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About Us

My name is Michael Simmons; I am a US Navy veteran of 10 years.  My professional career has been centered around Nuclear Energy positioning me with the ability to work abroad during the current need for Nuclear Trainers that is sweeping across the globe.  

I have been married for five years to my beautiful wife Ali; we have two wonderful children who keep us on our toes at all times, Rowland and Dawson. 

In January of 2017 myself and my family accepted a work contract in South Africa;  we had prayed diligently for an opportunity to use my job to get us into other areas of the world to promote the  sharing of the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

The goal was simple, use our own personal money from my job to fund projects throughout South Africa to promote the sharing of the gospel.

We didn't have much of a plan, we just went for it and have been opportunist at finding ways to share the word.

Me and Family

Completed Projects

So far to this point we have been able to fund several ventures using the money God has blessed us with, I have given a brief summary of what we have had an opportunity to be involved with up to this point below:

          In 2017 (app. $37,000 spent)

-Christian Men's Home - Remodeling and establishment of a christian men's home in Capetown. This is a home for like minded christian men attending the University for study. We helped to provide funds for remodeling as well as donated personal time by making repairs. 

The 'Tree House' as it has been dubbed has become a central hub for the men to grow in community with one another and be more of an impact at the University and surrounding areas in sharing the Gospel of Christ with those that do not know him.

Currently between 8-10 men occupy the home.

The men of the 'Tree House'

-Home Discipleship Training- I initially started up a men's only discipleship group to allow a venue for people to get biblical answers on how to deal with issues.  This quickly changed from men only to anyone who wanted to listen. 

We try to meet once a month and have a good mix of men and women.  Examples of some of the issues we have looked at; fear and anxiety, forgiveness, biblical manhood, etc..

Discipleship Training

-Underprivileged Children's Daycare- We had an opportunity to help fund the rebuilding/expansion of small children's daycare in the Atlantis community.  The daycare is ran by a lady named Georgina; a strong Christian who is committed to looking after these children and growing them up under the influence of biblical teachings. 

Due to the number of children coming to the home, her facility no longer met the minimum size requirements and she lost her government funding. 

The expansion project added the square footage she needed to accommodate the number of children and she was able to get her government funding back.

Extension foundation

Walls and Roof in Place

-Home Recovery- A brother in Christ had attempted to build a new wood framed home out in the bush; he wanted to have a farm for him and his wife to raise his children on. 

Unfortunately the builders that initially did the work did not know how to properly frame homes and it was in extremely bad shape; he did not have the funds to fix it properly.

We came in and hired a professional framing contracting service, they completely re-framed the house and properly braced it to support the current structure along with a second floor.  

The Sebolas

Before

After

          In 2018 (app. $45,000 spent) so far...

-College support- Manasse was the first Brother in Christ I had the opportunity to begin discipleship with in South Africa. He loves the Lord and has a passion for sharing the Gospel; he is constantly seeking ways to grow his faith and stay humble.

He had reached a point of struggle, was working three different jobs to pay to go to school, lead the 'tree house', and take care of his other two brothers.  His ministry was beginning to suffer and not take priority in his life.

My wife and I prayed about and decided that we needed to pay for the rest of his college education; this enabled him to drop to one job, allowing him to spend more time in the word, disciple others, and concentrate on his studies.  

Brother Manasse

-Women's Home- The women's home is also set in Capetown; it has a similar function as the men's 'Tree House'.  This project came with a whole new level of challenges.  It seemed like it was one surprise after the other causing the project to quickly run over budget and behind schedule.  This was a large two story home and every room was in horrible shape similar to the first picture below.

Through God's grace however all the pieces came together and applications are currently being taken to find the right female residents to fill the home to make an impact for Christ at the University.  8 female residents will occupy the home.

Before

After

Refurbished Stairs

-Namibia Mission Trip- Myself and my son recently had the ability to join a few people from some of the local REACH churches in Namibia for a mission trip.  Our goal was to visit all the local churches in the Ondangwa area (just south of the Angolan border, about 8 churches total) to provide theological training to the women, children, and men of the church.

I had the opportunity to be on the team that was specifically targeting training the pastors; we focused on evangelism, the   sovereignty of the word, and discipleship making.

This is where I met Pastor Kambauh which I will introduce next.

Me and Dawson crossing into Namibia

Enjoying some quality time with the Children

-Current Project (Namibia Church Build)- While in Namibia I met a Pastor of vision; Pastor Kambauh.  He comes from a dark past which eventually Christ rescued him from, he knows he owes everything to Christ and he is working not stop to share the gospel and grow the church in Namibia.  He is full of joy, strong in his knowledge of the word, and the persona he gives off causes people to just flock to him (not to mention his laugh is the best in the world!)

Pastor Kambauh has a vision to expand the current church known as New Jerusalem.  He wants to create a central hub of theological training for pastors, create Sunday school rooms for the children and women,  start a bible school for the children in the villages to attend, and establish a library with resources that most would not have access too.

The current size of the church is very small (app. 7 X 9 meters), it is open to the elements, single room, wood post construction, dirt floors, and just cannot handle the size crowds showing up to the church (it is not uncommon for over 500 people to show up for church).

We want to help expand the church, it will be much larger to accommodate the big crowds (app. 12 x 30 meters), be closed off to the elements, steel I-beam construction, and a concrete floor.

Pastor Kambauh

Current Church

Even on a Tuesday in the middle of the day we had over 80 people

Proposed Church plan

Why we need you.....

Our original guesstimate on the church was about $14-17,000; however due to the size of the building it will require much larger steel I-beams for structural integrity than we had originally anticipated.  Additionally, we had originally  only planned to use concrete pads to support the I-beams but have since decided it would be better to do an entire concrete slab which must be fairly thick as well.

The local church members at New Jerusalem are stepping up, they are taking offerings every week to invest in a small brick machine, they will be making all the bricks by hand to form all the walls of the structure.

The new changes have effectively tripled our cost estimate and we can no longer feasibly support this venture on our own accord, we need God's warriors to step up.

Please help us build New Jerusalem Church!

If you are unable to monetarily help, you can help by sharing this link as well as sharing the gospel.

Like, share, and follow the progress of the New Jerusalem Church build on our Facebook page!! 

"By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth."

1 John 3:16-18