GRAAFF-REINET NEWS — On Sunday, 3 June, Trinity Methodist Church in Graaff-Reinet hosted a Celebration Brunch for Rev John Harman, who has now fully retired.
John Harman was born in 1940 in war-time Britain, while his father was serving in the Middle East. When John was ten, the family emigrated to Johannesburg, as his father had found it difficult to settle back in Sussex after his foreign service.
John hated school and was sent to boarding school in Middelburg in the then Transvaal for three years. Retrospectively, he realised that his parents needed that time alone together, to get to know one another again. He completed his schooling at Athlone Boys High, in Johannesburg.
His first job was in insurance, which he did not like very much, and then he found a position with the Singer sewing machine group as a management trainee. This was much more to his liking, and he worked for them in Johannesburg, then in Natal as area manager for the South Coast and Transkei, before returning to Johannesburg.
He recounted his experience whilst area manager in Johannesburg when he was dissatisfied with how things were run and wrote to the head office in New York. To his delight, the management in New York agreed with him, which was not appreciated by the local management! This caused some antagonism, and he was "banished" to the Natal South Coast again, where he spent a few more years with Singer before starting his own business in Port Shepstone.
Whilst in Port Shepstone, he was already preaching at his local church and decided to go into the ministry. He was welcomed with open arms and was told he would need to study, which he did for a year and was then asked to become ordained to become a full-time minister. He then moved back to the Southern Suburbs of Johannesburg in 1980, to an area that had a large Portuguese community. He was no stranger to Portuguese culture, as during his earlier spell in Johannesburg he met a lady from Mozambique called Maria on a blind date! They were married in 1963, and two years later twins Bruce and Cynthia were born.
Maria was very adventurous and loved to travel to wherever John was posted.
The highlight of John's career at that stage was a posting to the church in Linden, Johannesburg, which at the time was the biggest Methodist church in the country with over 2 500 members and three ministers. He spent five happy years there. His travelling days were not over, however, and he was then asked to take over the church in Port Shepstone. The family was very happy there, and John found the people to be wonderfully welcoming.
Next stop Graaff-Reinet! After being happy in nearly all his other posts, Graaff-Reinet "was the best thing that happened to me" said John when he moved here with Maria in 1988. He felt very comfortable in the rural church, with many committed members and much room for growth. Sadly he lost his beloved Maria to cancer in 1995.
After compulsory retirement in 2005 at the age of 65, John continued to be very involved in the Graaff-Reinet church. In 2006 was asked to help out in De Aar for four years, which he found to be a very good experience, and then returned to where his heart is, in Graaff-Reinet.
He, unfortunately, has had to relinquish preaching after collapsing in the pulpit of the Trinity Methodist Church on Sunday, 14 January. He did, however, finish his series which was very appropriately titled "Hang in There", sitting in a chair on Sunday, January 21.
The Rev Harman was the Trinity Methodist Church circuit minister with headquarters in Graaff-Reinet for 23 years and was the longest-serving minister in the Church's history.
He has always been very active in the community, until his recent ill health. One of his lasting achievements will be as one of the people instrumental in the founding of the Camdeboo Hospice in 1998. He served on the board until 2010, for many of those years as chairman.
His daughter Cynthia now lives in Namibia, where she runs a church, and son Bruce farms in Mpumalanga. He has one granddaughter, who is at college in Pretoria.
Rev John Harman at his ordination in 1988 with family and friends.
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