Since we decided to become missionaries in 1995, we were driven by the following Vision statement:

Vision

According to Is 49:6, our vision is:

To journey with people from all nations to be the Light of Christ for the Glory of God

To help us to stay focused while we give effect to the Vision, we formulated the following Mission statements:  

Theunis

I bring leaders of families and in business to a broad and spacious place, helping them to find purpose and perspective through equipping, mentoring, facilitating and coaching.

Magda

I help woman and children, by bringing discernment and wisdom into their lives through equipping, mentoring, facilitating, and coaching.

During the past year we could implement the Vision and Mission statements in the following areas:

Theunis is still involved on a part-time basis – Three days per week – at a small business as office manager. This is filling a gap in our week with focussed work and an income! (https://beautifularomas.co.za/ )

Theunis can journey with the partners as business coach and during May he coached 5 independent distributors of the business to grow their own businesses. The feedback from one of the distributors explain the experience well:

“I learnt a lot about myself and I am now able to follow my dream with a new vision and perspective.”

Theunis was able to bring a short but intensive visit to the South Sudanese refugees in the North of Uganda. We have been involved with a group of 10 leaders ifrom this community since 2017. Our last visit was in 2020 and it was time to go and assess their situation. They are a  “community at risk” but these leaders have a dream “to become a healing community where people can help one another  to find God’s peace and restoration in the midst of the challenges and hardship.” Read more here:https://standfirm.co.za/a-community-at-risk/

The book Theunis wrote is also still available at: https://www.amazon.com/Pursuit-our-Calling-Meandering-through-ebook/

“In Pursuit of our Calling” is our story about following our calling. It is a chronological version of the journey we had since we became aware of our calling. It is also more than that. It also speaks to the highs and lows of all our experiences over the past 25 years, allowing the reader to discover the impact of cross-cultural engagement on an ordinary family in many extra-ordinary situations, sustained by a faithful God.”

Magda was invited to become involved with the work done by “Fisantekraal Center for Development”. They equip people with a low level of education from disadvantaged communities with basic skills to help them to enter the formal workspace. They asked Magda to help them to present a course for “Frail Care Assistants”. Magda presented the course three times to date, to 33 ladies and one man. The duration of the course is 9 weeks. Apart from the theoretical aspects Magda focuses a lot on the development of skills that will help these assistents to respond with  empathy to the needs of their patients. Magda is each time in awe when she experience how the students had grown during the course. Many of them discover a passion to work with the elderly and when they gain the knowledge, skills and attitude they become experienced carers.  

We work together at different events presenting the “Walking with Wounded Children” workshop and related material:

  • In cooperation with Inceba Trust, we equipped 103 Early Childhood Development (ECD) teachers at two events to identify trauma symptoms in children and to respond with Understanding, Sincerity and Acceptance on the displayed symptoms and behaviour.  
  • In the process we discovered that sexual abuse is a big problem in many communities and we could facilitate a process to help the ECD teachers to deal with their own trauma in this area.
  • We presented the full Walking with Wounded Children workshop (5 days) to 12 volunteers helping at Mom’s-for-Wellington and at Mosaic Community Development. It was again obvious that the participants were confronted with their own trauma during the cause of the workshop and that they used every opportunity to deal with it. This enable them to help children to deal with trauma.
  • We managed to adjust parts of the “Walking with Wounded Children” workshop to present it on a platform like ZOOM. We presented 4 sessions to two American and two South African participants. The feedback was very positvie: “I enjoyed the training very much and do feel better equipped in understanding trauma and being able to practice listening and reflecting as a means of helping people heal.”

We are privileged to equip people and to journey with them. It is great to see them grow in self-knowledge, skills, perspective and focus.