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Father Gé Buurman SMA passed away at the Mission House in Cadier en Keer on Friday, March 10th. He was 84 and had been a member of the Society for African Missions for 60 years. The funeral took place on March 16th.
Gerardus Antonius Buurman was born on June 13, 1938, in Huissen. On July 15, 1962, he joined the Society for African Missions and was ordained a priest on December 21 of the same year. Shortly thereafter, he was sent as a missionary to Ghana. After a year of integration in Winneba in 1963, he was appointed chaplain in Elmina in 1964 and in Cape Coast in 1968. From 1971 to 1973, he earned his licentiate from the University of Leuven.
In 1974, Buurman returned to Africa. This time to Ivory Coast, where he first worked as a chaplain in Korhogo, before becoming superior of the SMA community in Komborodougou in 1977. He remained in this position until 1980, when he became pastor in Korhogo. From 1986 to 1988, he was superior in Tengrela. After a gap year in Heerlen – as a member of the team for the training of lay missionaries – he was sent to Tanzania in 1989. There he became a member of the pastoral team in Nyarubele. He remained in this position until 1990, when he spent a sabbatical year in Rome.
After that year, Buurman returned to Tanzania in 1991 to work in N'Wandoya as a member of the pastoral team. In 1995, he returned to the Netherlands and became superior of the then Africa House in Amsterdam. At the same time, he worked as a pastor for the French-speaking community in Amsterdam. Between 2006 and 2008, he returned to Africa once more to work as a spiritual counselor at the SMA Formation House in Ibadan, Nigeria.
In 2008, Gé Buurman retired and settled back in Amsterdam, where he continued to serve as a pastor. Due to declining health, he moved to the SMA Mission House in Cadier en Keer in 2016. He died there on March 10th. The funeral service took place in the house chapel on Thursday, March 16th, after which he was buried in the missionary cemetery at the Mission House.
