Written By: Deon & Karin TerBlanche (Owners of ChristianGear®
Ministries)
Subsequent to the last newsletter sent out by Ricardo and Urcelia, they
announced that they were no longer available to run ChristianGear® due to
personal reasons. They remained in prayer and fasting, seeking the Lord's
guidance in the future of ChristianGear® upon which God faithfully guided them
and us, to cross paths. Ricardo and Urcelia heeded to the Lord's instruction to
pass the baton to us, to continue His work with ChristianGear®. We are therefore
exhilarated to be given this task and we look forward to taking ChristianGear®
to new heights. Rest assured we will keep the counter running to reach Ricardo’s
original dream of one million t-shirts!
We firmly believe we were “chosen” for this challenging task as it so happens we
were fasting and praying for new opportunities at exactly the same time that
Ricardo and Urcelia were! During this time Deon was working on the internet one
day. Something he searched for opened the ChristianGear® website. He looked
around…, eventually deciding to buy a few items and ended up buying the
business!
As the new owners we pledge to continue running ChristianGear® within the same
guidelines and principals as set by Ricardo and Urcelia, the core of which will
always be “clothing that glorifies Christ.”
(We will add our testimonies here soon….)
Thank you for your support and may God richly bless you and your family.
Written By: Ricardo M. Teixeira (Founder of ChristianGear® Ministries)
In 2002 the Lord Jesus Christ transformed my life in a way that I never expected
or even imagined.
I have always been a believer in Jesus Christ but, thinking back, I didn't live
a Christian life at all as I had backslid for many years. In fact, I hadn't been
to church for well over 10 years. I also found myself caught up with worldly
things. I had recently gone through a divorce, had a drug addiction problem for
almost 10 years and found myself mixing with the wrong people.
The Lord Jesus Christ got a hold of me when I attended an Alpha course later
that year and He restored my life and delivered me from the evil one. I accepted
Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour and by the end of the course was reborn. I made
a covenant with Him that I would serve Him from then onwards, forever!
It didn't take long till I started building a new life and my relationship with
the Lord grew stronger and closer than ever before. The Lord Jesus, my Redeemer,
helped me kick all my bad habits, allowed me to re-marry wonderful Christian
women, Urcelia and also gave me the opportunity to make new friends, all
Christians, praise the Lord!
One day I was at home in the garage branding a vehicle to advertise my business.
God spoke to me that day with very profound words saying "You should be branding
me", I ignored it at first not realising that God was actually trying to tell me
something. I could feel His presence and in my heart I felt that something was
being stirred. I heard God repeating this time and time again.
I eventually could not ignore it and replied in prayer to the Lord asking Him: "how
was I to brand Him?" I acknowledged a burning desire to serve Him, be true and
obedient, but I was not the Bible pusher type and therefore did not wish to be
ministering His word by knocking on people's doors or to speak out in a crowd or
anything like that! The Lord eventually put in my heart that I was to minister
to unbelievers and to test believers' faithfulness in Him. I was to brand Him
through clothing! At first I was concerned as I knew nothing about the clothing
business, but I felt a certain peace come upon me that made me realise that this
was something very special..... God had a plan for me!
Through a lot of prayer, fasting and really searching the Lord's plan, I asked
the Lord to guide me each step of the way. The power of prayer is awesome and I
prayed that the Lord put the right people in my path and that He give me the
knowledge to learn about the different facets of the clothing industry.
I now needed a name and logo.
After much prayer, the Lord put in my heart several name choices, but one always
stood out - Christian Gear. Yes! I praised the Lord, that's it! The ministry
will be called ChristianGear® Ministries.
As for the logo - I felt that there where only two, perhaps three images or
symbols if you like, that would immediately be recognised by the Christian
community globally, that is; the cross, the fish and the dove. I wanted
something different, something that was unique! God's thinking behind the
ChristianGear® logo was manifested to me through these thought provoking words -
THE ONLY WAY FORWARD IS JESUS CHRIST, and I compared that to a boomerang! The
message was that, like a boomerang, if you threw it, it always came straight
back to you! The Lord was showing me that He was just like the boomerang; He
would always come back to you if you allowed Him to, time and time again! The
result was an image that justified Christ as THE ONLY WAY FORWARD with the "C"
shape of a boomerang, representing Christ.
God also revealed to me to manufacture one million t-shirts! I could see that
what God had in store for me was something really huge, greater than I ever
imagined. Every time someone wears a ChristianGear® T-shirt, they would be
ministering to hundreds of people. Imagine one million people ministering in
this way. "See how many millions you can harvest for me" I heard the Lord saying
to me. Here was an opportunity to make disciples of men!
The Lord also put in my heart that this too would be a test for Christians as
the Lord wants us to be bold about Him and to glorify His name on high. We as
Christians tend to cocoon ourselves and at times we don't want to divulge our
Christianity, this is normally the case, especially in the workplace and even
amongst friends.
I was really excited to do God's will but I had a problem with profiting from
God, by selling ChristianGear® clothing. I seeked the Lord in prayer to resolve
this as I could not proceed without his blessing. I was familiar with Malachi
3:10 and I felt the Lord instructing me to tithe. He also told me that over and
above the tithing a portion of the proceeds would need to benefit various
ministries. The remainder of the proceeds would be used to build ChristianGear®
into the global brand that the Lord wants it to be. Needless to say that at that
point a certain peace came upon me and I accepted the whole financial issue I
was struggling with. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that God was
spearheading ChristianGear® in every area.
I encourage anyone who wishes to glorify Jesus Christ to support our mission and
become part of the million disciples that God has called upon to minister in
this way. By becoming a part of ChristianGear® you immediately become part of a
powerful ministry movement taking place worldwide, that not only tests your
faithfulness and boldness for Jesus Christ, but also ensures God's armour upon
you and allows you to contribute towards saving lives and souls for Jesus Christ.
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