TEACH THEM TO
SPEAK Pastor Eddie Koekemoer · The Blue Church · A Bible School for the Nations

There is a blue dome on the corner of Kruger and Merriman Street in Vereeniging. Most people in the Vaal know it simply as the Blue Church. What most people do not know is that when its foundations were laid forty years ago, a prophetic word was spoken over it — that this building would one day be used to establish a Bible school and train evangelists. For four decades, the word waited. Then, one Monday evening, a pastor received a message he did not expect, and by Tuesday morning, the doors of the Blue Church were about to open again.

On Testimony Tuesday, Joyful Journey Home host Carlett Badenhorst welcomed Pastor Eddie Koekemoer and his long-time friend Magda to the JustGospel studio for a conversation that moved from a blue dome in Vereeniging to the nations of Africa, from a ventilator in a Hermanus hospital to a vision so clear it could only have come from heaven.

The Monday Night Word & the Tuesday Morning Text

Pastor Eddie's path to the Blue Church began not with strategy but with obedience — a chain of events so tightly timed that no human being could have orchestrated them. It started with a missions meeting he was arranging for Pastor Paul van Renen, a man connected to the Blue Church and the Bible school Eddie had attended as a young man 35 years earlier.

While making phone calls to organise the event, a pastor friend from the AFM in Vlagstad stopped him mid-conversation. "Eddie," he said, "I have a word from God for you. You must go and unlock and open the doors of the Blue Church." It was a Monday evening. Eddie filed it away and thought nothing more of it.

The next morning, an SMS arrived with the phone number of the building's owner. The Holy Spirit spoke: stop the car, call this man now. Eddie pulled over. The conversation was short. "Are you the owner of the Blue Church?" "Yes." "Can I come and see you?" "You can come now." Eddie turned around and drove to Vereeniging. He arrived at 11 o'clock.

The meeting that followed was not a business negotiation. It was a confirmation. Two men, in two different towns, had received the same word on the same night — and God brought them together the next morning with a precision that left no room for coincidence.

A Building With a 40-Year Prophetic Word

As Eddie began sharing with the owner what God had been placing on his heart — a vision for the nations, a Bible school, an equipping centre — he was interrupted by something extraordinary. The owner pulled out a file. Inside it were four decades of prophetic words spoken over that blue dome. Word after word, year after year, all pointing in the same direction: this building was built to train evangelists. This building was built for a Bible school.

"We arrived in March. By August the building was ours. The Lord is so good. We started putting chairs in, started prayer services. On a weekly, even daily basis, we see people getting saved."

— Pastor Eddie Koekemoer

The building had previously housed a drug rehabilitation programme. A faithful caretaker had watched over it for five years. Not a single window was broken. Not a door was damaged. The entire building was intact — as if it had been waiting. By August, the team had moved in, cleaned it up, and begun holding services. Within months, the Blue Church was alive again.

Five Years Earlier — A Hospital, a Ventilator, and Romans 8:11

The story of the Blue Church cannot be told without the story of the man who was sent to open it. Five years before that Monday evening phone call, Pastor Eddie Koekemoer nearly died. For seven weeks he lay in hospital in Hermanus — three times reaching the edge of death. He was placed on a ventilator. Doctors told him he would be in hospital for at least two months.

It was in that hospital bed, barely able to speak, that the Holy Spirit reminded him of the scripture he had carried since the day he gave his life to God:

"When I got saved, the Holy Spirit came and introduced Himself to me," Eddie recalled. "He said: I am the Holy Spirit. I am the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead." In that moment, lying in a hospital bed with tubes running into his body, that same Spirit moved. The healing was not gradual. It was sovereign.

Eddie was discharged on 10 March — five years ago to the day this interview was recorded. Five days later, driving past Graaff-Reinet toward Johannesburg, the Holy Spirit spoke again. The message was clear, direct, and life-defining: "Eddie, I have spared your life. Here is your job description: go and teach people a spiritual vocabulary."

The Vice Grip on the Church's Mouth

That phrase — spiritual vocabulary — became the lens through which Eddie now reads everything. And what he sees in the Church troubles him deeply. Believers who have been saved for ten, twenty years and cannot quote a single verse from the four Gospels. Christians who have never prayed for the sick. Followers of Christ who love Him, but cannot speak about Him — because they have never been given the words.

