Born a poor miserable sinner on the 30th of January 1986 to the Beneke Family of Welbedacht Farm in the far north-west of KZN, I was named Thomas Helmut and reborn by the promise and water of Holy baptism, a forgiven child of the Triune God on the 8. of February 1986 at Lüneburg. 

God taught and formed me through the good and sometimes bad examples of parents, pastors, teachers professors and a formal education spanning 21 and a half years and three continents – with stops in Lüneburg, Vryheid, Pretoria, Oberursel (Germany), St Louis (USA) and Leipzig (Germany). He married me to Liesel (born Böhmer in Durban) on July the 18th 2010, and has blessed us with and made us responsible for three mostly wonderful children – Sophie, Daniel and Jonathan. 

Ordained to the Holy Ministry in Leipzig on the 6th of April 2015 after a two-and-a-half-year vicarage/internship there, I was installed as pastor and missionary in the Evangelical Lutheran Congregation (Newcastle) on the Sunday Rogate – 10th of May 2015 – and have been serving here, with stints in Vryheid and Madadeni, since, comforted in the knowledge that God gets His message across, even if it means resorting to the use of a donkey as a preacher (see Numbers 22).