Thank you

We want to take this opportunity to thank you properly for your help and support for our family especially over the last few months.

We also want to share with you our story and show you how we feel God has been leading us into a new chapter of our family’s life.

Our Journey into ZEMA…

As you know we are a family who believes in serving a loving Spiritual Father who has created us each for a specific purpose in the life He has given us.

Full contentment and joy can only come from discovering His love and following His plan for us. Try as we may, on our own, we can never improve on this design for our lives.

Compass Medical Waste Service

 

We would like to start this story of our journey with my employment at Compass Medical Waste Services which lasted 6 ½ years and ended with my resignation in November 2019.

After suffering the loss of our own warehousing business in 2009/2010, when we lost a large contract, we moved to a more affordable house and tried to make ends meet with project work from home. I was eventually forced to find formal employment as the maintenance supervisor at CMWS.

It was not the type of job that I would have looked for if I had a choice, but it was something that now in hindsight I can see was orchestrated by our Heavenly Father to humble and prepare me for what was coming next.

After a couple of years, I started to realise God’s intention to train and use me in affecting change in the people that I worked with every day. I could clearly see the reason for my position and began to humbly obey His guidance day by day. Spiritually, this was a period of real personal growth.

A heart for Tshelimnyama

Many of our employees at CMWS came from the local township of Tshelimnyama near Pinetown. I had visited this area many times to drop off workers and do installations at the local clinics. I soon developed a desire to somehow serve the people in this area, and wondered how God could use me there. As soon as I made the decision to make myself available if anybody from the area asked, I received invitations to share at a local church youth gathering and then to accompany my missionary friend to see what he was doing there. God had a plan for me in Tshelimnyama.

It was during the second half of 2019 I was prompted to prepare for a new part of God’s plan for our lives, even though this had not yet been fully revealed.

Gondolas & Germans

Since 2008, we have also been growing a small sideline business running Gondola type leisure boats on the Durban Point Waterfront canal. This business had grown sufficiently to provide us with an income that could allow me to leave CMWS and do part time maintenance work to supplement this.

But God our Father had a different plan to ours, and this was only made clear just before I resigned.

Good friends of ours from Red Point church were German missionaries working in Africa amongst the Zionist churches for an organisation called ZEMA (Zion Evangelical Ministries of Africa). When they heard that I was resigning, and also that I was interested in his work in Tshelimnyama, they became excited and revealed to us that they felt that we would be a perfect fit to replace them in their work in Africa. They then explained that they had been praying for a South African family to take over from them, as they were at that very moment in time considering a new position back in Germany. This, as far as they were concerned, was an answer to pray and God’s guidance for their family.

Peace & Confirmation

We also received enormous peace and confirmation while we were being pointed in this new direction. I was also in awe of the way in which after asking for yet another sign, my God in His loving humour spelled out the word ZION on a vehicle number plate in front of me as if to say … Jeff, if you want it spelled out for you then there you are!

Everything that was happening, and that had happened since I felt I could resign from CMWS, unfolded perfectly in timing and clearly evidenced God’s guidance especially in the people being introduced into our lives during this period.

Into ZEMA ~~~

We were accepted into ZEMA after attending their Annual conference in January and I started teaching with Thomas in February, to learn the ropes before he left for Germany in August.

Over the December and January period, our Gondola business made a record profit and we felt this was an indication of God’s blessing and provision for our new work in His service. We were not ready for what came next.

Towards the end of March 2020, everything came to a full stop as far as Gondolas and ZEMA teaching was concerned – COVID 19 LOCKDOWN.

COVID 19 LOCKDOWN 

This began as an anxious period of uncertainty as our income stopped and we had not yet started to find support for our ZEMA work. We are required to be self funded.

But we serve a Loving God who knew all this, and when we eventually came to the point of relying on Him totally for our daily bread, He made sure that just in time, every time, we had what we needed.

He even made sure that we could provide for our business staff while we were closed, which was a prayer that together with our employees we had prayed on the day that ticket sales ended. At that point we were looking at 3 weeks of closure, not considering that we would still be closed over 4 months later.

The many accounts of Gods hand in caring for us and the 7 families relying on our small business, has been a remarkable testimony to His faithfulness and love.

Although I cannot teach, I have been able to use the time under lockdown to learn about the history of the Zionists and to increase my Zulu language ability. I have also been involved in producing Kids Ministry videos and running an Alpha course online for our church. Not to mention all the overdue home maintenance.

Kim has been very involved in her very new web hosting business, including the re-designing and hosting the new ZEMA websites. She has also enjoyed recording worship sessions with our church band for online services. I better add homeschooling and housework to that mix.

Our 4 children have been pretty good under the current state of not being able to leave home. They have kept themselves, and us busy with all sorts of projects, on and off line. The usual tensions exist when cabin fever hits, but we have all managed to distract effectively enough to maintain the peace. and having an in-house pianist and guitarist to calm the household spontaneously is a very pleasant luxury. 

Our Heavenly Father

Finally, we stand in awe as we witness the evidence of a living and loving Heavenly Father through His guidance and provision every day, every step of the way.

“I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go,

I will counsel you and keep my loving eye upon you.” Psalm 32:8

Thank you all again for your love and support for our journey so far.

Love from

Jeff and Kim

Jaden, Ryan, Luke and Tori