When Shofar’s leadership asked Marius and myself to come to Bloemfontein, to watch over the precious flock, our hearts were already being prepared by our heavenly Father. The preparation process started in 2015 when God led us by the Holy Spirit through various circumstances, divine set-ups and an adventurous journey, up to where we are today. Bloem always had a beautiful place in our hearts. We joined Shofar Bloemfontein in 2015, knowing very little about Shofar. On our first visit with Shofar Stellenbosch, Jesus instructed us to join Shofar Bloemfontein, regardless of what we expect to find there. That is where we need to be.
Four years later, the Lord led us to Johannesburg, and we joined Shofar Sandton. After a personal journey of God’s instruction and Godly counsel, we were led back to Bloem in 2023 on a new assignment. We didn’t know what to expect, since the congregation went through much hurt, disillusionment and trials. But Jesus knew. The only thing which the Holy Spirit allowed us to know, was that the congregation is going to look different, and everything must be directed by Zechariah 4:6 – “not by might nor by power, but by His Spirit”.
The flock was hurting and broken, but all glory to Jesus for He alone restores and heals! We were only to love unconditionally. Many conversations, tears, questions and decisions followed. God, so rich in His mercy, allowed each person to decide for themselves. He encouraged us with Zechariah 4:6, to be their motivation. Jesus was their Hope, not us. God had a beautiful journey for each person.
Now, 18 months later, we can testify, Jesus is faithful. He requires obedience above all and to love unconditionally. We stand in awe of breakthroughs, divine appointments, unexpected visits and hurting hearts to come in alignment with our Father’s will for this season. Jesus led us to a life of simplicity and obedience, and to be His vessels.
There are many beautiful testimonies. More than once people would arrive at the gate and ask if this is a church…no signage outside…. To our wonder we realized the Holy Spirit is more involved in this than we contemplated! Often, we were informed that people did a web search for churches in Bloem and were directed to only 3 results of which Shofar Bloemfontein was at the top! No idea how the analytics work on that one because if the same search is run now…almost all of Bloemfontein’s churches are shown…
Three families remained, after much prayer, they told us that they are staying because the Holy Spirit led them to do so.
Many spiritual and physical battles were fought. Often, we just needed to love, not fix. Slowly we realized things do look different, and that it is God’s new glory for Shofar Bloem. He wants to establish a new thing. The Holy Spirit was and still is our Counsellor. He often did not allow us to make plans to grow the congregation. Jesus alone builds His church. We need to surrender to Him, listen to Him and obey Him. We testify that all of us had to fear him more than man. We were not allowed our own agenda, only His. The “I” often wants his/her own way, but that is a place where we learn to continually look to Him.
With so much joy we look back with hearts filled with thankfulness, abundant blessings and courage to hope again. As a community, we rejoice in the atheist who came to Jesus, becoming part of His family.
We rejoice in the Holy Spirit, who empowered each one of us to never give up, to courageously hold on…Until He says it is done!
We rejoice in those among us, whose hurt is still prevalent, but they have found a home, a community where they may say “I need you”.
We rejoice in hope restored. We rejoice that Bloem is a beautiful story because Jesus didn’t give up on us!