My (Jumbo’s) life story:
I was born on May 23, 1973 in Mossel Bay, in the Western Cape of South Africa. I grew up in the Northern Cape in a town called Barkly West. My Father was the director of a children’s home with 140 kids, so I had a lot of brothers and sisters.
I am the oldest of three children. My sister is a year younger than me and my brother seven years younger. I gave my live to the Lord at the age of 9. A teacher, Estelle Fourie, led me to the Lord with a lesson that she presented on Salvation. Since then I was very involved in a Christian Youth Organization called UCSA (Uniting Christian Student Association)
We moved in 1988 to a town called Kuruman in the Kalahari. I finished high school at Kalahari High in 1991.
I went to University of the Orange Free State and studied there until 1995. I went on my first mission trip at the end of 1992 to Transkei. This changed my whole life and focus.
I was driven to be successful in a worldly manner. I wanted to be rich and a successful businessman, but after that mission trip my whole view on life changed. From success in the world it changed to success in the kingdom of God. To know everything of economics and business to knowing my Lord and Savior. I experienced the Lord like I never did before. Since then I have never looked back. I also knew that I was going into fulltime ministry after this experience.
So for the next six years after my first mission trip the Lord prepared me to go into full time ministry. Every year I went on at least one mission trip and my relationship with the Lord just deepened. I finished my studies because I believed that God wanted to use it and He has. After my studies I went back to Kuruman and got very involved in the church. At that time there was a great need for the youth in the town and I was always very need driven; so I started a Christian youth club. This club was open every Friday and Saturday and was attended by 300-400 kids every night. We had a mini revival under the youth and some of the youth was extremely committed to the Lord. It is good to know that this ministry is still running after 10 years.
In the middle of 1998 the Lord led me in an extreme way to become part of Service Year for Christ. He totally took me out of my comfort zone and I became a team leader for a team of 6 in the Adventure Ministry in UCSA. In 2000 I started to focus again very much on outreaches. From 2000 – 2003 I focused on Mozambique after the huge floods of December 1999. Again the need of people was just driving me. Then I started to see what AIDS is doing in Africa. The poor orphans and the way people were struggling just to have something to eat. Poverty is killing Africa. Corruption is the main reason for poverty. We had to do something!
2004 I was asked to do all the logistics and finances for the Beat the Drum outreach to Swaziland and it was here that my involvement with Adventures in Missions started. Under the Leadership of Bruce Wilkinson and Seth Barnes we were going to undertake the biggest once off outreach in the history of the church. We had a 1000 students from different countries working together and focusing on every high school in one nation. The Lord was very gracious to us. Many times it was only the Lord that were pulling us thru.
October 2nd, 2004, I married the woman of my dreams (after dating her for four and a half years). Carike and I were married on the beach of Jeffreys Bay, South Africa, and we were blessed with a perfect wedding day. The Lord was present in a big way and He gave us a perfect sunshine day after many days of rain.
After our honeymoon, we experienced that the Lord would like us to come to the US and be part of AIM. So we boxed all our belongings and waited for 6 months for our paperwork. In this time of waiting we went back to Swaziland to work with our missionary friends Ben and Janeen Messner. The great need in Swaziland just touched our hearts and we started Communities of Hope in Swaziland. We also meet the craziest, but most wonderful American ladies in this time that came to Swaziland to do a retreat for the Swazi woman. (Since that day they have been and still are daily the biggest blessing to me and my wife.)
So after serving a year with AIM in USA while experiencing many blessings, we are currently serving, still with AIM, in Swaziland.
So in a nutshell:
- I love the Lord and my greatest desire is to life a live that is pleasing to him.
- I love my wife and I believe our relationship is very closely connected to my relationship with the Lord.
- I am still a work in progress – Thanks to every person that is part of this building process.
- My heart is in Africa – to bring change and growth to a continent that needs it very much. The challenge is very big, but this is what the Lord called me for.
- I believe in relationships – this is the building blocks for success in ministry and life.
- I also believe that the Lord does not want one child to go to bed hungry or even worse die of hunger.
- We as the body of Christ is responsible to bring change.
Kriek’s story:
I grew up in beautiful Cape Town, South Africa, with my dad, mom and two younger sisters. I remember sunshiny days on the beach with my mom, motor races with my dad and running around bare feet with my sisters and cousins!
I committed my life to the Lord when I was 12 also due to a teacher witnessing to our class. I finished school in 1996 and during this year I experience the Lord calling me into long term missions. I knew I wanted to serve Him more than doing anything else in my life. So straight after school I went into the ministry, joining UCSA (Uniting Christian Student Association).
For 5 years I was part of the adventure ministry and I enjoyed every moment of it. I love being outdoors! We did adventure camps with children where we taught them life skills and about following Christ through experiential learning. We used abseiling, rock climbing, rope courses, hiking, paint ball, etc as activities.
Also during this time I went on a couple of mission trips. (I love traveling!) I never had the money to go on any of them, but the Lord always came through for me and provided! He made each trip possible. I went to a few Southern Afican countries, to USA and even some Arab countries. I just loved living with the local people, learning their language and culture, spending time with them and ministering with the church people to the unsaved and hurt.
On October 2004 I had my perfect dream-come-true day when I got married on the beach to an awesome guy. He loves and serves the Lord . . . and he loves me!
After we got married we felt led by God to go to the States to serve with AIM. While in the States I made many new friends and precious memories that will stay with me forever. God also revealed Himself to me in awesome ways, showing me WHO He is and WHO He wants to be in my life. I will always be thankful for this awesome year we had in USA.
And now we are serving with AIM and CHC in Swaziland. We are working with orphans and vulnerable children. It is heart breaking to hear the stories of the children. I am praying that God will use us to bring change into the lives of these children, but that we will also bring the Life, the Truth and the Way to these vulnerable ones.
I want to be a defender of the defenseless, I want to live out a pure religion, I am longing for intimacy with the Father and I want to serve Him alone with a pure heart.
“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” (James 1:27)
