This is us...

Our story is one of God’s grace — and His grace alone.

We love people deeply, and we truly believe it is God’s heart for people to be united in marriage. It breaks our hearts to see how many marriages end in divorce these days. Sometimes we feel that marriages are more endangered than rhinos. While there is no guarantee for a perfect or happy marriage, our motto remains: never judge and always have grace.

This venue exists because of God’s grace and favor — nothing else.

My husband and I were married on 5 December 1992. We are blessed with three beautiful daughters: Shani, Kaylee-Shaye, and Dineo, whom we adopted at just 7 months old. Today, we also have two wonderful sons-in-law and three adorable grandchildren.

We have been in full-time ministry since January 1993, with my husband serving as a pastor. In December 2015, we moved to Nelspruit/White River, where we rented a beautiful building for our church.

We later bought a piece of land outside Nelspruit and lived in a caravan on the property with our daughters while building a small cottage — dreaming of one day building our forever home.

Life on the property was not easy. We had no water and no electricity. We used candles and lamps for light, and we had to use a tractor with a water tank to fetch water from a neighbor

just to get through each day. And shower outside under a tree and rusted zinc structure. It was a season that stretched us, but also one that built our faith in ways we will never forget.

We also learned to live very intentionally with what we had. We calculated everything in terms of the price of a bag of cement. If our kids asked for McDonald’s, we would say, “That’s four bags of cement.” It may sound simple, but it taught us a powerful lesson — how far you can come with very little if you steward your money well and stay focused on what truly matters.

After about eight months, we finally moved into the cottage. Then one day, everything changed.

Our phone rang — the church building we had been renting was on fire.

In October 2018, it burned to the ground. In that moment, I thought our dreams had burned with it.

By then, we had been in ministry for 25 years, and we lost everything — chairs, instruments, sound equipment — everything we had built up over decades. We were devastated.

Our only option was to gather for fellowship on our property, 40km from White River. We put up a temporary shade cloth structure for Sunday services. But after just one week, a storm came and destroyed it.

That day, while Danie was trying to fix what remained, I sat under the torn green shade cloth and prayed honestly: “Lord, I’m done. I’m tired. I don’t want to do this anymore.”

That very same day, a man we had never met phoned us out of the blue and asked if we would like a 12m x 6m IBR roof — for free.

And that was the beginning of our Shiloh journey.

I often say: God doesn’t ask much of us — we just need to listen when He speaks. That man’s obedience changed our destiny.

Out of the ashes, we rose.