This article was originally published in the December 2016 edition of ITMI Monthly.
During this season of giving, we asked ITMI partners to give you their heartfelt answers to several questions. May their answers bless and encourage you!
Johan and Lesley Leach
Chavuma, Zambia
What do you wish ITMI supporters knew?
(Johan)...my response was instantaneous: ‘My wife….’
‘He who finds a wife finds a good thing, and obtains favour from the Lord’ Proverbs 18:22 (NKJV)
The woman whom I married thirty three years ago, a fashion designer who designed for some of the top fashion houses, has so much lateral artistic creativity.
She can take a shack and turn it into a comfortable designer home.
A mother, who standing by my side pregnant with our second child, ‘risked’ all (twenty years ago) to sacrificially walk away from the successful business we had (with all the secular materialistic trimmings) and by faith, leaving all behind to venture into the mission field with me not knowing what lay ahead.
During her years of raising our two lovely children, working alongside as we initiated and ran a Drug Rehabilitation facility and program for substance abusers, working in the Refugee Camps to share the Gospel, to clothe and feed many broken souls, staying at home alone with our children, holding ‘the fort’ while I was out months on end across the African continent ministering to and serving the Church as the Lord lead, it was during this time that Lesley developed an under-active thyroid, contracting carpel tunnel as well as arthritis.
A complaint was not heard as she continued to persevere to the point and beyond of leaving home and country with me, to trek to a foreign land where she further contracted many a tropical disease of which the recent two were Malaria and Typhoid.
Lesley and Johan live in such a remote place, they do all their cooking outside. It's rustic, but you can't beat the view!
With the regrettable divorce of our son and daughter-in-law Lesley, for twelve months, willingly took responsibility of our now two year old grandson, getting up at night to change nappies, pacify and feed Jensen.
A book can be written of the love, support and compassion that my gorgeous wife, Lesley, has given to me and my children as well as shown to many through her unselfish contribution in the field.
For this I am ever grateful to our Heavenly Father who knows the end from the beginning and gives us the right spouses to walk life’s journey with.
May you be blessed and see only the good in your lifelong partner and together with joy, finish the race set before you.
A blessed and joyful Christmas to all.
Steve Evers has advocated for and served the ITMI partners as ITMI Director since 2001. Approximately once a year, Steve visits with ITMI partners in their countries and brings stories back to encourage supporters. Steve enjoys photography and mechanics, (both hobbies that have greatly benefited ITMI partners!) Prior to becoming ITMI's Director, Steve served on the Board of Directors for 4 years. Steve lives in Arizona with his wife, Darlene.