History of the Moriah Discipling House (13 November 2025)

History of the Moriah Discipling House We give praise and glory to God, who carried us as the Moriah House fraternity for well over 25 years. A few years before that, we seriously started praying more intentionally for premises where we could disciple new believers who had come from Islam, who have been persecuted and/or evicted. Why do we Need a House Like This? Before going into some history of our Discipling House, we want to share why we need a house like this. New believers who had just come out of Islam, are more often than not only traumatised because of rejection, but they also need solid holistic teaching to get to know the Bible. That is why devotions, Bible Study and personal interaction with the house parents play a big role in the house. Moriah is not only a safe house, but predominantly a facility for the spiritual growth of the new believers, to be nurtured and discipled by the houseparents. The Origins of Our Discipling House The origins of our Discipling House go back to a minaret call around 4.30h in mid- January 1992, the morning after our arrival here in Cape Town. We had just come from the Netherlands via London, Johannesburg and Durban as a WEC International missionary family. We were residing temporarily in the Evangelical Bible Institute in Surrey Estate. This was also a call to consider a focus on Muslim Evangelism instead of serving street children of the CBD. At that time I met the Pastors Bruce van Eeden and Martin Heuvel, who would play pivotal roles. During a prayer walk one Friday in Bo-Kaap in February 1992, Rosemarie and I happened to be there around 1pm. We saw not only the streets emptying, but we also sensed some dark spiritual force. This led us to look for reinforcement. In Achmed Kariem and Elizabeth Robertson we had two believers in our church at the time with strong links to Islam and Judaism. Fortnightly prayer by them and a few other believers in our Tamboerskloof townhouse at 24 Brunswick Road, led to Isaac Ishmael prayer, for the respective strongholds in Bo-Kaap and Sea Point, This was soon followed by two-weekly prayer at 73 Wale Street, Bo-Kaap and 1pm prayer at the Shepherd's Watch every Friday. Testimonies of Muslim-Background Believers We invited Muslim-background believers (MBBs) to our home in Tamboerskloof once a month on a Sunday afternoon after a few months. The visit of Majied Pophlonker and Zane Abrahams in mid-1992 led to the collating of testimonies Muslim-background believers into the booklets Op soek na waarheid and its translation as Search for Truth, Elizabeth Robertson, painted a beautiful cover for the booklet, a typical Bo-Kaap scene. In the course of the research done for this project, I learnt how one of many converts who came to faith at a big tent evangelistic event at Valhalla Park in 1984, had not been discipled. We decided to concentrate on the discipling and nurturing of those MBBs whom we got to know. A sermon series on John 4 at the Woodstock Baptist Church - the Samaritan woman at the well - helped me to understand even more the value of strategic prayer and action. From October 1993 we had to consider taking the one or other MBB into our new home in Vredehoek, who had suffered eviction or who needed more intense discipling. As missionaries of WEC International, we were linked to Christian Concern for Muslims. Together with other missionaries, we served not only in outreach to children in townships with a significant Muslim population like Manenberg and Hanover Park, but also in the discipling and teaching of converts, already from the last term of 1992. Interest by a few church members for outreach to Bo-Kaap, with one of them residing there and support from the minister, Rev. Graham Gernetsky, we felt led join the Cape Town Baptist Church in 1993. Prayer as the Mainstay of the Ministry Prayer has been the mainstay of the ministry from the beginning. Sister June Lehmensich was one of our first co-workers, praying with us during her City Council lunchtime every Friday at 1pm from 1992. From 1995 a networking relationship evolved with a few City Bowl churches of which I had become the coordinator. In the Dorcas Trust, three of the churches cooperated with three goals. Two were realised, viz. English language lessons for foreigners and what became the Moriah Discipling House. While I requested that funds from Germany for the buying of property be kept in the account of a church while we were still working at the settting up of the Dorcas Trust, it was misconstrued as money laundering. This was one of many a malicious gossip story around the use of how we spent funds that we were allowed to steward. We learnt to take in our stride, the only case in memory where I was required in a meeting to explain what had happened. Aftermath of Hospital Ministry The hospital ministry at the Groote Schuur Hospital from 1996, led by Rosemarie and June Lehmensich, had an interesting aftermath. She and June started visiting the cancer ward especially. A very special case occurred when we heard about a patient, Ayesha Hunter, who had undergone surgery. Rosemarie understood that she had more or less been sent home to die. This type of situation was, of course, happening quite regularly from time to time in the cancer ward. What