About

Reapers’ Fellowship consisted of a “family” of Christian missionaries, each member born-again by believing the glorious Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, and formed in June, 1952 in a small village in Rijnsaterwoude, Holland. The ministry was founded by Cornelius Vanderbreggen, Jr. who was saved in 1942 after hearing the Gospel for the first time in a YMCA building in Seattle, Washington.

“Cornie” had graduated from a prestigious New England college with honors and became a travel lecturer for KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, presenting beautiful slides from Holland and Western Europe to attract travel to those destinations. By these and many other standards, he had become a success. However, he experienced a great emptiness within as he realized the vanity of intellect, reason, and glamor in his life and how this led to unhappiness and confusion.

Following salvation great peace and contentment replaced emptiness as he grew spiritually by meticulous Bible study, prayer, and seeking that relationship with the Person of Christ which satisfies. The lord would use this peace and Truth mightily as Vanderbreggen, now a Marine 1^st Lieutenant witnessed to troops at New Caledonia, Guadalcanal, and in the invasion of Guam. “If I died in the forthcoming invasion, I would go directly into the presence of Him Who loved me and gave Himself for me, accepted by Him because I had accepted Him, delivered from judgment because He had borne my judgment on the Tree.”

The early focus of his post-war work became the salvation of the Dutch portion of his relatives, each unsaved. When no family member would believe he began to show flannelgraph depictions of Scripture to the children of the Rijnsaterwoude village under the horse chestnut tree at his grandmother’s home. Slowly, the hearts of each Vanderbreggen relative were moved by the Spirit to believe until finally, to Cornie’s immense gratitude to the Lord, his grandmother was saved at age 100.

Genesis 14:14 references Abraham’s decision to raise up trained servants of his family to oppose the kings who had kidnapped his brother. From this passage, God directed Cornie that He would provide a missionary team to support the dissemination of the Gospel throughout the world as He directed a far reaching ministry of evangelization. Member-by-member became a part of the Reapers Fellowship. The family has been as large as nine, as small as two.

Locations in countries in Europe, Asia, Africa as well as America heard the wonderful words of life. As the visited harvest fields grew in number, correspondence grew exponentially. With each mission trip, reams of mail had been received at RF headquarters before a 4-6 week Bible teaching trip had concluded.

 Many visits had been made to servicemen in a variety of stations and camps. An example of a common question, “should a Christian participate in war for his country even if the killing of another man is involved”?  After visits to Arab countries in the Middle East, considerable correspondence was received as to why Israel would not keep its word in honoring post World War II territorial boundary establishments.

The leader would diligently search the Scriptures seeking God’s answer to these and other important questions. When age and health matters would limit the number of evangelization trips globally, the ministry became largely a Bible teaching and correspondence ministry.

Most attendees of Cornie’s Bible teaching conferences left with much clearer understandings of Bible passages and their relevance to world events. Eight books were written by him dealing with Bible exposition and Bible themes, all doctrinally sound and presented in unique clarity. “Little Gems” are very popular witness cards, each containing a beautiful scene, photographed by the author, along with a Bible verse and message or one of his poems on the reverse side. Through the years, these have proved to be effective in presenting salvation, providing comfort, and anticipating the believer’s hope. A host of shorter writings for specific situations such as the loss of a loved one represent another portion of the literature.

Cornelius was the last family member to leave for the Savior’s Glory, February 2015. The Reaper headquarters in Hiawassee, Georgia was sold and therefore there was no way to continue with literature requests. Now that a web site is in place, most literature is available and the remainder will be reprinted in a timely manner.

A final note. Income from the literature was needful for Reapers’ Fellowship which had no affiliation with a church, denomination, or mission board. The administration of literature requests in the future will be the privilege of 5 volunteers and all funds will go to reprinting literature and postage. Each volunteer considers himself or herself already wealthy according to Proverbs 10:22, “The blessing of the Lord, it maketh rich, and he addeth no sorrow with it.”