Inspired Individuals

Phil and Rachel Bowyer are co-founders of Soul Action South Africa, they live in Durban with their ten year old son Zachary. They have authored a number of books on poverty, development and mission, including Express Community, A Different World and The Whole Wide World. Phil is a qualified youth worker, with a Diploma in Theology and Youth Ministry and holds a BA Hons Degree in Design. He is an Accredited Christian Minister with the Assemblies of God Pentecostal Church and has experience of working with churches at local and national levels. Prior to moving to South Africa Phil worked for Tearfund, one of the UK’s largest evangelical relief and development agencies. He was a key member of Tearfund’s Innovation Team and before that co-ordinated Tearfund’s Youthwork across the UK and Ireland. Rachel is an experienced teacher with a Bachelors of Education Honours degree in Music and Mathematics, and a PGCE in Specific Learning Difficulties. She taught at Primary level for 11 years, as a class teacher and a Special Educational Needs Coordinator (SENCO). Rachel is also an Accredited Christian Minister with the Assemblies of God Pentecostal Church and co-authored the book The Whole Wide World with Phil. Phil and Rachel are passionate about growing people. Although they recognise that, for one reason or another, most people don’t achieve the level of complete wholeness that Jesus did, they know that God created everyone with the potential to grow intellectually, physically, spiritually, socially and emotionally. Therefore, by working with God they believe that anyone can experience the kind of holistic growth that God always intended for everyone.

South Africa is known as a place of extreme poverty and wealth, afflicted by violent crime, and with some of the worst infection rates of HIV in the world. Phil and Rachel have a vision to turn that reputation around. Through Soul Action South Africa Phil and Rachel facilitate opportunities for Christians who are passionate about transforming people’s whole lives through integral mission to network, train and work together, in order to serve the poor and marginalised in a sustainable way.

Area Networks Soul Action’s vision is to support Area Networks throughout South Africa, places where valuable, effective and innovative people, projects and churches, are encouraged to interact, share ideas, money, resources and all sorts of needs. As a network of Christians our aim is to see a unified response to the issues South Africa faces in relation to poverty and justice Centre’s of Excellence As a result of their research Soul Action also saw the need to provide training, particularly on issues relating to Integral Mission and Church Community Mobilisation. Soul Action’s vision is to develop Centre’s of Excellence which are recognized for the quality of the way the people who form them address poverty. Our aims are to provide opportunities for people to learn from one another, to promote and develop good practice, and to mobilize communities to assess and meet their own needs. Literacy Project During her time in Durban Rachel has been able to build relationships with a number of projects teaching life skills in schools that identify low levels of literacy as an obstacle to learning. Soul Action believes that the ability to read, write and communicate is an essential life skill and key to a person’s positive future and that education is a powerful tool in tackling the HIV/Aids crisis that cripples South Africa. The vision for the Literacy Project going forward is to take the model we have developed in Durban equipping and mentoring teachers in child literacy and introduce it into other schools that request support from Soul Action. Our aim is to identify, train and mentor more local people as tutors so they can work in schools, support teachers, and benefit more children. Emerging Leaders As Phil and Rachel continued to build relationships with churches throughout the eThekwini it became clear to them that whilst there was lots of excellent work being carried out amongst young leaders, no one was really bringing together leaders emerging in what are regarded as some of Durban’s poorer communities. Soul Action’s Emerging Leaders programme uses mentoring as a way to invest in individuals who display leadership potential, helping them to achieve their goals, linking them with other Christian leaders and encouraging them to serve their communities. Empowering people in this way is right at the heart of what Soul Action does. Soul Action’s vision is to see leaders emerge to become agents of change within their community, city and nation. Our aims are to recognise and develop leadership potential amongst young people, to establish a peer mentoring program, and to equip individuals to be catalysts of transformation in their communities The future When it comes to looking to the future, Phil and Rachel are determined to leave that in God’s hands. It’s a continual challenge to do things at the pace God is asking and at the right speed for people. Phil and Rachel would love to share more about the impact prayer and waiting on God is having on them personally with the people, projects and churches. They have been dreaming about the kind of impact something like a 24-7 prayer room would have on their city. Phil and Rachel want to stay faithful to God and to live an authentic, fully dependant and faith-filled life; “we know that’s where God wants us to be and, though it’s nerve-racking at times, we’ve experienced God’s miraculous provision so far.”