OBITUARIES
OBITUARY
PASTOR F.W.C. NESER
A regular contributor of articles on ‘World Affairs’ to the Ensign Message.
Frederick (Frikkie) Wilhelm Cornelius Neser was born on 23 April 1918 into a God fearing Afrikaner family who farmed in the Fauresmith district of the Orange Free State, South Africa.
Due to the poverty affecting many of the farming community as a result of the Depression and the extended drought that preceded 1933, the family suffered hardship. This experience awakened in young Frikkie a longing to know about God’s ways. He developed a great love for the Bible which he searched for answers to the hardship of the times. As he searched, God’s Holy Spirit revealed to him that man and nature had not been created to live in a fallen state of hardship and struggle, but that it was God’s purpose to create a new Heaven and a New Earth for those who believed in Him. He also came to understand the vital role of God’s Chosen People Israel and that the Afrikaner people were part of the Twelve Tribes. His Bible became his most cherished possession.
After matriculating from High School in 1936 with great academic distinction, he studied at the Universities of Cape Town and Stellenbosch graduating with a B.Sc degree in Maths and Physics. Moving to Pretoria he took up a post with the Weather Bureau. With the outbreak of World War II the Bureau was taken over by the Air Force and Frikkie found himself accompanying the South African forces to Kenya, Egypt and Italy. After the war he married Louie Kirsten and took up a Research post in the Department of Agriculture. Sometime later he obtained a Master’s Degree from the University of Pretoria.
In 1951 he became acquainted with a Pentecostal Church denomination that believed the Israel Message. God’s Holy Spirit led him to embrace the deeper truths taught in that Church and, in time, he felt the call to full-time ministry. In 1956 he was ordained as Pastor of the United Apostolic Faith Church in Vereeniging, Transvaal, where he began a fruitful and much blessed ministry. During the years that followed he became increasingly constrained to reach out with the Israel Message to his own Afrikaner people in the Afrikaans language. Hitherto almost all Israel teaching in South Africa had been in English.
In 1963 he established the Ecclesia Evangelistic Group with a Church congregation in Vereeniging and a rapidly expanding literature and tape outreach which spread throughout South Africa and beyond. Further congregations were subsequently formed. Many thousands of South Africans (both Afrikaans and English speaking) learnt of God’s purpose for the Celto-Anglo-Saxon and related peoples through the Church services, outreach meetings, cassette tapes, CDs, videos and publications (over 100 titles) where God’s servant set forth Bible truth. Divine healing was also integral to his ministry and many miracles of bodily healing took place.
Pastor Neser’s great passion was that God’s true Israel people might know their identity and learn of their Divine calling and destiny. He ceaselessly proclaimed the need for national and individual repentance to prepare for the Second Coming of Christ and the Millennial reign when Israel will lead the world back to a state of perfect harmony with God.
On 11 August 2008, in his ninety first year, he passed into his rest, but his ministry continues. All his publications and over 2000 messages given by him are still available through:
Ekklesia Kassetfonds Trust,
PO Box 31571,
Wonderboompoort 0033,
South Africa
and the website “Israel Must Hear” (www.israelmusthear.co.za).
OBITUARY
MISS MARGARET KILNER (1931-2008)
We were sorry to hear of Margaret’s death on the 29th August. For many years she spoke at Orange Street Congregational Church and took services on a Sunday on occasions. She had been an active member of the Covenant Peoples’ Fellowship (formerly S.P.B.I.) for many years and was a frequent contributor to the Fellowship’s magazine, Covenant Voice.
Margaret was born in England, but went to South Africa with her family, returning to the UK in the early 1950’s.
About fifty years ago she became a founder member of the ”Youth Group” of the S.P.B.I, contributing articles to the Group’s magazine, Toren, and hosting meetings at her home.
Lectures and services for the S.P.B.I. were held at The Congregational Church in Orange Street, and Margaret joined classes on lecturing, later becoming a speaker for the organisation, and she spoke at many conventions. In later years she spoke at regular meetings and conventions in Northern Ireland.
She wrote an excellent booklet about the Huguenots, which is on sale at Orange Street Church. Unfortunately, in later years, her health broke down, but she continued to serve as much as she was able, often at great cost to her strength. She was a dedicated Christian and Kingdom message believer, never grudging any effort in her work for the Lord. She made it her mission in life to share the joy of her deeply held beliefs with a wider circle, and it is obvious that her work, especially her written work, will continue to help and inform others, even though she is no longer with us on earth. We thank God for her life of witness and hard work.
