Meet the Pastors

- a testimony and brief history –

We were born and raised in South Africa, and we’re grateful for our heritage. Before we met each other, both of us had encounters with God that impacted our lives for time and eternity.

Jesus Christ appearing to Henry:

I (Henry) was a confused, messed up teenager. When Jesus appeared to me on June 30, 1960, He extended His right hand to me three times, as if to help me, but each time I pushed it away and refused His offering. However, overcome by His love and the realization of my utter sinfulness and hopelessness, I afterwards fell down at His feet and submitted to His Lordship. The Glory of His Presence and the abundant love for mankind that He exhibited was an unforgettable experience.

The result of this encounter:

The void of emptiness was immediately filled with a sense of my God-given identity. It was a “high” that liquor and drugs could not provide. Washed by His blood, I experienced a harmony and fellowship with Him that ushered in a new and better life along with a purpose that was previously unthinkable.

Liefie’s testimony:

Being raised in a Christian home, I (Liefie) was blessed by Godly parents that taught me Biblical principles. However, being religious did not make me a Christian. My first supernatural encounter with God took place in a tent revival when I was a little girl. Totally overcome by the Glorious power of the Holy Spirit, I had to be carried out by my father after the event concluded. Something very special happened that night, and even though I didn’t understand it at the time, I felt like God set me apart for Himself.

An important decision to make:

At the age of fifteen I (Liefie) was confronted by my brother and cousin and urged to totally surrender my life to God. I was aware that there was more that I could yield to Him, but up until that point, my excuse had been that some of the people who claimed to be Christians did not “walk the walk”, and this put me off. I thought, if that is being “Christian”, then I don’t want it. However, my relatives convinced me that I didn’t have to answer for other people, only for myself. This put things into a personal perspective for me, and I decided that yes, I wanted to serve the Lord with all of my being. Right there in my cousin’s apartment, I knelt and gave my life to the Lord without reservation. My desire was to henceforth live for Him and serve Him for the rest of my life.

Our journey together:

I (Henry) met Liefie at a “sing-song”, which is what we called getting together informally after a youth service at church. We would gather in someone’s home and sing spiritual songs together, because we couldn’t get enough of fellowship and the Presence of God in our midst. That particular night, the “sing-song” was at Liefie’s home. When I first saw her, I liked her instantly and stayed behind after the meeting in hopes of being introduced to her. There was something different about her that impressed me, and it was easy to connect with her spiritually.

After I (Liefie) gave my life completely to God, I decided that I would not date anyone so that my entire focus would be on serving Him. That specific night of the “sing-song”, however, I had a different thought upon meeting Henry. I admired how He loved and worshipped the Lord. He was very sincere and genuine.

I (Henry) knew that there was a call upon my life, and that marriage could either enhance it or hinder it. So I turned to the Lord in prayer and asked Him what to do, because He knew the future, as well as Liefie’s heart. After praying, I said to God, “I really like this girl and desire to marry her, but if this doesn’t meet with Your approval, I’m prepared to terminate the relationship.” I also said to Liefie that if we became married, she needed to understand that God would always be first in my life, and she would have to follow me wherever He led me.

When I (Liefie) heard him say that, it was perfectly all right with me, because it was right in line with what I wanted to do with my life. So I said “yes”. We got married on December 11, 1965. God blessed our union with four wonderful children; three daughters and a son. We are also proud of our eight grandchildren that God has added to our family. The process of becoming one in marriage was tedious at times, and we made a lot of mistakes, but in spite of that, the Holy Spirit was always faithful to help us and bring harmony to our lives.

In retrospect, I (Henry) am continually humbled and grateful for God’s selection of a mate for me. The caliber of my wife has been such a tremendous blessing to my personal life, as well as our ministry. After fifty years together, we still have dreams and we still are very much in love. God is faithful!

International calling:

In 1980 we answered the call to ministry and served as pastors for 24 years, three years in one church and 21 years in the next. We also served on various boards up to the Executive Council of the Church of God in South Africa.

