This week I (Marie) celebrate my 50th birthday. Wow, it is hard to believe that I have been alive for half a century! I feel that I have so much to learn and discover, so I can’t wait for the next 50 years!
As children, we used to say, “one day, when I am big, I am going to …”. Many of those wishes were silly, but some of them were deep-rooted dreams. My dream was to be a missionary. Even though the details weren’t clear, I knew I wanted to tell others about Jesus.
So, needless to say, I am living my dream! What a privilege that is, and you enable me to have a front-row seat to be part of what God is doing around the world. Thank you!
My favourite bible verse is Ps. 23:5b “ …my cup overflows.” I certainly can testify that the Lord’s blessings and goodness to our family and me overflow so much that I have to drink out of the saucer to keep up!
Prayer requests:
Thank the Lord for my good health and many blessings.
Praise the Lord that we could book tickets to visit South Africa during June and July. We can’t wait to see everyone. Three years is a long time!
Pray for our 120 missionaries from Ukraine. You can follow their live feed prayer requests and sign up for a slot on the 24h prayer chain. We are grateful for the Lord’s protection over them so far.
We are always encouraged to hear stories of God working in people’s lives. Marie recently compiled a report about the impact of our ministry, and she thought you would enjoy reading these short stories.
Mongolia
In October, our ministry were able to have an in-person student conference for the first time since the pandemic started. They ran ads on Facebook to invite participants, targeting college students who lived nearby. Around 150 students came to the meeting. Of these, 60 indicated decisions for Christ!
New Zealand
Dana, a young woman working in a mental health service, started a Bible study with her colleagues. They met weekly to pray, study and encourage one another.
Because the group was open to everyone in her workplace, curious non-Christian colleagues sometimes came to read the Bible with them too! Amy was one of them, coming faithfully each week.
In one meeting, only Dana and Amy showed up. Dana had been hoping for an opportunity to talk with Amy about the gospel. Using her GodTools® app, Dana shared the “Knowing God Personally” presentation with her. Amy asked Christ to forgive her sins and give her a new life!
Asia
In a country where all online content is monitored, censored and often blocked, between January and October 2021:
28,189,119 people interacted with the ministry by watching a video, reading a post, chatting, or opening and clicking on content.
Of those people, 2,265 made a decision to follow Christ after a conversation with a ministry team member.
Over 1,200 of those people were connected with local churches or fellowships!
Ghana
Emmanuel, from Ghana, received church-planting training from our ministry. After the training, Emmanuel returned to his village. He began sharing the evangelistic tract called the Four Spiritual Laws, and 15 people indicated decisions for Christ. Emmanuel began to meet with them.
After Emmanuel’s group invited a “JESUS” film team to show the film in their community, another 22 people joined their group. Emmanuel identified two people in the group — now a small church — who were zealous to win souls for Christ. He trained them in how to use the Four Spiritual Laws booklet.
When one of them, Ezekiel, moved to a nearby community, he began sharing the gospel. He has since planted a church that now has 34 members.
Thank You!
Because of your generosity, Dana, Emmanuel, Ezekiel, and many others have been equipped and resourced to reach their communities with the life-changing news of the gospel. Thank you for your generosity to our family to be part of this ministry!
We celebrate the birth of our Saviour and want to thank the Lord for what He has done in 2021. There were hardships and some great things that happened this year. Here are a few:
Highlights:
Kenneth completed his school career and was accepted at the top university in Florida.
Stefan and Monica had an opportunity to travel to South Africa and visit our families.
Marie started a new role as the Global Communications Director.
In the last three months, Stefan has traveled to meet face-to-face with several of our church planters around the world. These times together has been a blessing.
Over 3.4 million personal gospel presentations were made through our ministry despite the pandemic, leading to over 435,500 personal decisions. Some of these occurred in some of the most challenging parts of the world to reach with the gospel.
Lowlights:
The death of dear friends and co-workers to Covid and cancer.
Continued restrictions due to the Covid pandemic and also the economic impact on our beloved South Africa.
Your partnership with us enabled us to continue to serve the Lord as missionaries. We do not take the privilege lightly.
We are praying that you and your loved ones have a special Christmas. We celebrate that “the Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). What a privilege we have to tell others about His grace and truth!
With travel restrictions resulting from Covid lifting slightly, Stefan had the privilege to visit three countries to be part of gatherings where strategic church planting conversations took place.
A personal highlight was visiting a young pastor couple in Finland that we have been coaching over the past few years but have never gotten to visit. Stefan meets with the husband Pyry and Marie with the wife, Anniina. They are experimenting with a model of church planting that is attracting young Finns who are church-less, but looking for authentic faith. It is exciting to see young families finding Jesus and being obedient to His call to make disciples.