"God gave me a picture. People have a vice grip on their mouths. Their mouths are locked. If you put your hands over your mouth and try to say the name Jesus — nothing comes out. That is what happens to people who do not have the knowledge of the Word."

— Pastor Eddie Koekemoer

He asked a room of forty men in Pretoria one question: give me one sentence from the book of Luke. One man could not answer. He went home and told his wife. "I don't know one scripture in Matthew, Mark, Luke or John," he said. His wife offered John 3:16. He shook his head. In his fifties, saved for years, he had forgotten John 3:16. That story broke something open in the room. And it is the story Eddie tells wherever he goes — not to shame, but to awaken.

Why Jesus Went Home — And What It Means for Us

Eddie asked a question that stopped the studio: why did Jesus go home? We know the answer instinctively — to prepare a place, to send the Holy Spirit. But Eddie pressed deeper. Jesus went home, he said, because He had finished teaching. For three and a half years, Peter, Matthew, John, all the disciples had walked every road with Him. They had watched Him drive out demons, raise the dead, heal the sick. They had heard every sermon, every parable, every rebuke. When Jesus ascended, they knew exactly what to say and what to do. They had been discipled.

"The Great Commission is not just go and preach," Eddie said quietly. "It is go and teach. Make disciples. Jesus discipled twelve men and turned the world upside down. We are not doing that. We are filling churches and sending people home without equipping them for the next conversation, the next street, the next Joseph walking past with a beer in his hand."

That last reference was not abstract. Just hours before the interview, Eddie had been in Kruger Street with a broom and a spade, cleaning the pavement outside the Blue Church, when a man named Joseph walked past — beer in hand. The Holy Spirit said: speak to him. Eddie invited him in. Joseph put the beer down outside the door — ashamed, without being asked. Twenty minutes later, Joseph gave his life to Jesus. It was Testimony Tuesday, and the testimony was still warm.

A Bible School for the Nations

The vision Eddie carries for the Blue Church is as wide as the nations gathered in the Vaal. Vereeniging is home to thousands of people from Nigeria, Ghana, Ethiopia, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Mozambique, Somalia — and many others. Where some see a problem, Eddie sees a harvest field.

"I was sitting with a group of people upset about all the nations coming into South Africa. The Holy Spirit spoke to me and said: I set these borders. I opened these borders. They are not here to work against you — they are here so that I can change their lives."

— Pastor Eddie Koekemoer

The plan is simple and sweeping: one evening per week for Nigerians, one for Ethiopians, one for those from Ghana, Malawi, Zimbabwe. Bible classes in mother tongues. Evangelists trained and sent back into their own communities. The Church open seven days a week — for prayer, for baptism, for healing. The prophetic word of forty years ago, finally fulfilled.

When Magda was asked for a word of encouragement, she said it simply: "You are good enough for the Lord. The only thing He wants from you is a personal relationship. In the beginning, God came down in the evening to fellowship with Adam and Eve. That is still His heart — that you will fellowship with Him. He wants to hear you. Come. Make time. Not just hear it — do it. Be a doer of the Word."

Are You Speaking the Language of Jesus?

Eddie closed with the question that every listener needs to sit with. Not as an accusation. As an invitation. Can you give one sentence from the book of Matthew? One verse from Luke? Can you explain why Jesus had to die — not just that He did? Can you tell someone, in plain language, what the message of the cross actually means?

If the answer is no, or if the answer comes out slowly and uncertain, then the Blue Church exists for you too. Not just for the Josephs walking past with beer in hand — but for the believer who has been in the pew for twenty years and still cannot find the words.

The vice grip is real. But so is the key. Open your Bible. Read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Start there. Let the Word that is alive and active do what only it can do — renew your mind, fill your mouth, and send you out.

Visit the Blue Church

The Blue Church — 75 Kruger Street (corner Kruger & Merriman), Vereeniging — is the blue dome building well known in the Vaal. Services, prayer, and Bible classes are running. To connect with Pastor Eddie Koekemoer, contact JustGospel via WhatsApp 073 804 5456 and the team will assist you.

This interview was broadcast live on JustGospel during the Joyful Journey Home drive show on Testimony Tuesday, 10 March 2026. Listen live at justgospelrtv.co.za or find the podcast on Spotify.