Our Team
Become part of the community
The heartbeat of the KRUX community is our gathering together. Find out about gatherings near you and join us!
JB Krohn
Dr James Krohn is a theological educator, former pastor, and the founder-director of KRUX. He studied visual arts before moving on to focus on Theology; first studying under Dr JI Packer in Canada and later completing a DTh on Calvin’s Trinitarian vision. He has served on the faculties of the Bible Institute of South Africa, George Whitefield College, Mukhanyo Theological College, and as sessional lecturer at Regent College in Canada. He is active in theological education in Southern Africa, and a Fellow of the Kirby Laing Centre for Public Theology in Cambridge. James is married to Corli, and together with their five children they are avid outdoor enthusiasts and adventurers.
Corli Krohn
Corli grew up among the oak trees of Stellenbosch, where she met James while she was a cellist and student at the university. She has worn a few hats, including that of coffee barista in Vancouver; lecturer of Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew at University; pastor’s wife; and home educator of five lively children. Corli believes in living with the tent flaps wide open, and in feeding bodies, minds and spirits.
Keywords: Hospitality, family, story
Heidi Salzwedel
Heidi Salzwedel is an artist and educator living in Cape Town. She enjoys being in nature and
lives in this city because she can be surrounded by mountains, oceans and forests. She studied
Fine Art at Rhodes University and did her MA through Stellenbosch University. Her time is spent
juggling a number of passions; art-making, teaching, writing, research, and developing
community. Heidi has exhibited her work both nationally, and internationally in Italy, the
Netherlands and the Philippines. She is one of the co-founders of the annual Krux Artist
Gathering and co-founded 40 Stones along with OM South Africa. She is currently working with
Inspiro Arts Alliance (formerly OM Arts) to develop arts and ministry training opportunities in
Southern Africa. Heidi also is the Arts Editor for The Big Picture Magazine, a quarterly publication of the Kirby Laing Centre for Public Theology (a partner of Krux).
Keywords: Education, conceptual art, faith, ministry, community.
Tyler Helfers
Tyler serves as the pastor of Stellenbosch International Fellowship. Prior to coming to South Africa, he served for eight and half years at Trinity Christian Reformed Church with Areopagus Campus Ministry at Iowa State University in the United States. He studied criminology and philosophy at St. Cloud State University before completing his M.Div at Calvin Theological Seminary. Tyler is passionate about the church and mission, as well as the Reformed confessions, Neo-Calvinism, and the work of J.H. Bavinck. He is married to Christina, has two daughters—Karina and Makena—and a dog (Arlo). In addition to ministry and family, he enjoys reading, writing, running, and football.
Barend Groenewald
Barend Groenewald was born in Peru to Afrikaans missionaries and spent his formative years in an outpost in the Andes mountains amongst the local Quechua community, hispanophones and American friends. The context he was raised in fomented a strong interest in language and culture and the way these shape worldviews. He believes that what humans believe influences the way they interact with the world and their neighbour, which in turn shapes their lives. This led him to move to Stellenbosch to study International Relations, where he was lured away from politics by a love of literature and is now specialising in French, which he teaches at the department of Modern Foreign Languages. He maintains a keen interest in the humanities, with a special focus on a particular life, that of his fiancé Anna.
Servaas Hofmeyr
Servaas serves as a KRUX board member and has a special interest in human identity and formation. He continues to explore related questions through academic pursuits in theology, philosophy and law, and seeking to establish personal formational practices, habits and disciplines. His wife, Abigail, works with KRUX partner organisation, East Mountain. She helps facilitate formational journeys of programme participants. They live in Somerset West with their two young sons.
Baptista Panda
Baptista Alberto Panda is a minister in the Presbyterian Church of Angola, but currently serves as the assistant minister at Stellenbosch International Fellowship. He is the founder of Visio Dei TV, a Christian media ministry (Youtube) dedicated to theological education and cultural engagement. He holds a Bachelor of Theology from the Instituto Superior de Teologia no Lubango (ISTEL), a Master of Arts in Ministry from Carolina University (USA), and a Master of Theology in Systematic Theology from Stellenbosch University (South Africa). His research focuses on systematic theology, hermeneutics, and Christian doctrine, with particular interest in the work of Anthony Thiselton and Kwame Bediako and its relevance for contemporary African Christianity. Baptista is passionate about the theological formation of the church, Reformed theology, and the relationship between theology, culture, and public life. He is married to Dr. Teresa Panda, and together they have a son, Alberto.
Ydi Coetsee
Ydi completed a MA in Fine Arts at Stellenbosch University and has been published in the South African Journal of Art History. Since her studies, Ydi has participated in numerous art exhibitions, competitions and art-and-faith initiatives. In 2015 she visited the English L’Abri community, which continues to inspire her. She grew up as a pastor’s daughter, and her parents’ ministry among the poor and disenfranchised in SA played a big role in her upbringing. Adventure travel, classical music and her outdoorsy husband, August, keep her sane amid life’s challenges. She is a mom to three beautiful kids.
Jürgen Lüdemann
Jürgen has been benefitting from KRUX since 2016, and is proud to be contributing by helping coordinate the Thursday evening Culture talks. For him, KRUX is more than a contemporary Christian discussion group, it is a place where people display how the Lordship of Christ impacts all of reality, across various fields, interests, and activities. As a Christ follower, it is important for him to marry the spiritual realities proclaimed in the Scriptures with real-life boots-on-the-ground reality. For him KRUX has been fundamental in this pursuit. As a consequence, he started the Faithful Exiles Podcast with like-minded friends, exploring the underlying question: is God at work in South Africa, and how? Tricky topics such as education, business, culture, politics, and homelessness amongst others, have been fruitfully investigated. Jürgen is passionate about making and creating things, and proud to be working as an Engineer in the local Aerospace industry. Not surprising, in his spare time you will find him tinkering in the garage, cooking up something functional and aesthetic.
Latest Posts
A vision of work
A Christian Vision of Work “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.” A Sermon Preached on...
A vision of work
A Christian Vision of Work “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.” A Sermon Preached on...
Potlucks and protocols – KRUX and the bureaucratic world
In my second year of undergraduate study at university the computer science lecturer forgot about one of the lectures. He was lost in some algorithm that caught his fancy the night before and made him forget to go to bed at all. He arrived at the lecture hall twenty...
A broken beauty
A tall woman with greying hair, gentle eyes and a comfortable dress, I approached Annelie Venter at the walkabout to her exhibition at the Bellville Arts Association gallery. Annelie’s exhibition “Pause” contains almost 100 small works in oil and acrylic. After years of painting mostly nature scenes, this solo is the first more clearly autobiographical.
Silence, space and time, a reflection on the Cederberg
Stephen Watson was a South African academic, poet and writer who passed away in 2011. His prose and poetry were primarily inspired by the city of Cape Town, but it was in the Cederberg that he found what he calls la querencia, a Spanish word referring “to a place on...