a very special surprise it was when we heard about Ayesha a few months later at one of our Friday lunch hour prayer meetings. After following this information up, she subsequently became a valuable co-worker, notably as a radio presenter via CCFM on one of the programmes that we started in 1998. Maria van Maarseveen, a Dutch missionary WEC colleague, continued leading this ministry subsequently, faithfully and perseveringly supported by Nur Rajagugkguk, an Indonesian colleague. The latter continued with the ministry until January 2017 when she and her husband returned to Indonesia. Maria continued in a more subdued way with the ministry until the Covid epidemic put a stop to the blessed ministry and Groote Schuur Hospital also put up impediments for the ministry after insensitivity of individual Christians during Covid. Ayesha Hunter, the former Groote Schuur cancer patient, would become a valuable radio presenter and co-worker when we got closely linked to CCFM radio in 1998. Our ministry got known across the Cape Peninsula, in due course. Traumatic Incidents The pattern of traumatic incidents, happening during my absence from home, continued when Rosemarie and I attended our WEC conference in Natal in October 1999. When we phoned our home we heard that our 21-year old son Danny had to counsel Nazeema (not her real name), the Muslim background believer whom we had taken into our home. She threatened to commit suicide. (We took care of Nazeema, after her ex-husband had shot her in her leg, whereafter she fled to friends in the neighbourhood.) The need for a discipling house for folk who had come to faith in Jesus from Muslim background was amplified! Shortly after our return from the conference in Natal, I received an invitation to attend an international conference on Muslim Evangelism in Nairobi as the South African delegate. All expenses were to be paid by TEAR FUND, a British development and charity agency. Knowing that travelling in Africa by air was very expensive at that time, this led to me travelling via Holland, as we hoped that we could perhaps get financial assistance there towards buying property that we could use for the discipling of new converts. A Strategic Detour My two days in Holland were special, pivotal in getting funds for our discipling house. I had high hopes when I left for Hilversum, that my interview with the Evangelische Omroep could nudge their Wilde Ganzen charity projects to assist us. 'With regret' they felt intimidated: they would have to fear Islamic reprisals if they would assist us. An evening was organised on short notice to speak to some of our friends. There I showed a picture of the house that we intended to buy for use as a discipling house, hoping at that stage to get a rent-free loan. The mother of Martie Dieperink, one of the believers who attended that event, died soon after my visit. Shortly after having heard of the need of a discipling house in Cape Town where new believers coming from another faith could be nurtured, she immediately offered to help us with a substantial amount as an interest-free loan, to be paid back over a period of five years. This set in motion the acquisition of a building that became an important asset of our ministry. The furniture from the house of her mother was part of the content of a container that was sent in 2001. (After three years, Martie declared that we need not pay back anything.) We called the ideally centrally located facility the Moriah Discipling House. 'Ouma', an old homeless lady from Wynberg to whom our Indonesian colleagues had been reaching out lovingly, was the first resident of the Moriah Discipling House. We made a serious mistake, however, getting the house full, without a good screening process for new residents. In due course, the main criterium for new residents would be believers who had been persecuted because of their faith. Radio Ministry Connections We are so aware that the path of any believer is not strown with roses, notably that of new believers from Muslim background. Instead, it sometimes resemble a path with a few rose plants on it, because the rose plant has thorns that can hurt you. Shamiela Philander was a special case. Introduced to us by Ayesha Hunter, we took her into our home soon after she came to know the Lord, where she was immediately impacted through the making of cards, a hand craft Rosemarie had learnt from our siblings in the Netherlands during our home assignment. Two significant financial contributions from Holland and Germany enabled the purchase of a property in 1999, the Dutch one given initially as an interest-free loan. (This subsequently also became a gift.) The Goed Nieuws Karavaan folk of Zeist, now closely connected to our sending church in Holland, stipulated that the Moriah House should be used under the supervision of Rosemarie and me for the discipling of new converts from another faith, transferred to WEC International. In mid-2000 Dean and Susan Ramjoomia, whom we got to know during our ministry in Hanover Park in 1992/3, moved into the Mowbray property as the first house parents. A homeless elderly person from Wynberg was the first to be accomodated. We made a serious mistake right in the beginning, by taking in too many at once. This created a heavy burden for the house parents as they came not