a Historical Review
Through the working of Eden Life Network, it has become necessary that Eden Life Ministries communicate the following:
- a history of how the ministry started;
- our relationship to the Seventh-day Adventist church; and
- inform people, especially fellow Seventh-day Adventists, what we do as a ministry.
We will try and explain the very quick pace by which God lead this ministry to explode. We as members are still trying to find our feet and momentum. Anyone will tell you that a company should not grow as fast as this ministry has. But, it is not a corporate business, this is God’s business and time is of the essence. Yes, our Heavenly Father is blessing the ministry abundantly, for the time is short. All honour and glory to God for this amazing experience and His leading in every step. We have to run to keep pace with Him.
The story begins as follows:
Mark and Retha Woodman accepted the Seventh-day Adventist message and was baptised by Pastor Gertjie Allers into the Philadelphia SDA congregation in Centurion at the end of 2005. Realising the short time that was left in earth’s history, Mark and Retha decided to open a home centre that provided biblical facts and health treatments. This was the beginning of HomeBase Alliance of Biblical Facts (association incorporated under section 21) incorporated in 2006. During this year Mark and Retha moved to a small country town which they used as a base to work from.
In their new congregation, the evangelism leader, Nico Kritzinger and his wife Esther proved to be of great value and support to the new ministry.
In August 2008, Marius and Leandra Odendaal of the Philadelphia SDA congregation, Centurion joined the ministry. Marius currently leads the ministry, evangelism and finances, Leandra supports Marius where possible, does evangelism, runs with public relations and training.
The health side of the HomeBase ministry was expanding and the small team of 6 asked Ilze McCarthy from the Westbourne SDA congregation in Port Elizabeth to join them during the middle of January 2009. In our minds, the 7 of us were set and ready for “big things”. Little did we know the amazing experiences heading our way.
After this, much of the “asking people” directly to join the ministry stopped as God started sending us people. These people each has a testimony of God’s leading, their process of decision making and their “putting their feet in the Jordan”-faith step. The step in faith centres around leaving behind comfort zones, family, friends and steady incomes. It is clear to all in the ministry that if they join that God would be our Provider. We claim the promise that our bread and water would be sure - Ps 132:15. We need to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus and the tremendous work ahead of us. He has been and still is, abundantly faithful. We have never been without food. Our extras, luxuries and comforts are little but the Kingdom of God is not for gain if we do not pick-up our crosses and follow our Saviour. We thank the Lord for his providence. It saddens me not to be able to write each person’s experience here, for the testimonies are amazing. I will, however, give a quick checklist of people that further joined:
March 2009, Reinhardt and Irinda Stander, Reinhardt – leads Eden Life Network, Irinda – DVD ministry in Somerset West
March 2009, Renier Horn – evangelist, leads the recording studio in Somerset West
March 2009, Patrick and Elana Stander, Patrick – evangelist
More people joined:
April 2009, Peter and Eulalie Mombers from Philadephia congregation, Centurion. Peter now leads the DVD ministry and Eulalie volunteers as webmaster for our website.
May 2009, Sanelle and Johnny Moutsos, Philadelphia congregation, Centurion. Sanelle leads the administration division, taking care of questions received via info@edenlife.info, Johnny part-time distributes DVDs on behalf of the ministry.
September 2009, Siewert and Dina Rossouw, from Philadelphia congregation, they handle the network IT and link-up
October 2009, Gerhard Mombers, from Philadephia congregation, IT division
End November 2009, Trevor and Sandra McCreadie, from Silverleaf SDA church, Helderberg, Trevor runs the recording studio in Ladismith, Sandra assists Trevor with computer work
We realised that to run a network on a daily basis would need more volunteers. We prayed for more hands. Marius, Leandra and Patrick attended a regional campmeeting in Parys after which 7 families plus a pensioner from the Parys/Sasolburg churches joined us:
October 2009, Rudie and Emily van Barrelo, Rudie assists with the DVD ministry, Emily is a literature evangelist, runs our bookstore and organises our health expos. This couple will become a mobile evangelism team by the end of July 2010 by spreading the gospel through DVDs, health products and books from town to town preparing ground for reaping seminars and church planting.
Mid-December 2009, Phillip and Gerda Vermaak, Phillip assists with recordings and editing, he will soon be presenting his own series, Gerda home schools their children and the Wright children
Mid-December 2009, Gerda’s mom, Lidia (retired), assists the family with home duties
Mid-December 2009, Abrie and Nahm Vermaak, Abrie heads the prayer ministry and assists with questions at prayer@edenlife.info, Nahm assists with packaging health products and keeping general order in our hectic environment
Mid-December 2009, Arthur and Charmaine Wright, Arthur joined as an evangelist, Charmaine assists in packaging health products and with administration
End December 2009, David and Sandra Barkhuizen, David takes care of our workshop, Sandra leads the retirement home ministry and does administration periodically
End December 2009, Johan and Irene Boshoff, Johan assists with the DVD ministry, Irene is a literature evangelist and a registered nurse
End January 2010, Charl Koch, from Magaliesig SDA congregation in Pretoria North, assists in the health ministry
From the Silverleaf congregation in Somerset West:
January 2010, Richard Koker, to run the radio satellite broadcast
February 2010, Michael and Inge Ross, Michael is part of the editing team and Inge will be starting a sound studio as soon as the Lord provides for this.
