JEFF AND HELEN
Jeff and Helen Wakeman have been married for over thirty years, and have two grown up sons, two granddaughters and one grandson. Both of them were born and brought up in the Yeovil, a small market town in the English county of Somerset. Yeovil is mainly known for its football team (known as the giant killers), and the Westland Helicopter factory where both their fathers were employed.

There is a sense in which Jeff and Helen are following in the footsteps of their parents, grandparents and great-grandparents etc. For at least the last three or four generations, various members of both families have preached the Word of God and ministered to peoples physical needs. Both their great-grandfathers were local preachers who cycled, walked or rode around the small remote villages of south-west England speaking in tiny chapels or if necessary in the open air.

For Jeff and Helen the call to an itinerant ministry came later in life, and it is only over the last eight years that they have really begun to move into it. Although they had both preached on occasions, it wasn’t until 1997 God showed them both that Jeff was to enter a local Bible College (Charis Bible College - a part of Andrew Wommack Ministries), in preparation for wider ministry. Neither of them realised that it would be a ‘travelling ministry’, but found themselves thrown in at the deep-end when they discovered part of the college course involved a mission trip abroad. They had never been outside the UK, so both of them had to apply for their first ever passport just to be able to go on the trip.

They also had never flown before, but having to make a trip to the USA and Mexico meant their first experience of air travel consisted of ten flights over a three week period. They managed to include in this one very rough landing at Colorado Springs, and aborted landing at Harlegene in Texas due to a tropical storm, and on ground incident whilst refuelling at Corpus Christi, and only managed to finally land back at Harlegene on the second attempt. When American Airlines heard of their adventures, during their flight back to London, the flight staff awarded both with a set of wings. Once they had got the taste for flying, their was no stopping them, and first Helen then the two of them together flew to Mozambique in Africa. Although they both loved America and Mexico, it was Africa that won their hearts, and over the next three years during the long vacation from their jobs in education, they kept returning to Beira in Mozambique.

It was during this period that God began to speak to Jeff specifically, about being ordained. Now for Jeff this didn’t make much sense, because most of the churches he was involved with were more interested in how Bible-based your doctrine was, than whether you had a ‘Reverend’ in front of your name. However, following the prompting of the Holy Spirit, he was ordained under the auspices of a Canadian organisation called Faithwalk Ministries, that provides a support network specifically for independent ministers. Jeff was ordained and licensed in 2001, and together he and Helen started to widen the scope of their ministry, as God began to open new doors. It is as they have tried to follow His leading, that they have set up the English charity ‘Words of Wisdom (UK), and reallocated to Beira in Mozambique as Field Directors for its first project.

If you would like to know more about Charis Bible College or Faithwalk Ministries, they can be contacted by e-mail at the following addresses:
charis@aol.com or cbc@aol.com
www.FaithDynamics.org