When God is calling you to give up everything – your fulltime job, your lifestyle, your family, your city – He will also make a way for you to be obedient.

Three weeks before we obeyed that kind of call on our lives, my husband, Franscois, and I were married. As newlyweds, we moved with only two boxes of crockery and bedding and a bag of clothes from Port Elizabeth to the Nazarene Theological College in Johannesburg, South Africa.

We did not know what awaited us or where I would get a job to support us as my husband studied. But we took a leap of faith, trusting and obeying, for there’s no other way.

Settling in went well as God blessed us with a fully equipped chalet on campus. Yet, I still needed a job for us to survive. As a couple, we prayed to God with great faith. I landed a head chef’s job at a wedding venue close by. Who says “no” to a job that comes with a winter and summer break? Definitely not me. Thank you, Lord.            

We had a month or two of smooth sailing before we received shocking news: We were going to be parents. It left us speechless for quite some time before the excitement took over.

Nathan was born healthy and a blessing from God’s hand.

Every morning my husband and I used to walk a very dark and dangerous road to reach the taxi to take me to work. It was creepy and I hated walking, but God protected our comings and goings. I started going to God in prayer about the need for a car to help ensure our personal safety. I didn’t know my husband was praying, too. Although we had to walk this path in faith every day for a year, early in our second year God blessed us with a car. What an awesome God we serve.  

Then, late one afternoon there was a knock on our door, delivering a letter from the college office stating that if we don’t pay in full the tuition that my husband owed, he wouldn’t be accepted for the next semester. We started praying and crying before the Lord. God made a way for us to pay some of the amount.  

In our third year, our storms got even worse as my husband couldn’t register for classes because the college now wanted the full amount of R28,000. We felt sick. Because I had just a freelance chef’s job and we were providing for a baby, we were battling to make ends meet. For weeks we prayed to God – not to clear the bill, but to provide this amount of money.  

It was as if God turned a deaf ear on us. Our prayers were met with silence.

It was in the sixth and last week of registration that God came through for us. We were jumping for joy and praising God, who made a way for us to pay the college fully what we owed. What a mighty God we serve!

The last semester was not an easy one for my husband. He had to catch up with this work, he took Nathan with him to class on the days I worked, and yet he got very good marks and an excellence award for showing unusual diligence in his studies.

Over the years that we obeyed God by moving to a new city and my husband studied for a Diploma in Theology, not one night did we go to bed without having food on our table. Not one day did Nathan go without nappies nor infant formula. We had a roof above us and we had a fine place to sleep.

During Bible school, there were still other difficulties from dangerous field fires surrounding the campus to heavy thunderstorms, to snakes, ugly “park town prawn” crickets and other creature invaders into our home. We conquered it all, as God was there all the time. Because in obedience we took the leap of faith, today we have a wonderful testimony to share.

Amazing Love, Amazing Love, All I know is I once was lost but now I’m found, I was blind but now I see, and I know He can do for you, what He has done for me.

--Chantal Julie is copastor with her husband, Franscois, at George Church of the Nazarene, in Western Cape, South Africa.