From an early age my parents taught me from the Bible, teaching what God has done for us and that Jesus died on a cross to pay the price for our sins. A few months before my seventh birthday, late in 1991, we went away on a holiday. During that holiday I had a fight with my younger brother and was convicted that something in my life wasn’t right. I spoke to my father that day and he explained to me that we are all born as sinners and that I was a sinner! We cannot do anything to become better or to save ourselves and God needs to punish sin. Because of this we needed someone to save us and that the only One that can do this is Jesus Christ because He took our sins upon Himself on the cross, paying the price for our sin. He then rose from the dead three days later. My father continued to explain that if I asked Jesus to come into my life and believed in Him that I would be saved and that Jesus would change me.
Since my parents grew up and were trained in the Dutch Reformed church and later on served in other Reformed churches, I didn’t learn about Believer’s baptism till I was in my later teen years. It was around 2001 that the Lord started to work in my parents lives helping them to understand that there was no basis for infant baptism. The only baptism the Bible taught was that of Believer’s baptism. It was around the same time that we were invited to attend a service at Tygerberg Baptiste Gemeente, at that stage pastored by church planters Ps Marc Blackwell Sr. and Ps Bryant Crane. Soon after joining the church, we asked to be baptized, understanding that this was a step of obedience. Ps Marc Blackwell Sr. baptized our family, my parents, my brother, my sister and myself, thereby testifying of God’s saving work in our lives and His Holy Spirit’s indwelling. This took place at the beginning of my last year of high school.
It was while attending Tygerberg that I was asked to teach the children’s Sunday School class, something that scared me because I didn’t like being up front and talking to others. I did however agree and by the Lord’s grace started teaching. After I finished high school, I was asked by Ps Marc Blackwell Sr. if I would mind teaching a small group of teen boys in a new church plant in Malmesbury on Wednesday evenings. This again scared me as I didn’t really feel adequate and able to do so. Ps Marc and Ps Cal Lewis (who was working with Ps Marc in this church plant) began training me. As we discussed my lessons, I learned about asking the Lord for grace and wisdom and how He would give it to us according to all our needs (Hebrews 4:16). And that is exactly what I did and the Lord helped to not only enjoy teaching but He gave me a desire to do so. It was also during this year that the Lord really started working in my heart to serve Him.
Though I served in every place and manner I could (working at winter camps, teaching youth and Sunday school) I did not at that stage think about serving the Lord in full time ministry.
After completing my studies at Stellenbosch University and starting to work full time, the Lord gave me a desire to be involved in a church planting ministry. It was at this stage that I joined the church plant of Faith Fellowship Baptist Church under Ps Cal Lewis. By the Lord’s grace, He helped me to grow in my knowledge of Him and as I attended CMI classes, was personally discipled, and studied God’s Word, I was not only learning a lot but I was also growing in my walk and relationship with the Lord. In time the Lord gave me more opportunities to minister by teaching, personal discipleships, working with youth, and in camp ministries.
It was during mid 2014 that the Lord really started to work in my heart about going full time into ministry. I laid this before Him in prayer as I didn’t want to do something out of my own desire or because I just felt like I should. I wanted to make sure that this was the Lord’s will and call on my life.
As I was seeking God’s will and praying about it, I had the privilege to attend a Bible Seminar on the book of Colossians. One verse that God used to really speak to me and that He impressed on my heart in the weeks after the seminar was Colossians 4:17, “And say to Archippus, Take heed to the ministry which thou hast received in the Lord, that thou fulfil it.”
The next day I met Amy, an American missionary serving in the Garden Route. Over the next year the Lord by His grace developed a relationship between us (that was based on a mutual love for Him) and almost exactly a year later we were married.
Shortly after returning from Sedgefield, I shared with the church that the Lord has called me into full time ministry and asked for their prayer. While I had been attending CMI classes up till that time, it was never with the intention of going into full time ministry. From that point on, my studies now had a goal of being equipped for the work that the Lord was calling me to do, planting churches and training others in God’s Word. While I had been teaching and preaching up till this time, the Lord now gave me more opportunities to preach and teach, not only in Faith Fellowship Baptist Church but also at some of our sister churches. Not only was the Lord equipping and protecting me during this period, He was also constantly increasing the desire in my heart to serve Him in full time ministry.
My wife and I are both humbled that God would call us to serve Him. By the Lord’s grace I was ordained to the Gospel ministry on 23 September 2018. Since then the Lord has blessed my wife and I with a beautiful baby boy. Zane Matthew Le Roux was born on 29 April 2019. As we serve the Lord together as a family, it is exciting to see how He is at work in bringing people to salvation and how He is changing and transforming lives in miraculous ways. It is our desire to faithfully serve our Lord and Saviour and to do so by serving others in His love. Might He be glorified as He builds His church.