Shepherd's Keep Australia

Chris and Gem Guyler

 

Chris and Gem met and married in Brisbane Australia. They have a blended family of five amazing children and seven delightful Grandchildren!

Chris, born in London UK, has a long history of working in the airline industry with several airlines around the world and ended up in Australia joining Qantas Airways back in 1986 and spending 20 years with them before retiring!

Gem, born in Durban, South Africa, retired after a very fulfilling 46 year career in education. She now enjoys being a Casual Relief Teacher for Brisbane Catholic Education.

Chris and Gem are active members of the Dara/Jindalee Catholic Parish serving in a number of Ministries and Programs. Gem has served as coordinator of the Agape Charismatic Prayer Group since 2006. They are also active members of a few theatre groups in Brisbane, where Chris fulfils his passion for acting and directing.

Whilst working with Qantas, Chris worked with a colleague who used to run appeals for an orphanage in Durban, South Africa, known as ‘Shepherd's Keep Home for Abandoned Babies’. She would collect baby clothes, toys and the like and then arrange for them to be sent to Durban. On one occasion she approached Chris, as she knew Chris and Gem were going on a holiday to Durban to visit family, and asked him if he would take some items she’d collected for Shepherd's Keep and deliver them personally.

This is how Gem and Chris came to know Shepherd's Keep, and the wonderful work they do to save the lives of many abandoned babies in South Africa! The visit they made was amazing and very warmly welcomed by the founders, Cheryl and Colin Pratley and their daughter Michelle, who is the Administrator of the orphanage. Since that time Gem and Chris have had a passion to help with some ongoing donations and further visits on another couple of occasions.

In the early part of 2018, Chris felt very strongly that being touched by the Holy Spirit he was being called by God to start a mission here in Australia that would help to raise much needed funds for the ongoing costs of running the orphanage and security of the leased property. Back in 2002 they developed and built a large, incredibly efficient and well equipped hospital and orphanage that has an extremely high standard of health and safety measures in place, such that even the local police know, having found an abandoned baby, Shepherd's Keep is their very first option to take the baby to them and save the baby’s life!

 

Having witnessed this for themselves and had the wonderful opportunity to cuddle some of these beautiful babies, Chris and Gem felt strongly called to do something about their situation and so  formed Shepherd’s Keep Australia Ltd an Australian registered charity which has tax deductibility status.

Please, they’d love you to donate to this very worthy cause.