STEPHEN SPYKERMAN was born in September 1940 during the Nazi occupation of Holland. His parents were Catholics of Jewish origin and he was the fourth son of seven children with a Dutch father and an English mother. The family escaped the Holocaust due to his parent’s Catholic religion plus the fact that his mother was English and thus she was seen as the English rather than the Jewish woman. Stephen’s early years were full of excitement and danger, as their house for some time became the emergency headquarters for the Dutch resistance in his region. His parents sheltered a Jewish woman on the run from the Nazi’s, whilst their nanny worked as courier for the Dutch resistance.

Having received a solid general education, he spurned the higher education his parents had hoped for and entered the world of retail fashion at age nineteen. After working in his hometown for a few years he left to try his luck in London, where he trained as a tailor in various high-class fashion houses. He was aware that his maternal grandfather had been a renowned tailor in London, he did not realise at the time that he was following a family tradition going back for at least five generations. Then in 1965 he married Virginia Edwards, who was a colleague at the fashion house where they were both employed, and one day they attended a Billy Graham meeting in London. On their second visit they gave their lives to the Lord and from there on they were being taught by Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones, the renowned evangelical author and Bible teacher. Sometime later they moved out of London to East Anglia. Whilst there the couple earnestly sought the strong meat of solid Bible teaching they had become accustomed to, they could not find it anywhere in their new location. As Stephen was searching for answers, his eyes were being opened to the Hebrew Roots of the Christian faith. Then in 1970, at age 30, both he and his wife were baptised by full immersion in a Sabbath keeping church, where ten years later he was ordained a deacon.

Once the second of his four children was born, he left the fashion industry because he wanted to observe the seventh day Sabbath. He took up a new job in financial services. During a successful career he pioneered a number of new schemes and concepts in charitable giving and seminar selling, and became an international speaker in his field. His interest in public speaking led him to direct his own public speaking club. For his third major career move he became involved in an International Speakers Bureau, after which he and a colleague set up their own company in London.

In the late eighties and up to his retirement in 1997, a major change occurred in the families’ situation, as out of the blue a multitude of disasters struck. Stephen became ill and was unable to work for two and a half years. Every time he started a new business, after initial success it would meet with disaster, as if malign forces were at work. It truly was a baptism of fire and he freely admits that he needed to be humbled in preparation for a particular work the LORD wanted him to do.

His final job was as Chairman of his own International Speakers Bureau in which he owned 45% of the shares. His investment money for the start up of the company had been given to him by an previously unknown benefactor in response to his prayer for “pennies from heaven!” Just nine months later he suffered a boardroom revolution when the other directors demanded his immediate resignation. His initial reaction was to resist and fight this injustice but then God told him he was not to fight. Thus he ended up totally destitute, unemployed and bewildered. Stephen had been violently pulled out of business four times within a five year period. God told him he would no longer be involved commercially but that from now on he would work for Him.

Stephen’s next step was to go to Jerusalem where he was reawakened to the reality that Israel is comprised of Two Houses and Two Nations. Soon afterwards, he was led to become; “A Watchman on Mount Ephraim,” as per the Scripture in Jeremiah 31:6. They are the watchmen whose specific task it is to call the Tribes of Israel to return to Zion. On a subsequent visit to Jerusalem, having been invited to address a small audience in the Hilton Hotel, he found there were a number of Orthodox rabbis in the audience, and from that time onwards God has used him as a bridge between Christians and Jews. Then at age 60 he was ordained an Elder in a thriving Messianic Community in Southern England. He founded Mount Ephraim Publishing and started writing books.

Stephen, his wife and his youngest daughter returned to the Land of their Patriarchal Fathers on the 14^th September 2010. He later saw to his amazement that his return to Israel turned out to be exactly forty years to the day of his baptism in 1970! Thus after forty years of wandering in the wilderness, much like the children of Israel of old, he had finally come home to the Land of Promise.

Last year he and his wife coordinated the eight-day 2011 L’Chaim Ephraim Feast of Tabernacles celebration within the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem.

Stephen’s latest book is entitled: “Christians & Jews – The Two Faces of Israel”, which was published by Xulon Press in August 2010. Currently Stephen is working on a new book called: “America & Israel’s Third Peril – A Prophetic Vision for our time!” Prior to its publication in the U.S., Stephen plans to launch this work in Israel in the Hebrew language. He has teamed up with an Orthodox rabbi, as his consultant/co-writer for the Hebrew version. To this day Stephen has had the privilege to address many audiences in different nations. “Christians & Jews – The Two Faces of Israel” is his seventh book to date, and it is currently being translated into Dutch, German, Spanish and Chinese.

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