Stefan is currently in Moldova.
This story from Moldova is a reminder of God’s power to transform someone and use them for His Kingdom:
“Oxana stood apart from the others, arms crossed, cigarette in hand. Everything in her body language said, “Leave me alone.” She had reluctantly come to the picnic in the woods that afternoon with other non-Christians after some Jesus Film® workers invited them.
One staff member took the initiative to talk with Oxana about Jesus, and she became curious about the hope God offered.
She agreed to attend the next group meeting, and it was there she gave her life to Christ. Within the week, her mother, sister, and niece did the same. Turning her indifference into a passion for the Lord, Oxana quickly shared her faith 100 times. After watching Magdalena, an evangelistic film about the life of Jesus from the eyes of Mary Magdalene, she invited 25 people to meet in her home as a small group. Oxana is now part of the church planting team in Moldova. She said she cannot imagine her life without God.”
Thank you for your partnership in helping to bring the gospel to people all around the world.
Left to Right: Martin, Stefan, Tanya, Aliona & Igor in Moldova
Prayer Requests:
Pray for safe travels for Stefan and good connections with the church planters he is meeting with at the moment.
Pray for Kenneth and Monica to walk closely with the Lord.
Pray for our friends Pyry and Anniina as they help plant churches in Finland.
Pray for Igor, Aliona, Martin, Tanya, and Stefan as they give leadership to our church planting efforts in Europe.
“For years, we’ve asked God to grant us opportunities to serve the body of Christ with digital strategies. Working with Global Church Movements, our Digital Strategies team recently had the opportunity to organize a vision-casting meeting with over 110 pastors and denominational leaders throughout Chad. At the end of the meeting, several denominations decided to open the doors of their churches for digital training.” These are the words of our friend and fellow-missionary, Bayang Mognanguele from Chad in Francophone Africa.
Stefan met Bayang in 2015 and Marie in 2018 when she was in Kenya to help train our staff members in Digital Strategies, where he was a participant. The team from Chad has embraced digital strategies and it is exciting how they are using them in every sphere of their ministry.
Bayang continues, “In July, we trained the first 143 pastors. Several pastors admitted they had believed technology is evil even though people use it every day. To give them an experience of digital ministry, we called all the participants to use the devices at their disposal to announce the gospel to at least one person. They did this by SMS, phone calls, movie clips and social media.
One pastor shared that his childhood friend accepted Christ over the phone as a result of the training.
All the pastors have committed to training their local church members. Thus, hundreds of Christians will be mobilized through these leaders. Despite the political and economic crisis in Chad, God is really at work mobilizing His army. We have several requests from other regions for training that we will conduct in the coming days.”
Thank you for your partnership with us that help Bayang and our other missionaries to share the love of Jesus all around the world
Prayer Requests:
Pray for Bayang and our team in Chad as they continue to train pastors to equip their church members to use digital tools to spread the gospel.
Pray for the annual meeting this week of the 90+ member groups and churches of the Global Alliance for Church Multiplication (GACX). It is a hybrid meeting, with around 230 participants meeting in person and around 1,000 joining in virtually.
Praise the Lord that Kenneth has settled well at university and Monica is enjoying her Grade 11.
One of the joys of our roles at the global head office is the privilege to help equip missionaries around the world with training and resources.
Meet Comfort in this 7-minute video. It showcases her journey of discovering Jesus on her mobile phone and the impact of our ministry. Marie is blessed to have helped the team in Ghana over the years.
Imagine thousands of people who are finding Jesus like Comfort. This is what we do to help seekers find Jesus online, grow in their faith, and train them to share the gospel with others. Comfort’s story shows a full circle of digital ministry impact. Comfort now serves with our local ministry in Ghana.
We feel so honored to have you on this journey with us! God has done great things these last few years, and we are so blessed to call you friends and partners.
Continue to pray with us for many to find Jesus.
Prayer Requests:
Thank the Lord that Kenneth started at the University of Florida. Pray for him to find a Christian community to join.
Pray for Comfort and our missionaries around the world as they share the gospel.
Pray for our church planters and their efforts, especially for creativity, as the pandemic requires new ways of safely connecting with people.
We are now the proud parents of a high school graduate!
Kenneth finished his school career with pomp and ceremony during his graduation on 17 May. The event was hosted at the indoor sports arena here in Orlando. With over 700 Seniors (Matrics) in the class, it was a big day, celebrated with gusto. Fireworks rounded off the event with “oohs” and “aahs” from students and parents alike.
