Christmas dinner at a friend’s house!

IN LOVING MEMORY!

By Helen Jesze, 12^th December 2020

“Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all the good things God has done for you…!”

Psalm 103, 1 & 2

My dear husband, George Jesze, was born in Lodz, Poland, on 8th December 1940. His parents, Edward and Emma, were born-again Christians, from German descent. Because of the war, his father had to go into the army. He grew up in an atmosphere of bombings, death and hunger, with suicides a daily occurrence. Emma cried in desperation to the Lord. One morning a man came and said: ”You and your child must go out of the city, or you will both die! Tomorrow I will bring 2 tickets and take you to the station!” At this time nobody knew of our need, or who this man was and what his uniform represented. Emma believed he was an angel.

Fleeing the city, they found a new home with a farmer’s family. Emma sewed and mended clothes, and George, as a little 4 year old ‘cowboy’, had to watch the cows. One day, when feeling particularly lonely, he saw angels in white garments with golden trumpets, in the clouds. He sensed the presence of God enfolding and comforting him. At that time he did not know that this God would become his God, and that he would serve him all his life!

One day they heard the war had ended, and Edward was now in England, no longer a prisoner of war. In a dream, God showed Emma a building with a door and a number on it. Behind the door sat an official. A voice commanded her to go now to this place. When she arrived, there was the same man just as she had seen him in the dream. Because of God’s intervention, this official gave them the necessary papers to leave Poland. They came to Germany through many refugee camps and after some months, were able to go to England, where Edward was waiting! God had reunited their family after 10 years!

When George was 10 years old he gave his life to Jesus, was baptised in water and in the Holy Spirit. The family moved from Preston to Nottingham. George went to school and began to learn English. He was very shy and it was difficult not speaking the language properly and when the school children laughed at him. He still had a lot of fear through all the trauma they had experienced. Gradually, God set him free from this.

At 14 yrs. old, God called George into fulltime ministry through watching a film by Oral Roberts, “Venture into Faith”. After school, he worked in a coalmine for 4 years, and then attended the Assemblies of God Bible College in Kenley. (The Principal was the well-known Donald Gee.) In 1962, he became pastor of a small church in Beckley, in the south of England.

After one year, George went to Switzerland, to become a “volunteer preacher” in the SPM (Swiss Pentecostal Mission). He worked for 3 1⁄2 years with Pastor Walter Weiss in St. Gallen. There were 9 branch works, so he preached 9 times in the week, led the youth work and did sick-visiting. He had no car so he had to walk or go by train, or travel with the bus into the mountain villages. The people were friendly and in spite of his struggles with the Swiss dialect which was different from the High German, which he spoke, he loved his time in Switzerland!

Because George could also speak some Polish and Russian, in 1965 he was invited to go to England, to interpret for Pastor Haralan Popov from Bulgaria. During the 6 weeks they travelled from church to church, Haralan described the terrible things he experienced during 14 years in Communist prisons, where he was imprisoned for his faith; but he also told how God wonderfully saved him from death several times and brought him through all this trauma.

George and I met when they came to Hockley Pentecostal Church, where I used to go, as I was working in the office of Evangelist T. L. Osborn in Birmingham. In the German Dept. A few months before coming to England to interpret, God had given George a dream in which he saw the office where I worked and the building where I lived, but he did not know what significance these buildings would hold in his life. He proposed on our 3rd date (!), but did not tell me about the dream until I said “Yes”! Prophetic dreams from the Lord continued through the years. We were married on 4th June 1966, and shortly before, George was ordained as a pastor and into fulltime ministry.

Christmas dinner at a friend’s house!

In Autumn, 1966, we moved to an assembly in Basel. Six months later, God led us to leave Switzerland and go back to England, where God began to prepare us for a change in ministry. In 1970 we travelled for 7 months with our 3 year old son and preached in many churches in Switzerland, Germany, Norway, Sweden and Holland. God blessed us very much at this time, and the main theme he laid on our hearts was that he wanted to pour out his Holy Spirit in a new way and we, as his Church, must prepare ourselves for this and the Charismatic Renewal. God widened our hearts to reach out to others outside our denomination.