One day in 1987 while I (Henry) was praying with Liefie, God simultaneously told us to prepare for international ministry. This surprised us, because the church we were pastoring was healthy and growing. Nonetheless, we immediately began to practice speaking English, even though it would be ten years before we first ministered in the United States. Then, during our eighth outreach visit in 2004, God told me that I needed to resign as the pastor of my church and relocate to America. Around the same time, I also received my first revelation about the significance of divine healing as part of God’s salvation plan. Previously, we had not seen or experienced many signs and wonders, but all of that, just like our locale, was about to change.

We left everything behind and arrived with two suitcases each, foreigners. Thus began our new ministry as we traveled across the country, preaching, teaching and healing the sick. We also began to operate more in prophecy and the other gifts of the Holy Spirit. Since that time, God has allowed us to touch an untold number of people from different nations and cultures, and for this, we thank Him for His blessings and favor. All three of our daughters now also live in the United States.

Home base in Kentucky:

After five years of focused ministry in California and a brief sojourn in Texas, the Lord led us to settle in Kentucky as our home base. It was here that we re-connected with Christopher and Dale Dufour, a couple we had met before in Lexington, and joined the Bible study in their home. Together we discovered that we have a similar heart and vision, not only to reach this particular city for Christ, but also to reach the nations.

My heart’s desire:

The apostle Paul said to Timothy, “And the things that you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also” (2 Timothy 2:2, NKJV). In the Amplified Bible, that verse is translated, “Look for faithful men…and make a deposit into their lives”. This is why we have partnered with the Dufours and begun a new movement based in Lexington to spread the Good News of God’s unshakable Kingdom around the world: ARISING LIGHT INTERNATIONAL.

- Walking in the Light (a testimony) –

Christopher and Dale first encountered God years before they met each other. Although they came from different backgrounds and out of different circumstances, God had a plan to not only bring them together but to unify their lives for service in His Kingdom.

As a child, Christopher first heard the Lord speak to him when he was alone in a room that suddenly filled with light. God called his name, and His Presence conveyed to him such a tremendous sense of peace that he wasn’t the least bit frightened. At the time, he was very interested in God because his parents were attending a Catholic church, but he didn't know Jesus Christ personally. All he knew was that God was real, and he wanted to somehow bridge the distance between them so that they could commune regularly.

As he grew up, he eventually believed the lie that “all paths lead to God” and became involved in zen buddhism, a meditative practice that focuses on emptying oneself through self-effort in order to achieve a higher state of being. Since he erroneously believed that he needed to fix himself in order to become acceptable to God, he stopped praying and instead continued this practice for eleven years to the extent that he became a novice monk. During this period of time, however, he never once heard God’s voice, experienced His peace, or received a single revelation that altered his life in any positive way. On the contrary, all he encountered was deepening anxiety and an expanding darkness in his soul.

Dale’s motivation to seek God stemmed from realizing that she had a void in her soul that nothing else could fill. Raised in a Baptist church, she had heard a lot about God as a child but never knew Him personally, and eventually she rejected Christianity as a viable path that could lead her to Him. College life introduced her to "spiritual alternatives" of eastern mysticism and the new age movement, and, following a traumatic heartbreak, she began practicing yoga and meditation. This went on for three years and led to her involvement in other religions, including seven years as a practicing muslim and two years practicing Tibetan buddhism. None of this, however, brought lasting peace or healed her heart, because none of it connected her to the One True God.

One day, when she was feeling particularly alone and desperate, she suddenly felt a strong urge to call out to Jesus. Immediately she felt His Presence and was overwhelmed with a love, joy, and peace she had never known before. She repented of her sins and asked Him into her heart, which completely changed her life. The relationship they have shared since then has only grown stronger and deeper with time.

Christopher also hit bottom and called out to Jesus, but it took him longer to reach the point of desperation. After acknowledging a dead end with buddhism and discarding his life as a monk, he spent the next few years plagued by demons and crippled by panic attacks that prevented him from holding a job. On top of this, he had lost hope that any kind of self-effort or spiritual path could lead him to God, and this disillusionment left him badly depressed and without direction in life.

