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Daran & Teresa Rehmeyer

Daran and Teresa both come from a background of business ownership and employment. Daran began a successful engineering services company in Baton Rouge while Teresa worked as an oncology nurse, both in treatment and research. In 2005 they jointly decided to sell their business and leave “formal” employ to serve in Swaziland. Together with their four children, they moved to Swaziland in 2005.

The first three years of their ministry was devoted to developing services to impoverished children at neighborhood care points (NCP’s) in the urban and peri-urban areas of Swaziland. A heightened awareness of specific unserved ministry areas developed during this time. Daran and Teresa joined African Leadership Partners in 2008 to develop and fill these ministry avenues. Short Term Relief & Long Term Change is the goal they have set.

Biographical Information

Daran was raised in Maryland. He graduated from Virginia Tech in 1982 with a BS in Electrical Engineering and from Louisiana State University in 1990 with a MS in Electrical Engineering. Beginning in 1988, he had a wide variety of lay pastoral experience including youth work and evangelism. While serving in children’s inner city bus ministry and neighborhood outreaches for a period of almost a decade, he developed a heart for serving the marginalized. The initial three years in Swaziland galvanized the desire to serve the Swazi people in a way that glorifies God and disciples the marginalized and generationally impoverished.

“Youth with no goal, youth with no dream are youth waiting to fall into the same traps and paths that have plagued past generations here in Swaziland and southern Africa. Re-awakening the dreams and talents that are God given are a first step in providing youth with a platform to break the mold of previous generations. The cycle of poverty and HIV can only be broken by providing hope. The foundation of hope is Jesus. Building on that they can develop the skills and confidence to move forward in the life God planned for them.”

- Daran Rehmeyer

Teresa was raised primarily in Louisiana. She graduated from Southeastern Louisiana University in 1986 with a BS in Nursing and from Louisiana State University in 1994 with a MS in Nursing Education. Teresa has worked since graduating in 1986 as an Oncology Nurse. Her career in oncology helped prepare her for what she would find in Swaziland. The first three years in Swaziland were spent developing a basic health care program for children at the NCP’s.

“One of the most frustrating situations we see on an almost daily basis is the lack of access to available health care for the most vulnerable in Swaziland. Children here are seen to hold little value and have to compete with a family’s daily survival needs for their own care. HIV has dealt a double blow to many of these children: leaving them as orphans and HIV+ themselves. We want to be able to help bridge the gap left by poverty and the HIV pandemic to give these children back their life and remove the death sentence that HIV has placed on them.”

- Teresa Rehmeyer

Daran’s Focus

• Facilitate the increased involvement of local churches and para-church organizations in the New Life Homes initiative across Swaziland
• Develop the Kudvumisa Glass skills training program to help a generation of youth who are living “in the mean time” to realize their God given potential and gifts.
• Manage the Children’s HIV Intervention Program in Swaziland (CHIPS) to provide life critical health care to HIV+ children.
  

Teresa’s Focus

• Develop and manage the Children’s HIV Intervention Program in Swaziland (CHIPS) to provide life critical health care to HIV+ children.
• Working with the Swaziland Breast Cancer Network (SBCN) to develop a breast cancer diagnosis and treatment protocol in Swaziland; currently chemo is only given in South Africa which is expensive, inconvenient and disruptive to the women requiring treatment.
• Working with SBCN to develop a cervical cancer diagnosis and treatment protocol in Swaziland; there is a high prevalence of cervical cancer in women here.