only with baggage, but all of them were also unemployed. The the making of three-dimentional cards proved a valuable addition to the once a week card workshop that we started at Moriah quite soon as an income generating tool because all residents were unemployed. Provision for all residents was a challenge we had throughout the 25 years, but praise God, he carried us through wonderfully in so many ways in answer to prayer. Various Houseparents of Our Discipling House After Denise and Robert Crowe returned to their and home in Greenhaven, Maria van Maarseveen, our Dutch colleague held the fort there, to be followed by Nim and Nur Rajagukguk after a relative short period.She has a broken lady from Manenberg especially in memory who got restored there, who married and emigrated to Australia. On Facebook she could continue to read of her escapades down under. A Rwandan lady was admitted during Maria's short term, which co-incided with her service as part of the Groote Schuur hospital team. The team also included Nur Rajagukguk and Denise Crowe, both of whom became Moriah house mothers in due course. (The hospital ministry started in the mid-1996s as an outflow of the Jesus Marches of 1994.) When the need for houseparents arose in mid-2002 after the departure of the siblings Dean Ramjoomia and his wife Susan, Denise and Robert Crowe volunteered to come and serve in this capacity. Among other residents, they were house parents there to Shamiela Philander, who later married Deon January in Manenberg. The latter couple would serve as house parents from December 2020. Temporary Loss of Memory Robert and Denise visited us in March 2002 prior to this engagement. On Saturday 16 March 2002, the Lord gave Robert a vision cum dream of me in hospital. He saw this as a nudge to pray for me. This happened more or less at the time when our colleague Maria van Maarseveen suggested at our home in Vredehoek that I should be taken to the hospital. (The one day hospitalization became in turn a run-up to divine intervention a year later when I was diagnosed with prostate gland cancer.) In his vision Robert said: 'Ashley, aren't you in Durban?' (I had, in fact, returned by bus from there the previous day, back in local activity. This transpired immediately after my attending the national WEC leaders' meeting, thus without proper rest and little sleep on the bus.) This visit to our home ushered in their offer to come and serve as house parents of Moriah A Tsunami of Opportunity? Increasingly Rosemarie and I felt increasingly challenged to reach out to refugees and foreigners who had been coming to Cape Town, for example by using English teaching even more as a compassionate vehicle. In October of that year Rosemarie had a strange dream cum vision in which a newly married couple, clad in Middle Eastern garb, was ready to go as missionaries to the Middle East. Suddenly the scene changed. While the two of us were praying over the city from our dining room facing the Cape Town CBD, a massive tidal wave came from the sea, rolling over Bo-Kaap. The next moment the water engulfed us in her dream, but we were still holding each other by the hand. There was something threatening about the massive wave, but somehow we also experienced a sense of thrill in the dream. Rosemarie woke up, very conscious that God seemed to say something to us through this vision-like dream.1 What was God saying? Prayer in the Convention Centre Soon hereafter Denise Crowe and Shamiela Philander were among a small group of ladies with Rochelle Smetherham and Rosemarie, who went to pray in the newly built Convention Centre when we used another venue than the regular Koffiekamer at 108 Bree Street. They were blessed and surprised that the security officials did not stop them as they proceeded to pray there where a congress was taking place with businessmen from the Middle East. Start of Focused Ministry to Foreigners On the personal front, it seemed as if the Lord was confirming a ministry to refugees and other foreigners. In November 2003 we baptized a Muslim background refugee from Rwanda. The Lord used Daniel Waris, a co-worker from Pakistan, quite prominently at this time. He led a few people from the group of refugees, as well as vagrants, to faith in our Lord during the last weeks of 2003. Shortly hereafter, the Lord also brought to our attention various groups of foreigners who had come to the Mother City, including a few from a Chinese minority group. The growing unemployment increased xenophobic attitudes in society at large. Also committed Christians in the 'Coloured' and 'Black' communities became negative towards the foreigners who 'take our jobs away.' This impacted our ministry when we took a Rwandan lady into our discipling house. The subsequent tension that arose from this, would spiral. Ultimately our new WEC leaders in Durban more or less pushed us towards a choice between ministry to Cape Muslims and outreach to Muslim foreigners. At this time we were under attack from more than one side, ultimately leading to near burn out. In the wake of the tension in our ministry with foreigners, the Crowe family moved back to their home in Primrose Park, At the end of 2004 we decided to step down as leaders of the Cape evangelisation team of WEC International. Subsequently Denise served closely