Kenneth starts at the University of Florida on 28 June. The university is in Gainesville, two hours north of Orlando. They receive 50,000 first-year applications every year and only accept around 7,000 students, so we are proud of him for making the cut. His dream is to become an anesthetist or anesthesiologist, as it is called in the US. It is a long road ahead for him, and much can still change.
Thank you for all the prayers for Kenneth during his school career. We are grateful that he has come this far and we thank you for your ongoing prayers for him and Monica.
Stefan and Monica will be in South Africa in June for a brief visit to check in on family. Stefan can be reached on email or with WhatApp on his US number.
Alexa came to me (Marie) for prayer during the altar call. I asked her what I could pray for her. Her immediate response was – “I want to say ‘yes’ to Jesus.” It was such a joy to pray with Alexa as she fully surrendered her life to Jesus. Throughout this past weekend, we saw several students commit their lives to Jesus.
We had the privilege to minister at a youth conference in Deming, New Mexico. Six churches from various denominations in Deming put resources together and invited missionaries from Youth with A Mission (YWAM) and Campus Crusade for Christ to minister to the young people from their town.
We joined six YWAM missionaries and planned a weekend for the youth that included the gospel, understanding their identity in Christ, and growing in their walk with Jesus. On Saturday night, we also challenged the youth to consider serving the Lord in missions. Eight young people responded to the calling of God on their lives. It was a holy moment to pray with them and recognize the Lord at work in their lives.
God answered your prayers on our behalf, and we praise the Lord for the opportunity to hang out with these young people and teach them how to “braai” marshmallows around the fire the South African way while imparting spiritual truths. Seeing their excitement for the Lord has been a great blessing. Thank you for praying for us!
Deming turned out to be remarkably similar to the Karoo, where Stefan grew up in climate and aridness. It was a treat to stay on a pecan farm and learn how labor-intensive it is to farm pecan nuts. We enjoyed eating the delicious nuts.
Here are a few photos from our weekend in New Mexico.
Worship lead by YWAM missionaries and local volunteersMarie training the youth to have personal time with God.Stefan helping the youth to write out their personal testimonies.Missing the Karoo
A partner in New Mexico, who we have met through church planting efforts, has asked us to speak at a Youth Retreat in their town, Deming. High school and university students from various churches in Deming will join us. The purpose of the retreat is to help the youth consider their life purpose and what God might be calling them to do.
We will join a group of six people from Youth With A Mission (YWAM) to lead the retreat.
We are both excited and a bit apprehensive at the prospect of this retreat. We do lead the youth at our own congregation, but it is a tiny group. This retreat is requiring us to step out of our circle of comfort.
Would you please pray for us?
Pray for our preparation. We will lead a workshop on:
How to grow in your relationship with God.
How to share Jesus with others using your personal story.
In addition, on Saturday night, we will challenge them to consider how they can become life-long laborers for God’s Kingdom, no matter what career they choose. It has been good for us to reflect on our calling and journey – we certainly could never have imagined how God would use us when we said a feeble “Yes Lord, send me” many moons ago.
Please also pray that:
The students will indeed hear the call of the Lord for complete surrender of their lives and respond to it.
The partnership with YWAM will bring the best from our groups together for God’s glory.
Kenneth and Monica will be safe at home. They are preparing for their final exams of this school year.
We celebrate his life and the blessing he is to us as a family and many others. He made a long list of what he is most thankful for, and we condensed it to seven things.
Here it is – in no particular order:
Growing up on a farm in the beautiful Karoo.
Getting married and sharing the same calling with Marie.
For beautiful children and watching them grow up.
Wonderful family and friends around the world.
As an adrenaline junkie – many adventures that involved tricks high in the sky, down in the ocean, and anything with speed in between.
Traveling around the world and seeing God at work everywhere.
Serving our missionaries and helping countries be more effective through good systems, platforms, and church planting strategies.
Thank you for your part in encouraging and supporting him.
Tomorrow (13 April) Stefan and his team are hosting another “Bold Moves” online conference for our church planters worldwide. This one is offered in nine languages and will celebrate the progress made in church planting over the past 10 years and focus on the task ahead as we continue to look for ways to establish churches everywhere.
Please pray for:
Stable internet and connections
The participants to be encouraged and equipped
Increased fruitfulness of all our missionaries
13 April is also the start of Ramadan, the month of fasting, for followers of Islam. Pray that God will use this month of spiritual openness to reveal Himself to them.
