Tara and Werner Pienaar discuss an important, but rarely discussed, way to grow the kingdom.
The Pienaar Family
As I enter the front door to chat with Tara and Werner Pienaar, I’m greeted by big smiles from their two young children. Zoe, aged 3, is keen to show me her new high heels and Rowan, aged 7, has built such amazing Lego creations that I’m sure there’s a brilliant engineering career ahead of him!
When the children go into the other room to play, I sit down with the Pienaars to chat about a topic most people know is important, but often fail to address.
What topic is that? you ask.
Writing your Will.
We all know that it’s important to make sure our loved ones are well provided for once we’ve gone home to glory, but so often the busyness of life, the hassle of paperwork and the cost of lawyers, means writing a Will gets cast onto the ‘later’ pile.
But this wasn’t the case for the Pienaars! So, what prompted them to take action?
Tara shares, “When we started our family, we realised we should have Wills for the kids’ welfare. We noticed CRU were running a free Wills Day service and, as our values align big time with what CRU stands for, we thought it was the perfect opportunity to get it done. The whole process was super easy, convenient and free.”
Helping the next generation put their trust in Jesus is something that both Werner and Tara are passionate about and both have been involved with CRU for many years.
Before they met, Tara served as a leader on CRU’s Christmas Capers camp and Werner had attended a CRU Study camp as a student and led on a CRU Surf camp. Then, after they were first married, Tara and Werner decided to serve together as house parents on a CRU Surf camp in Manly.
Tara hopes to send Rowan and Zoe on CRU Camps when they are old enough because, “I feel it’s going to be harder for our kids to be Christians. The western world is not as accepting of Christianity as it used to be. In fact, it’s getting openly hostile. It really seems like our society is saying you can be anything, but you can’t be a Christian.”
Werner agrees, “I think young men and women today are increasingly forming their identity based on the things they see on social media and deriving their values of what life’s like from that. It’s a dangerous thing because it’s not regulated and opens them up to bad influences. In my view, having strong Christian role models in schools, on camps and in churches has never been more crucial. There is a huge need for it.”
Now both living at Shore, where Werner is a Boarding Housemaster, the Pienaars are surrounded by teenagers from dawn to dusk, providing many opportunities to live out their faith in word and action.
One of the things Werner has noticed is “the huge impact of CRU Study Camps on our Year 11 and 12 boys. We’ve had so many boys return with very positive experiences, not only because of the environment CRU creates, but because of the witness of seeing other students talking about their faith and this then has a positive impact on other boys’ worldview and understanding of Christianity. It really is a transformational experience for these boys.”
When I asked Werner to elaborate, he said “where CRU shines is that they have excellent leaders who are willing to share their lives and their experiences. That’s phenomenal because one of the best witnesses that young men and women can have is people who’ve walked that path before them.
CRU leaders meet the kids where they’re at — they’re fun, they engage with them and help them to see Christianity from a different angle. I think that collective witness is huge for these kids and our wish is that more kids would be able to go on camp and experience that. Which is why we have left a gift in our Will to CRU, and hope others do the same.”
If you would like to get your Will written, or updated, for FREE, the 2024 CRU Wills Days are in November. Click here to secure your free appointment before spots run out.