with Shamiela Philander and other missionaries, notably in the township Manenberg from their home in nearby Sherwood Park. For many years Denise was also a member of the Jamiela club of Christian ladies. They reached out informally to Muslims. Robert and Denise Crowe passed into eternal glory in 2024 and 2025 respectively. Contact With Special Foreigners For Nursilen Rajagukguk, an Indonesian missionary colleague in our team who had previously served in Hong Kong, it was quite special to watch the video version of The Passion of the Christ in our home together with two Uyghur females from China. Nur had a special burden for the Uyghur, a Muslim tribe in the Northwest of the vast and populous country. For years she prayed for those people, without seeing any change. She would be the divine instrument to see a medical doctor from the Chinese mainland, a Uyghur person, coming to the Lord. The MBB married a student from Togo who would become a professor in Electrical Engineering at UCT subsequently. In a divine move Nur Rajagukguk met the couple in Cape Town in 2000(??). God had brought some of them to the Cape after the turn of the millennium. Within months we had contact with other Uyghur folk who had come to Cape Town. (The increased interaction with the Peoples' Republic of China brought many nationals from that country to our Mother City. With the Olympic Games of 2008 in Beijing looming, many students came to learn English.) Nim and Nur Rajagukguk moved into the discipling house as interim house parents. The conversion and baptism of two Uyghur Chinese in the first quarter of 2005 were very special, the result of divine intervention. The female's room was brightened up with a supernatural light early the next morning,which happened to be Christmas morning. Simultaneously she came under a strong conviction of sin. She knew that Jesus was there with her. His divinity was so natural that she prayed spontaneously: “Jesus, forgive me my sins!” The other Uyghur person, a male, had a similar dream of a person that radiated light, sensing a divine presence in his room. (A few months before this I could lead him to the Lord. The penny had dropped during private Bible Study.) The two compatriots were initially very fearful that the other Uyghur folk would get to know about their decision. A few months on, however, we were blessed to baptise both of them the same afternoon. In due course, a group of Asians was meeting once a month on Sunday afternoon for Bible Study, sometimes at the Moriah House with Nim and Nur Rajagukguk as the house parents. Nations In the Moriah Discipling House Rosemarie and I joined the CPX of All Nations International in the beginning of 2008, giving permission for the Discipling House to be used by two couples from Nigeria and Cameroon, plus Munyaradzi Hove of Zimbabwe in the second quarter. Munya became like another son to us. (We had linked up with Floyd and Sally McClung already in 2007. They had come to Cape Town at the end of 2006, around the same time when we started Friends from Abroad.) Soon after the outbreak of xenophobic violence in May 2008, we started with a weekly outreach to the refugees at the Youngsfield military base in Wynberg. Furthermore, two simple weekly meetings were started, one in Pinelands and one on Greenmarket Square. Valentine Chirume, who was ministered to at the Green Market Square outreach, would later become the South African director of All Nations International when Munyaradzi could not get a work permit for South Africa. (Munya not only started many simple churches in Zimbabwe after leaving Cape Town, but he also led many a missionary foray into other countries, ultimately marrying a national from Ethiopia. Valentine, a successful businessman in the meantime, is now the Southern African hub leader, married to a US national.) After his All Nations CPX 'graduation', Munya led Moriah house church till the end of that year with a group of Zimbabwian males including Nicholas Matambo, who married Rutendo, the mother of their son. Subsequently they were the interim houseparents of a children's home that UCT students had started in Diep River.) Two males from Somalia, who changed their names to Joseph and Achmed), caused some disquiet in Mowbray. We took Media, a female from Rwanda, into our home initially and later into the annex of the discipling house. Munya stayed on for a few years in Noordhoek, returning to Victoria Falls in 2010, where he would start many simple churches. Thereafter he led many a foray into other African countries ultimately marrying an Ethiopian national. In the wake of the xenophobic attacks of 2008, we housed various refugee-background residents. During the subsequent years when xenophobia was still ravaging our country, notably among the 'Black communities', we prayed for new houseparents. Two believers, the brothers Swieg Nel and Gershin Philander, were allowed to rent a room over this period. We also took into the house Christians from other countries, a few from Zimbabwe. When there was a vacancy as house parents at the end of 2008, we were thankful that our son Sam and his wife Sheralyn volunteered to operate at Moriah after their marriage while they ministered pastorally to students at the Jubilee Church in Observatory. They had Christina, with son Souvenir and