Chris and Gem Guyler

 

Chris and Gem met and married in Brisbane Australia and Chris is retired whilst Gem is still teaching in a Primary School close to home as a Music Specialist Teacher, teaching classroom Music to over 600 students each week.

 

Chris, born in London UK, retired after a 40 year career in the airline industry working for several airlines around the world ending up in Australia. He joined Qantas Airways in 1986 spending his last 20 years with them before retiring! Whilst working with Qantas he had a friend and colleague who used to run appeals for an orphanage in Durban South Africa, known as Shepherd's Keep Home for Abandoned Babies.  She used to collect babies' clothes, toys and the like and then arranged for them to be sent to Durban. On one occasion she approached Chris when she knew that Chris and Gem where going on a holiday to Durban to visit family as Gem originally comes from Durban, and asked Chris if he could take some items she’d collected for the orphanage and deliver them personally.

 

This is how Gem and Chris came to know Shepherd's Keep in Durban 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 where they could with some ongoing small donations and they’ve visited them on another couple of occasions whilst visiting their family.

 

Having been born in Durban, Gem knows the local situation very well and was very touched by the amazing work that these wonderful people were doing in working with Government Departments to secure adoption for these babies after they had brought them back to health.

 

Gem and Chris have been parishioners at Darra/Jindalee Catholic Parish since 2002 and are active members of the Parish involved in a number of Ministries and programs including the Parish Catholic Charismatic Renewal (CCR) Prayer Group called Agape. 

 

In the early part of 2018 Chris felt very strongly that he was being called by the Holy Spirit to start a mission for God here in Australia that would help to raise much needed funds for the ongoing operating costs and security of the orphanage. Back in 2002 the founders, Cheryl and Colin 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 finding an abandoned baby, would immediately take the baby to Shepherds Keep as their very first option to save the baby’s life!

 

Chris and Gem having witnessed this for themselves and having had the wonderful opportunity to cuddle some of these beautiful babies, felt strongly called to help fund Shepherd's Keep Durban and so they established Shepherd’s Keep Australia Ltd as an Australian registered charity with donors tax deductibility status.

 

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