At Hands at Work, our volunteers are called by God from all over the world to serve the most vulnerable in Africa. Each of us has a unique story of how we were transformed when we stepped out in faith and were obedient to this call. Chris and Jo Poulsom from the UK share their story and the journey that has led them to serve in South Africa.
Chris shares, “I grew up in a very stable Christian family with my parents and two younger sisters. Although I went to boarding school, I always knew that my parents loved me, and I didn’t suffer any emotional damage from my time there. We had a very happy and stable upbringing. When I was 13 or 14, I made a personal commitment to follow Jesus and then I got baptised when I was 15 and have been a Christian since then.”
Jo shares, “I'm not from a Christian family, and so I'm the complete opposite of Chris, even in our family structure. I'm the youngest and have two older brothers. I didn't have a terrible childhood, but I didn't have an easy childhood. My dad lived away from home, and the majority of the time, when he came back, he was stressed, distant and authoritarian. My mum brought us up really on her own. I went to a really tough school and it was really hard. Growing up, I knew something was missing in my life. I was quite a deep thinker as a child and knew there had to be something more. At 16, God powerfully revealed himself to me, and I became a Christian, which was quite radical for my family.”
Jo shares, “After meeting and getting married, Chris was working in the corporate world of finance as an accountant and I was working for the church and was involved in pastoral care and church leadership. Years before we came to Africa, we felt God calling us to move to a really tough area in Bristol, UK and reach out to a community where there was a high level of vulnerability and social needs. We felt God speaking to us and giving us a hunger to reach out to the poor. God had already started working in us.
Prior to this, we had lived in Australia for a period of time, which is where our daughter was born. When we came back to Bristol, we always thought we were going to live abroad again, but for many reasons, it didn't happen. In 2014, we took eight weeks and came to South Africa. As part of that trip, we spent two weeks with Hands at Work, which was amazing. From there, we set up a partnership with our church and started to get the church involved in serving the most vulnerable. But that was as far as it went and as far as we thought it would go, aside from bringing teams from our church to see the work that was happening on the ground.”
Chris shares, “In 2017, my job became more uncertain, and I had the opportunity to choose whether to stay or go. We took that as an opportunity to discern whether we were in the right place, whether we should move within England or whether I should change careers. One day, I was walking our dog and I felt the Lord say, ‘You could move to Hands at Work.’ Over the next three to six months, we started to discern that, and the Lord spoke to us in many ways through the Bible, through friends and through strange things happening that could only be signs from God that we were supposed to be heading to Africa.
TOGETHER
“We’ve learned to trust God completely because it’s hard when you leave the certainty of a first world existence of a good job, home and your safety net of having family around. He’s also taught us how to trust him with our children. People thought we were crazy moving here with teenagers, but we felt very clearly that that was what God was calling us to. We can see God's faithfulness in our children because it's not just us that were called here. Our children were as well, and it's been a very healthy and faith-growing environment for them.”
Jo shares, “We joined Hands at Work in January 2018. For Chris, his first role was supporting the local Hands at Work team in Eswatini, which was a fantastic introduction to Hands at Work, to serving and understanding the model. His role then changed to helping to put in a new finance system and then once that was completed, he transitioned to leading the finance team. While for myself, I was working with international offices helping to organise team visits to Africa. I had wanted to live this kind of life ever since I was 16, and so I struggled with when I finally got here, that I was working with the west. But looking back, I realise that I learned so much about the model of Hands by serving on that team. After 18 months, I moved to support the local Hands at Work team in Hazyview, then Nigeria and now I’m focused on Zimbabwe.
Through serving with Hands, my culture has been challenged. The desire to live in a kingdom culture, depend on God, and be led by his Spirit and the power of prayer has deepened. That has been the gift that we have been given of learning to live a kingdom life. I love coming alongside people from different cultures and helping to grow people's faith. I love opening up God's word and encouraging people in the truth of who God is and how He has a plan for them, and that he loves them, whether that's international volunteers, local Hands at Work team members, Care Workers or Primary Caregivers. It’s beautiful and I love it. We have such a privileged life being able to go into the most vulnerable places and bring hope. I can't think of anything I would rather be doing than that.”
Chris shares, “One of my highlights is going into the communities that we serve in and seeing the Bible come alive. There have been a number of times where I’ve gone out into community, and seen just how important it is that we serve, and that if we weren’t there, there would be no one else. Recently, I was with a friend of mine in the Oshoek region where we are supporting five communities. During this particular time, there was only one Care Worker at the Care point because it is harvest time, and people have to harvest the food they need for their own families. Being in community, we had to become Care Workers because otherwise, there would've literally been only one Care Worker. There wasn't a queue of other people saying that if we don't do this, then they can do it. We were the ones who were there.”
Chris and Jo Poulsom served with Hands at Work in South Africa from 2018 to 2023.