Ziyada with baby Omari as Moriah residents. Ziyada landed up in hospital with TB while she was at Moria. Alja and Markus Spronk, missionary colleagues from OM, served subsequently as house parents. Before they moved into the annex accomodation at the premises, Marcus received funds from the Netherlands to perform significant renovations prior to their service there. This included the addition of a wendy house. Melissa Titus with her husband Miles with their first-born baby had a brief stint at a time when a lady with serious demonic possession stayed there, someone we ultimately asked to leave. Melissa, a spiritual power-house in divine service, would contract cancer a few years later, dying in 2023. After their retirement as Principal and Matron at the Bethel Bible School in Crawford and a stint of caring for her mother in Kensington, Denise and Dennis Atkins came to serve at Moriah as house parents in mid-2011. Their daughter Jaydee was on the spot to assist Zackier with Mathematics when he came to Moriah from Mitchell Plain with his mother. Subsequently he matriculated as one of the best learners of Rhodes High School, today working as a lawyer with Nedbank. Peter and Tracy Brent came into our ambits via Denise and Dennis. This coincided with a new outreach attempt to Somalians in Bellville, where we also networked with AIM (Gloria Cube), Neville Truter (SIM) and OM (Tanner Chadwick). They became the new houseparents In the meantime, Lameez had been impacting her younger sister Tasneem, who had a baby, Ashurah. When Tasneem also became a believer, we agreed to take her into Moriah as well. This became fairly complicated as the father of the baby could not accept that Tasneem not only became a follower of Jesus, but that she was also now living with Christians far from Mitchell's Plain. This neccessitated more security measures at the Discipling House. Peter and Tracy attended Meadowridge Baptist Church that was changing its name to Connect Church. There they spoke to Amanda Cochrane who subsequently came to assist the ladies at the beadwork workshop. During their stay they assisted as connectors to get Tasneem into a school for drop outs in Salt River. This enabled her to get some paper and subsequently to get employed. They also got Rabhia employed at a gym in Rondebosch where she ultimately became the manager. Amanda Cochrane, a former employee of Nedbank, would ultimately become the treasurer of Friends from Abroad and its successor Born Again Believers' Network. A Container Causes Bewilderment A major link to our discipling house takes us to our sending congregation in Holland. From there a container with furniture and appliances was sent in AD 2000. What a battle it became to get that container out of the harbour. Some element of spiritual warfare has to be suspected when this happened again in 2016 with a second container. This caused quite a lot of mental strain and even disunity within our Friends from Abroad (FFA) team. Theo and Mignonne Schumann came to stay at Moriah with their daughter Amieke as temporary residents while we renovated and changed the house for future houseparents resident in a flat. The annex would become a facility for the weekly beadwork workshop and accommodation for a single person. Hereafter a series of interim house parents served before Shamiela and Deon January started in December 2022. Lameez Rass was ready to serve for a year from June 2019 after the Schumanns got a flat near to Bo-Kaap, their focus area. One of these interim couples was Hindu-background Ps Sunil Kumar from India and his wife Aurelia. They served till 2019. Their tenure coinsided with the start of the Hethne Prayer, intercession for the middle and upperclass Hindus from September 2017. Ministry Blessings What a special encouragement we experienced when our missionary colleagues, the Schumanns, got an appartment in Bo-Kaap! The timing was so special. They moved out of Moriah just at the moment when the new housemother of our Discipling House was due to move into the house where they had been holding the fort. We prayed that the family would be a lighthouse to the residential area, an Islamic stronghold. The new housemother, Lameez Ras, had been a Muslim background resident herself. We were thankful that we could assist in an emergency to accommodate Filmon and Sharon Tesfai, a couple from Eritrea with their toddler son our Discipling House. Sharon is a female doctor and her husband had been in prison four times because of his faith. It was so deeply moving to hear their story and how they were more or less forced to flee their country. (In fact, the couple probably merely survived because of the prayers of believers. Many South Africans could read their story after we had liberty to get it published in Gateway News. It was a great blessing to network with our OM missionary colleagues in this venture. It was very special that Br Filmon Tesfai came to share at our Moriah House Tuesday morning prayer meeting in November 2022 when we were at the end of our tether dud to ruptures at Moriah. He narrated how God had over-ruled in their lives. His wife, a medical doctor, whose documents had been confiscated in Eritrea as part of the persecution of evangelicals there, studied anew online to get an American degree and qualification to serve in