A part of Hatfield since she was only two years old, Genevieve Joynt, the daughter of our former pastors Trudi and Shaun Joynt, is truly a child of our church home. Now 24 years old, Gen, as we affectionately call her, recently joined our staff team as the Young Adults Ministry Co-ordinator. And she shares an inspiring testimony of God’s provision as a result of prayer.
“On 10 September 2022, I went from being a girlfriend to a fiancé 
. Once we got engaged, my fiancé, Felix, and I were excited to start planning our wedding to celebrate God’s beautiful gift of marriage.
I was quickly brought back to earth as I saw how expensive weddings can be, and we both decided that going into debt for a wedding was not something we wanted to do. All the venues we liked cost beyond our budget. And as we were on our way to view the last venue on our list for that weekend, I asked God to help me lower my expectations. We fell in love with the venue. It ticked every single box we had. It felt like God had modelled the venue from my Pinterest board.
As we sat down and the wedding organiser went to prepare a quote, I felt my faith weaken, but I knew we had to pray, so I asked Felix to pray for us. He prayed and asked God to provide a way for us to have our wedding at the venue.
When the wedding organiser returned, she mentioned they had a special running where if we booked for a Friday before the end of October, even for next year, we would receive 50% off the venue hire. We looked at the quote, and it was exactly within our budget. I was flabbergasted, and all I could think was, “God, I don’t deserve your goodness; I am so overwhelmed by it!”
We are now continuing to plan for our wedding, and my faith has grown to know that God hears our prayers. He is a good Father, and He writes a better love story for me than I could ever write for myself.
I’ve always known that marriage symbolises Christ’s love for the church, but it became so real to me when I had little faith to pray, and Felix prayed for us. He was strong for us, as when I am weak, God is strong.
I remember God’s word in Matthew 7:11 (NIVUK), “If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!” And 2 Corinthians 12:9, “But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’”
I tend to want to fix everything on my own, trying to make everything perfectly neat – but I realise that if I do things with my own strength, I don’t give God the space to work in my life for His glory. But, if I surrender to Him, He has room to work – resulting in me having a testimony to share with people around me about His goodness.
God knows better than we do and allowing Him to work in our lives results in a more beautiful outcome than we could ever imagine. As an organiser, I feel lost when I cannot arrange or control things, but I’m in a season where God is teaching me that if I let Him, He will take care of me beyond what I could ever do for myself.”
Gen’s story is evidence of what we’ve been learning in our “When you pray” message series, that God cares about our “big” and “little” prayers. One of the greatest treasures of belonging to a close-knit community is growing together and seeing each other, and our children mature in life with the Lord. We’re so thankful to Gen for sharing her story, and we’d love to hear yours too!
Do you have a testimony of encountering God’s goodness in your life? Email us at talktous@hatfield.co.za – and let’s uplift each other through our stories of faith.