Attie and Martie van Staden, joined us at the beginning of January 2010 from the Philadelphia congregation, Centurion. Attie agreed to run the music ministry and Martie assists Marius with the finances. Their son Rudie assists with editing.
March 2010, Regardt Stander, from the Bethlehem congregation, student, filming, editing,
April 2010, Riaan van Staden, Philadelphia congregation, website programmer
At the moment of writing, more people are packing and moving to join us. We expect another 3 families to join us soon. We have been quiet not because we do not want to communicate but because we have been busy organising ourselves and mobilising the volunteers into their areas of spiritual talent. The fact that the ministry is growing is a constant. Feeling unsettled and adapting is a constant, as we adapt to new people and more work the Lord brings across our way.
The company currently has four directors, Marius Odendaal, Reinhardt Stander, Peter Mombers and Rudie van Barrelo. They take responsibility for legal compliance matters of the company and any sensitive issues that might arise. Mark Woodman was diagnosed with a rare but aggressive type of cancer and at the end of January resigned as director of the company. The structure of the company operates on two yearly member boards and a weekly operational board. All the members heading ministries and divisions attend the operational meeting.
Our relationship to the Seventh-day Adventist church
We are all members of the Seventh-day Adventist church. We are all actively involved in the local church with various duties and positions we hold especially with evangelism. As an example, Patrick Stander and Reinhardt Stander held a series of seminars in Zoar. This was a church planting outreach that was done for the Ladismith congregation. Most of the new members that joined the ministry opted to join the coloured group in Zoar to attend church and assist with grounding the church planting effort in that township. We experience amazing blessings.
When we work, we work with churches and their pastors. When we call people to accept God’s end-time message, we call them to accept the principles of the Seventh-day Adventist church. We are a group of Seventh-day Adventist members working to spread the end-time warning message as contained in Revelation 14. We work in the church, for the church and not on our own. We have dedicated all that we are to further God’s end-time message to the world. We dare not work on our own as we need the churches to continue with what we do in their areas. Who will do the follow-up work after a successful health expo? For successful it will surely be. God has high regard for His various messages He has given the church and He blesses. Who will follow-up after a reaping event or as we traditionally know it, an effort? We as a ministry cannot possibly do this. It has to be the local church in an area through which we work. Therefore, the churches need training in evangelism. This the Transvaal Conference of Seventh-day Adventists realised. They offer the Amazing Facts, “Empowered Church“ modules to their churches at their training facility at Sedaven. This is the same model we used at Philadephia congregation and it is the same model we as a ministry use to train churches.
We are in the time of earth’s history where every able bodied member that has even the smallest talent should stand up and work. There is so much that the Seventh-day Adventist lay person is able to do. The pastors and administrations are there to orchestrate and organise the volunteers and the work. This phenoma of lay workers taking fire is a world wide phenomenon in our Seventh-day Adventist churches. Do we not believe that the time is “even at the door”? I cannot but offer a small quote from the book Evangelism, p343:
“It is not in God's purpose that the church shall be sustained by life drawn from the minister. They are to have root in themselves. The gospel news, the message of warnings, the third angel's message, is to be voiced by church members.”--Manuscript 83, 1897. {Ev 343.1}
We realise, solemnly, the high regard that God has for His church on earth. We have therefore as a ministry decided on the following mission and vision statements:
Vision
To assist and support God's remnant church, the Seventh-day Adventist Church, in leading people to Christ through the everlasting gospel of the Three Angels' Messages as contained in Revelation 14.
Mission
To support the vision of the Seventh-day Adventist Church to reach people through TV and other Media, Health, Music, Literature and Public Outreach. [Mat 24:14]
What we do as a ministry
Our mission and vision statements encapsulate much of what we do. We assist SDA churches and their pastors in promoting a culture of evangelism in their churches from training the lay person, to assisting with health expos and various seminars e.g. stress, cooking, Stop Smoking clinics, finance, how to start a DVD or prayer ministry to holding a reaping campaign. Churches should be mobilised to handle the follow-up work themselves. We also offer free video recording services to SDA churches, pastors and lay evangelists that carry God’s end-time message.
One criteria for recording is that we do not record material that has any copyright on it. We have seen and experienced the sure way of stopping a message from going out would be to copyright it. We also supply recorded material to many of the church DVD ministries for distribution. The only costs we ask to be covered when the assistance from our health expo, evangelism or recording teams are required, would be accommodation, meals be provided and the costs of travelling.
This in short then is where we have come from as a ministry, our high regard for the Seventh-day Adventist church and what we do as a ministry. Please do not hesitate to ask questions or make use of our services. You are welcome to contact me on leandra@edenlifeministries.co.za.
Kind regards
Leandra Odendaal
EDEN LIFE MINISTRIES
Public Relations