Impoverished in all respects, it was loneliness that finally broke him down. One night, twenty years after he had last prayed to the God of his childhood, he finally prayed to Him again, saying, “I believe that there is someone out there who You want me to be with. If You will lead me to this woman, I promise I'll do things Your way.” What happened next was so unexpected that it startled him. Immediately he felt the Presence of God surround him with deep peace, as He had so long ago. Later he recounted, “It was as if I had set the phone down twenty years ago and walked away, only to return and discover that the other Person was still on the other end. Who would stay on the line for that long waiting for someone to come back? And yet, that’s what Jesus did for me. He was right where I left Him.”

This display of incredible love encouraged Christopher, but it was only the beginning. Two weeks later, he had a supernatural experience that culminated with him meeting Dale. She immediately struck him as the most interesting woman he had ever met, and he was very pleased when they hit it off easily. When he asked her how she felt about dating, she responded that she was a born-again Christian, and she wasn’t going to date anyone who wasn’t going to follow Jesus. Christopher remembers thinking, “What a set-up! God really had me cornered…it was an offer I couldn’t refuse.”

Soon afterward, he found himself sitting on the back row of Dale’s church while she sang and played guitar on the praise team. Although he was open to Jesus, he still wasn’t sure about the “whole church thing”, and was paranoid that others in the church would try to "brainwash” him. Over the course of the next few months, however, he realized that he had unfairly judged evangelical Christianity based on negative things he had been told by others, and also misjudged Christians based on false ones he had encountered over the years.

The biggest discovery of all for Christopher was that he finally heard a clear presentation of the Gospel message, and understood that he could never work his way to God---all he had to do was repent of his sins and receive God's gift of salvation. It was the greatest day of his life when he accepted Jesus as his Savior and surrendered to Him as his Lord. "The light came on again, this time on the inside, and it stayed on!" At last, he experienced an enduring connection to the God of the universe.

Once Christopher became saved, Dale accepted his proposal of marriage. As he puts it, “Aside from my relationship with God, the greatest honor and privilege in my life is being married to the woman of my dreams and the adoptive father of our precious daughter. God is so very good!”

As a “baby” Christian, Christopher looked for a man who was willing to Biblically disciple him, and found none. This vacuum in the church body made an impact on him that God used to shape his heart for future ministry. Meanwhile, he poured himself into studying the Bible, a book that had previously been difficult for him to understand. One day the Holy Spirit touched him in such a way that he knew beyond any doubt that all Scripture it contained was 100% true. “I wept and wept,” he recounts, “because I had said so many things over the years against the Bible. I had wrongly believed that man had obscured the Truth to the extent that it was an unreliable document. I had been so wrong, which grieved me, and yet at the same time I was glad to be wrong. Thank God that we CAN trust His word!"

Three years after they became husband and wife, Christopher and Dale both received the Baptism in the Holy Spirit on the same day, leading to the operation of the Gifts of the Spirit in their lives. Christopher began to hear God calling him into pastoral ministry, and a year later this call was confirmed by a special man of God named Henry Boyens. At the time they met, Christopher had no clue that the Lord would one day lead them to be in ministry together.

Christopher and Dale spent the next eleven years serving in various church ministries, including children’s, youth, media, drama, and worship dance. Dale, who is also a songwriter, continued to minister in praise music whenever she received an opportunity, while Christopher accepted many invitations to preach and teach from the pulpit. At the same time, they both shared a dream to reach the nations for Christ with a movement of discipleship, because they saw that this was the “missing link” in much of contemporary Christianity, leading to many uncommitted and powerless believers. Trusting God to open doors and show them how to implement this vision, they started a Bible study in their home called Remnant Rising. This group later came to be known as Remnant Rising School of the Holy Spirit after Henry Boyens and his wife Liefie were invited to become regular teachers.

Late in 2015, the Dufours and the Boyens obeyed God’s call to join together in the launching of a new ministry, ARISING LIGHT INTERNATIONAL. They are echoing the words of Jesus in Matthew 19:26 - "With men this is impossible, but WITH GOD all things are possible!"