South Africa or in Canada where they hope to move to one day. On short notice she had been required to go to Dubai or Nairobi to write the exams which she was not able to. She and Filmon decided to give medical advice on-line in Amharic, the language known in Ethiopia and Eritrea. In due course folk conversant in this language all over the world linked up. Dr Sharon Tesfai got an award by You-tube. Thousands of people are still listening to her weekly advice around the globe. When a water shortage threatened our city at the beginning of 2018, a fake whatsapp message – purported to have been sent by Ps Angus Buchan – triggered a lunchtime prayer meeting called by brother Swieg Nel at 1pm. With Ps Sunil Kumar as house father of Moriah, we got to know Anja Morkel and the Message Trust. Ps Alastair Buchanan linked us up with the Eden team of Salt River, that would start an incarnational initiative of Jubilee Church. In recent years Rosemarie and I did some teaching in Salt River. Oone evening the group also came to Mowbray. Networking via an Alpha Course in District Six was contemplated in 2024. The couple had to cope with an Iran believer and her baby son as residents. Next in our discipling house was the Tesfai family from Eritrea that had been brought to the Cape under false pretenses. It came to our attention that they had landed living on a cemetery, upon unredeemed promises from a church. Because we had space in the Discipling House at the time, it was not too difficult to deviate somewhat from our prime criterium for accomodation there, persecution and coming from another faith. After the return of the January family to Manenberg towards the end of 2023, we were blessed to welcome the present houseparents, Br and Sr Arend and Mareta du Preez. The Du Preez couple would be thrown into the deep in due course with the family from a Muslim country that the Du Preez couple found in the Discipling house. The discipling of two young men that they would disicple over the next two years, it would be much easier. A Roller Coaster Situation With the family that the new Discipling house parents found there in December 2023, all of us had a roller coaster experience, which we should briefly recall. After substantial violence between two adults in our discipling house, with much of their physical fighting transpiring in front of their two children, the wife embraced the Christian faith in March 2018. (The family had been quite affluent at that point in time, owning many a shop. We were initially made to understand that N. had to flee from her abusive husband, locked in a room during the day in 'punishment'. From there she fled when she got the chance, finding refuge at the home of a police captain in Mitchell's Plain. N. nevertheless remained in clandestine contact with her husband. After she had changed significantly, he wanted to meet us. This ultimately led to him coming to the Lord as well. Much later, we got to know him very well and also that she had been the cause of the abuse. When we had the who family at Moriah in 2020 there were serious threats and a warning that was quietened because of the Covid Pandemic. The marriage remained tense with the husband ultimate leaving the family in September 2022. N. had to admitted to a psychiatric ward with many team members emotionally battered and bruised. Many a miracle happened, as we saw the husband remorsefully coming back to the Lord and returning to the family. Using lies, she sent her husband away at the beginning of 2024. The Father then moved profoundly in their lives. Z. came back to the Lord remorsefully and repentently soon thereafter. He left a loophole, not divulging his faith to his compatriots one of whose was his employer. Furthermore, Rosemarie and I could not convince him that he needed fellowship with other believers. At the end of 2024 a missionary from Guatemala came to our home with a brother when N. was at our home with her two children. This would be the spark to get N. to a camp where she was radically impacted. She changed to the believer knew from 2018, soon overtaking her husband in commitment to the Lord. An anomaly followed that none of the two wanted to get together although individually still loved each other. Divorce finally followed in mid-2025. He returned to their home country in October 2025. N. backslid spiritually into a condition that had all the traits of the latter half of 2022, with the only difference that she didn't shout at us. After her affluent Dad had died, she inherited money that triggered a move to book a one-way ticket for leaving in January 2026, intending to return to this country later in the year. Spiritually N. was not in a good space, leaving us very concerned. Initially she wanted to take the teenage children along to their home country. After they had adapted not only very well, but both of them excelled academically. We were very concerned that such a move would have jeopardized all that had been invested in them. Thus we were very thankful when she backtracked on that, albeit that all our concerns were not adressed well enough. Summary We are thankful for what could be achieved at the Moriah Discipling House. We are, however, also very conscious of our weaknesses and shortcomings. Thus we attempt not to admit anyone who is still abusing any