Peronts in South Africa

Thank you for taking a few minutes to get to know us.  My name is Dan, my wife is Amy, and we have 3 lovely children: Bethany, Ethan, and Charis. Allow us to introduce ourselves in this short video entitled “We are the Peronts”.  Now that you have a glimpse into what God has been doing in our lives since 2011, let us take a moment to connect some of the dots for you. 

We were very active in our church and busily living the American dream…. Comfortably content where we were and living in a house in which we wanted to retire.  This, however, is when the Spirit started to plant a thought in our hearts.  He was whispering, “I want more”.   It was yielding to this “still small voice” that would set into action a series of events that would change our lives forever. 

God has since been molding our lives to conform to His will through Personal Bible study, the preaching of the Word, and prayer… even more specifically, Answered Prayer!  We will come back to answered prayer in a minute.  The Spirit illuminated Ecclesiastes 12:13 in a way that we had never seen before.  This single verse has changed our lives more than anything else. It’s so simple: “This is the whole duty of man…. Fear God and keep His commandments.”  Jesus takes this a step further in Matthew 22 by saying that the greatest commands are to Love God and Love Others.  It was through meditating on these passages that we came to have a desire to help orphans.  (James 1:27) What better way to love God than to love who He loves.  A single act of caring for orphans encompasses God’s two greatest commands!

While God was working on us through our personal study of the Bible, He was also using the faithful preaching of our local church. How important it is to be connected to a local Body of believers who are being led by a godly under-shepherd! Our pastor was teaching through Luke, and God used Luke 14:16-26 to show us that, “salvation is a free gift that will cost you everything.”  It was on March 16, 2014, that I turned to my wife after the closing prayer and said, “I think God wants us to go to Africa!”  Since then we have also come across another quote that sums up this same idea, “Never forget what Jesus did for you. Never take lightly what it cost Him; never assume that if it cost Him His very life, it won't cost you yours” -Rich Mullens.

And now back to Answered Prayer… WOW! Who knew that we have a God, who, if we start praying crazy prayers, might just be crazy enough to answer them! We don’t even know where to begin sharing what He has taught us through prayer.  God has been so faithful in hearing and answering our prayers through the past 5 years!  He has confirmed His plan for our family’s life with specific answers to specific prayers. Probably the craziest one that we have prayed has been, “God, if you want us to go to Africa, would you provide us a house rent free so that we can save up our money to go on a survey trip?”  Needless to say, we have been living in a house rent free for the last two years!  I know, who prays for that, right?   And furthermore, who gets it?  Oh friends, no glory to us! All praise be to God!  ~James 1:17.  So, do you know what we think the craziest thing about all of this is?  You have the same God who wants to answer crazy prayers for YOU as well!  Maybe not the same ones we have prayed, but that’s because He has a special plan just for you! Perhaps it is even crazier than ours!

Because of Gods clear leading in our lives we are planning to partner with the Kirbys at Onthatile Children’s village.  There is a great need for orphan ministry in South Africa right now, and we would like to use the skills and talents that God has given us in any way possible to rescue unwanted babies and give them an opportunity to grow up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.  We call it our Timothy Project.  To take what man has thrown away, care for these precious babies, and introduce them to Christ. (2Timothy 3:14-15)  Who knows how God will work in their lives?  Our prayer is to be able to send a baby that society has thrown away right back to his or her own people as a national missionary!