdorf, my great, great grandfather Geert Deiters came from Nordhorn, and my great, great, great grandfather Evert Zagers left Emlichheim in October 1846 with Rev. Van Raalte aboard the Southerner.

Traveling south from Emlichheim to the Bentheim City Castle takes less than an hour – like a drive south from Holland to Pullman.  Grafschaft Bentheim’s widest spot is less than a drive from the Lake Michigan shore straight east to our Bentheim, Michigan.   With room to spare, County Bentheim easily fits into the nine Allegan County townships of Laketown, Fillmore, Overisel, Manlius, Heath, Clyde, Valley, Lee and Cheshire. 

In 1847, just one month after Van Raalte founded Holland, MI, the ship Antoinette Marie carried 70 members from two entire Bentheim congregations – Emlichheim and Hoogstede - with all their elders and deacons. They had family names still heard around here like Bouws, Klomparens, Lemmen, Lucas, Rutgers, Zalmink.    They settled on the southern edge of Van Raalte’s “De Kolonie,” in a place they named Graafschap, after their beloved Grafschaft Bentheim.  “Wy bin’t Graafschappers!”  Near Emlichheim, I had the privilege to see inside the “Holtgeerts Barn” where many, including my own kinfolk Zagers and Poppens, had worshipped in secret during intense religious persecution at that time.

Ten years later in 1857, this Graafschap church was the largest of five West Michigan churches to give birth to a new denomination, the Christian Reformed Church, which today numbers over a quarter million members spread across North America.

In 1869, when Graafschap church birthed her first daughter congregation at East Saugatuck, most charter members had Bentheim names like Broene, Laarman, Lohuis, Piers, Vos from Uelsen and Deiters, Dobben, Harmsen, Kotman, Menken from Nordhorn and many others.   I’m told of spirited discussions over the new church’s name being either Uelsen or Collendoorn, the latter a region just over the border from Laar.  Collendoorn was picked.

With the help of Swenne Harger, a founder of our local International Bentheimer’s Society, here is a sampling of Grafschaft Bentheim names, still well known in our area, and the hamlets from which their forefathers came:

Laar - Borgman, Genzink, Klingenberg, Langejans, Lemmen 

Emlichheim -Jansen, Lucas, Poll, Schierbeek, Wesselink, Zagers

Hoogstede - Brouwer, Kalmink, Klomparens, Miskotten, Rotman

Georgsdorf - Ahuis, Berens, Moss, Schippers, Walkotten, Yonker

Wilsum – Arens, Beckman, Breuker, Geerds, Kempker, Peters

Veldhausen - Gemmen, Haverdink, Hinken, Morsink, Wolters

Itterbeck-Ratzel - Brink, Hemmeke, Jurries, Nyboer, Slenk

Uelsen - Bergman, Eding, Jurries, Oetman, Tubbergen, Vollink 

Lage – Bolker, Meijers, Morsman, TenBrink, TerStege, Veldhoff

Nordhorn, the largest of the Bentheim towns, sent many immigrants during the 1870’s when their cottage weaving industry was undone by new industrial weaving machines across the border in the Netherlands. Just a sampling of these

Nordhorn families (Becksvoort, Busscher, Deiters, Deters, Essink, Klokkerts, Lampen, Looman, Lugten, Meiste, Menken, Rigterink, Reimink, Sal, Sandschulten, Schreur, Schievink, Smoos, Tien, Tucker, Wedeveen, Volkers, Zoerhof) still thrive everywhere throughout our NW Allegan townships.

So, what does Bentheim have to do with Bethlehem?  O Little Town of Bethlehem!

 "But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me  one who will be ruler over Israel...,”  Micah declared seven hundred years before Jesus’ birth.  God chose to birth His Only Son, clothed in human skin, in little Bethlehem.  The Son of God would be parented by “little people,” mere teenagers.  And, the first to greet God’s grace wonder, announced gloriously from the heavens, would be “little people” – smelly shepherds actually, whom God expected could spot a worthy Lamb when they saw one.

            God loves the “kleine luyden,” the little people, as Abraham Kuyper used to call them.

“We are God’s workmanship,” Paul urges us, “created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do!”  (Eph 2:10) And Jesus himself said that His people would bring a Kingdom message “…like a mustard seed…though it is the smallest of all your seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree…” (Mt 13:31f)

            Many reading these words are “Graafschapper” offspring from little Bentheim.  All of us who believe in this Bethlehem Baby are children of a miracle born at God’s chosen little Bethlehem. 

Are we surrendering fully to the Most High’s amazing plans and purposes for each of us?  God desires yet to do incredible things through us, His yielded vessels – seemingly so small and weak – but designed so that, as Paul learned, “…in weaknesses…Christ's power may rest on me.”  (2 Cor. 12:9)

            In this good place we have enjoyed so much fruit from those who preceded us – most of them children of both Bentheim and Bethlehem.   For us now living within these Hamilton School District boundaries, only slightly smaller than all Grafschaft Bentheim, what amazing possibilities our big God can birth through each of us working in unity with a “mustard seed” mentality of His Kingdom growing among us – children of little Bentheim and Bethlehem!

If you would like a copy of this in Word, click here.

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