In November 1971, our family which now consisted of George, me, and our two sons, went to live in Germany, where he became the manager of the Christian East Mission (the German branch of Underground Evangelism) in Frankfurt am Main. During these two years our daughter was born. The mission printed Bibles and literature in eastern European languages and teams smuggled them over the borders into Communist Europe, and helped the persecuted Christians.

In 1974 we started our mission work Voice of Renewal Intl. and moved to Nürtingen near Stuttgart. George’s ministry soon took two main directions:

• a) Preaching in churches of various denominations in Germany and abroad
• b) Interpreting for pastors and missionaries from abroad. He also often arranged itineraries for them in Germany, Switzerland, Austria, USA and Canada.

He was to interpret for over 600 anointed men and women of God, some of them many times. George used to write articles for Christian magazines and he kept a diary, which helped us to write our first book God’s Interpreter; Winning over worry and Born to Win soon followed and the books were published in various languages. He also had radio programs and Christian TV interviews.

Twice George went for several weeks to India and once to Sri Lanka, and saw people saved, healed and set free from demon power. He also went 9 times to America to preach and interpret. Itinerary ministry meant that he was often away from home for several weeks at a time. This was not always easy for me or for the family. As the children got older, sometimes I went with him to minister, or went on my own to preach and was active in Women’s Aglow and other women’s ministries, but was not away for such long periods as he was. Both of us tried to give each other liberty to follow the Lord’s leading.

In Strasbourg, George met and interpreted for Rev. David Yonggi Cho, pastor of the world’s largest church in Seoul, South Korea. In 2008, our children who lived in New Zealand, very kindly paid for us to spend 3 months visiting them and getting to know our 2 grandchildren whom we had not yet seen, and doing some ministry. Our daughter also lived and worked there. We flew with Korean Airlines and spent 10 days in Seoul on the way home. At that time the church had 760,000 members. In the first service, the seats they reserved for us were up in a balcony, exactly where George had seen in a dream some years before. Pastor Cho asked George to preach at the All-night Prayer meeting. This was a big surprise and honour, also to meet Mrs. Cho and the new pastor, Rev. Young Hoon Lee, as Pastor Cho had just retired.

From 1996, we spent part of the year in Germany and part in England, still itinerating. Edward had died some years before and Emma died at the age of 90. They had both been such faithful prayer-warriors for us and others. In November 2016, we had just returned from Germany, when George fell backwards down 8 steps. His health had been deteriorating and after this fall, which resulted in broken bones and other injuries, it became worse. We gave up our life in Germany and spent all the time in England.

George became ill at the end of March this year, and on the Thursday before Easter, the words came strongly to me: “His feet are on the threshold”, so I knew it would not be long. On the Saturday afternoon with sunshine streaming through the window, George went peacefully home to be with Jesus, where he had his own “resurrection”! He was buried on 23rd April, a date which the funeral directors chose, and we noticed it was very appropriately “St. George’s Day” in England – George the dragon slayer! My George had also slain some giants with God’s help!

On 8th December, this week, he would have had his 80th birthday. I thank the Lord for this man he gave to me for 54 years of marriage, for George’s support and encouragement to me, for his life and for all the people he blessed in many parts of the world.

One of the many things I miss, now he is not here, is one of his good hugs, and our singing together in the house. He had a good voice and would harmonise. Now he’s singing in a huge choir which no man can number, he’s young, healthy and vibrant!

George and me 7 years ago, taken at Agape, the American church we belonged to in Ramstein, Germany

I hope you enjoyed coming down Memory Lane with me, remembering or learning some new things about George. Whatever your story may be, God has his hand on you too. He has promised to keep us till the end or till Jesus comes.

Truly, the Lord has done all things well!