substance because we don't have the capacity for this specialised ministry.) The Father keeps us humble because there have also been failures in the ministry. We are, nevertheless, very thankful that the Moriah Discipling House could accommodate more than one former Muslim who had been addicted to drugs and see them transformed through God's power and grace. (The one or other had been involved in gangsterism or had been in a close relationship with a gang.) In the year of our 25th anniversary we had to experience a few instances where we had to release people who have been staying at Moriah. We were left helpless to witness how these believers made choices with which we were very unhappy. We continue praying for them. We give God all the glory that as a team we could see so many lives impacted and changed at Moriah in answer to prayer. Soli Deo Gloria! Appendices 1. Publications In a Networking Effort In June 1992, Majied Pophlonker and Zane Abrahams, two Muslim-background believers and their families, visited our home. After hearing Majied’s moving story, seed was sown in my heart to write down the testimonies of converts from Islam. At one of the first discussions with Manfred Jung, a SIM missionary colleague, the idea was mooted to publish the testimonies as a networking effort. I enjoyed collating the testimonies from some of the Muslim-background believers (MBBs), sometimes making notes at meetings and once I took a tape recorder to a house. Eleven of the stories were finally selected. The result was Op soek na waarheid, in which a former Vasco High School classmate, Pastor Attie Kotze, assisted me with the proof reading. Elizabeth Robertson, one of our Bo-Kaap prayer meeting regulars, painted a beautiful cover for the booklet, a typical Bo-Kaap scene. The development of the publication of the booklet proceeded quite well during the first half of 1995, but we experienced serious demonic attacks in our family. These included the mysterious disappearance of the money in cyberspace - somewhere between Holland and Durban - that was earmarked for the printing of Op soek na waarheid. In the course of the research done for this project, I learnt how one of the converts came to faith at a big tent evangelistic event at Valhalla Park in 1984 under the ministry of Christ for All Nations, led by Reinhard Bonnke. Many Muslims respondedto the altar call, indicating that they want to follow Jesus. Few of them were however, properly followed up. We decided to concentrate on the discipling and nurturing of those MBBs whom we got to know, gathering them in our Tamboerskloof home once a month on a Sunday afternoon. (Now, over 40 years later, I have only met two more converts from that Valhalla Park event and another one from a Billy Graham meeting at the Athlone Stadium in 1973. Of course, there were more who landed in township churches) Attempts were made subsequently to improve on the follow-up, notably at Cape Town for Jesus stadium events, with little tangible results. (The Covid pandemic of 2020 obliterated the last semblance of networking among agencies and mission organisations that reached out to Muslims, albeit that the Born Again Believers (BABN) grew substantially in the wake of the divine survival of Shamiela January. Her recovery was a clear answer to prayer of many believers. The whatsapp messages of Shamiela BABN leader of Manenberg, writing while she was teetering for days on the threshold of death, brought not only a surge of new MBBs to the surface, but also a more general acceptance Muslims and diminishing fear among MBBs to divulge their status to all and sundry.) There was a great expectation that a Mighty Men event, organised by Tygerberg Radio, on 1 November 2025, for which the evangelist Angus Buchan, the main speaker, had solicited prayer from around the world, might bring a change to the situation on the Cape Flats. Many a township started resembling a war zone because of gang-related violence. Criteria for Acceptance Into the Moriah Discipling House The person who wants to be accepted as a resident of the Discipling House must fulfil the following requirements: 1. Be a convert from another faith, as a rule, with the proviso that we are open to make an exception if there is emergency accomodation available. 2. Is clearly in need of receiving good discipleship in a safe environment. 3. Understands that Born Again Believers Network does not take any financial responsibility for them during their stay with us. 4. Has a willingness to be discipled and will be expected to participate in the house's Bible studies and discipling programmes. 5. Does not abuse any substances or must be clean for 12 months. (Should there be any doubt a knowledgeable person will be consulted to determine that the person is fulfilling the above mentioned criteria and the person will be tested prior to admission.) N.B. 1. The full executive of the Born Again Believers Network decides on admission after a screening process by a few members and an interview with additional members. Any candidate has to know that accomodation is given on a temporary basis, with the proviso that the first three months are on probation. Ongoing mentoring and monitoring of the spiritual growth is a given. (Trying to paste some pictures here that have been kept by Sam and Sheralyn)