United in their love for Africa
Staff Story: The Kimbers

TWR is thrilled to have a seasoned missionary couple, Graham and Jean Kimber, and their two young daughters, Jessica (6) and Bernice (4) join the TWR team in Swaziland.

"We were very encouraged at the way the Lord prepared the way for us to work with TWR," says Graham.
Missions work has been a theme in their lives since their love story began. They first met in the early 1990s when they were both working as missionaries in the Seychelles, and they later married in 2006.

Waldo is one of those guys in the office who can speak "machine." While the rest of us bang our heads on our keyboards when things go wrong, he swoops in and negotiates a cease fire and gets everything back to "normal" for us. He says that the best part of his job at TWR is, "to see the relief on people's faces when things get fixed for them!" My face has been one of those faces!

One of the coolest places TWR has sent Waldo has to be Cape Verde, an island off the coast of West Africa. As a qualified international trainer, he went to teach a group of volunteers how to produce radio programmes. While he was there he heard about a listener in one of the remotest parts of Cape Verde, who gets up every morning to listen to TWR because his life has been changed through the programmes. That's the kind of stuff which keeps our spiritual batteries charged at TWR – knowing someone so isolated is being reached right in his home!

Waldo is a classic South African guy. He loves rugby and meat! His favourite rugby team is the Sharks (from the KwaZulu-Natal province) and of course, the Springboks, South Africa's national team. Waldo is also plugged into his church and is constantly involved. When he's not reading big thick text books on networking (paper weights for us non-technical types), he likes to play computer games, or go fishing.

It was the year after high school. Garth really liked Fiona. There was a "problem" though. During their courtship, God called Garth into full time missions. So with great trepidation, he sat down to write Fiona a letter. At the time she was in Thailand as an exchange student. So, he wrote this monumental letter, confessing his missionary calling and wondering how it would impact this relationship he cherished so dearly. Little did he know, Fiona, sitting in Thailand, was doing the exact same thing! Their letters crossed paths mid-air and a great sigh of joyful relief was expressed on the two continents – Africa and Asia!

Brought together by divine scripting, Garth and Fiona, along with their two children, have been in West Africa for the past six years. We caught up with them recently and asked them a few questions.

Fifty years ago, a young James Burnett went with his father to see a presentation by a TWR missionary.  The impact of this encounter sparked an interest in missionary radio in James, giving direction to his future with TWR.

James and Lyn married on 1st May 1982 and started with TWR a month later on 1st June.  They daughter was born while they were at Radio 540, and the two boys while they were in eSwatini. James, as Chief Engineer and Lyn, as hostess to many visitors, responder to DX listener requests and continuity announcer, spent twelve years in Swaziland. 

In 2016, James stepped down as the Technical Director TWR Africa but continues to serve as Technical Project Manager and is enjoying getting back into using his engineering to expand God's Kingdom. Lyn is TWR Women of Hope coordinator for the Eastern Cae, South Africa.