On a mission as a family

By Nigel Clark

Maseru, Lesotho

Nigel and Cheryl Clark serve in City of Joy Community Church in Maseru, Lesotho. Nigel is an elder serving Thabo Motsusi, and Cheryl just handed over Bokoletsa Bana (the church’s children’s outreach) to local leadership. Jemina (their nineteen-year-old ‘spiritual daughter’) volunteers for Bokeletsa Bana and HIV support, and their adopted South African daughter Carlin is doing Grade R at home.

Their other daughter, Katie, and Marius, her South African husband, are members of Dihlabeng Church in Clarens, South Africa. Marius has started his own business and Katie teaches at the church school. They lead a large youth cell.

Their son, Gareth, and Tsepiso, his Basotho wife, are members of City of Joy. Tsepiso volunteers for Bokeletsa Bana and HIV support. Gareth works as a school’s IT Technician while setting up an IT business. They lead a cell group.

Saved and added to a church family

In 1997 Jesus broke into my life, rescuing me from my driven nature. I had spent three years watching my family give their hearts to Jesus and being transformed before my very eyes. Joining the church family, they were at peace with their God, themselves and remarkably with me, despite my driven and angry nature. I saw Katie baptised in water and baptised in the Spirit. Then, having given my heart to the Lord, I had the privilege of baptising Gareth.

This was the start of an amazing journey for us all. Cheryl, having had a very difficult childhood, started an incredible season of restoration. God delivered me from anger and rescued me from a high intensity job, enabling me to be both a father and husband for the first time in my life; spending time with my wife and children, and leading the family. God led each one of us in forgiveness, resulting in intimacy as a family.

We quickly felt part of the wonderful Newfrontiers church family in Brentwood, UK at that time led by David and Jacky Rigby. God led us to serve in the children’s work and then youth teams with Katie and Gareth helping with crèche and worship.

Challenged to go

During this time God spoke to us all about being mobile. He challenged us about being prepared to leave everything behind to follow wherever He leads.

We were asking God, ‘What next?’ when at the Brighton Leadership Conference we heard Piet and Hettie Dreyer share about their vision and work in Zimbabwe. We knew we were off to Africa; all we had to do
now was tell the children!

God had gone ahead of us and as we shared with the elders, and with Katie and Gareth, about serving in Africa we were of one heart. Our fleeces about jobs, schools and renting the home all fulfilled, we planned to leave just after Stoneleigh 2001 which had the theme ‘Let’s Go!’

Aiming for Zimbabwe, but redirected to Cape Town, we spent six months with Jubilee serving Angela Kemm in Langa township. This was a time of incredible personal transformation and fruitful service that really prepared us for our journey into Africa.

Between December 2001 and June 2005 we were involved in both a potential church adoption and a failed church plant; a very frustrating time with little fruit. Moving again we chose to home-school our children and saw God’s incredible grace as Katie and Gareth learnt to appreciate one another’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as developing amazingly well educationally and as adults themselves. God used these times to provoke, challenge and change us all. The family grew. First Katie met Marius and then Carlin joined us as a four-month-old baby girl.

Move to Clarens

Our next step, a prophetic call to get involved in church planting in Lesotho, involved us in moving to join Dihlabeng Church in Clarens. Katie and Gareth were persuaded by God to move again and both joined the Year Team programme. For three years we were involved with the ministries of the church and building friendships. We were immediately aware of an increase in fruitfulness. It was a new season. Cheryl served with the ‘Orphan Family’ (an inter-church ministry for the orphans in Clarens through games, food, preaching the gospel and providing educational support). I supported Steve Oliver helping with our Master Builders conferences, Future Leaders training and Embracing the Poor task team, and regularly travelled into Lesotho for cell groups and to visit prisoners with Gareth and others. Katie volunteered in the church school where she now teaches. We sold our house in the UK and bought a new home and an adjacent guest house to make us self-funding, not wanting to be a burden to the local church. Marius found work locally and moved to Clarens; he and Katie got engaged.

In April 2006, City of Joy was planted in Maseru. The launch week’s outreaches saw over 300 responses to the gospel, gathering about 30 newcomers on our first Sunday. What an experience as a family! We stayed for only six weeks, as we were fostering Carlin. Gareth felt God was asking him to stay on so he finished his year team in Lesotho, volunteered for a further year and then found work as an IT technician for a school.

Preparations started for a summer (December) wedding. Carlin’s adoption came through early in November, a time of great celebration, closely followed by the most challenging season of our lives. When we (Nigel and Cheryl) applied to stay permanently in South Africa we found that our existing permits were not in order. We were arrested, to be deported within 48 hours. After much prayer we were given two weeks to leave the country, with Katie’s wedding still two months away. However, the authorities were unable to provide travel papers for Carlin until May 2007 which enabled me (Nigel) to give Katie away at her wedding.

Call to Lesotho

Leaving Gareth in Lesotho, and Katie and Marius in South Africa, we spent four months in the UK where God spoke to us about Lesotho through a prophecy from Guy Miller (Bournemouth, UK). We flew into Maseru in September 2007, still labelled as ‘undesirable aliens’ in South Africa. Our appeal soon came through so we could visit South Africa.

Supporting Thabo and Mampho Motsusi in building the church, I share the preaching as well as continuing to support Steve Oliver. We have been involved in leading some of the church’s projects including Bokoletsa Bana (‘Gather the Children’) an outreach of City of Joy that gathers 100 children between three and fourteen, three days a week, for play, sport, craft and learning, introducing the love of God. We also visit the families of the children and link people from the community to the church via Sunday meetings, a Cell Group, Youth Group and an HIV/AIDS Support Group. It has been a time of seeing people saved and added, and much change in people’s lives. It has also been a time of hardship, adapting to an alien culture, seeing people fall away, and seeing the ravaging effects of HIV/AIDS among people we know and love. We have buried some dear friends.

Wonderfully Gareth found a bride, Tsepiso (‘Promise’), a local Basotho girl from the church. They were married in July 2008. The wedding was a real ‘African’ celebration!

Last year Jemina joined our family. She was raised by her mum who died when she was fourteen. She was left looking after her younger brothers, separated later by them being adopted. She then discovered that she was in South Africa illegally and had to flee. That was when the phone rang, ‘Could anyone take her in?’ God nudged us in the way only He can and Jemina joined the family.

We continue to see God’s hand on the lives of each of us. Marius and Katie, and Gareth and Tsepiso have been invited onto the region’s Future Leaders programme, and so the story goes on …