Couple’s love gleams diamond bright
Pastor Fred and Nellie Llewellyn celebrated 60 years of marriage recently.
A COUPLE that prays together stays together is a saying that has rung true for Pastor Fred and Nellie Roberts as they recently celebrated 60 years of marriage.
They first met in Durban at the Full Gospel Tabernacle when Nellie was 17 and Fred was 19. “He was training to be a carpenter at the time and I had a very strict father so he first got to know my dad before he asked me out,” said Nellie.
They admitted that they never went on dates as their whole lives were dedicated to service to the church. ” We taught Sunday School and then went off to be part of an open air service, then taught Sunday School again at Greenwood Park, had lunch and in the evening we would be found singing in the choir ,” said Nellie.
After one and a half years of dating, and before he left to study at a college in London, Fred proposed. They were married two years later on 13 November 1954 at the Full Gospel Tabernacle. For their honeymoon they spent a week at the Scottburgh Hotel and when they returned they packed their belongings and moved to Zambia to pioneer the Full Gospel Church Livingstone. “We stayed in one of the member’s rooms for about six months. It really didn’t matter where we were as long as we were together,” said Nellie.
Pastor Fred said they would often baptise members of the congregation in the Zambezi River, and during the event other parishioners would continuously hit the water with sticks to keep the crocodiles at bay. They later moved back to South Africa and started a church in Escourt. This was followed by a move to Malvern where they stayed for 25 years, and during that time they pioneered more than 200 churches. Fred and Nellie now live in Hillcrest. They started the Durban Christian Centre in 1979 and it found its home in various locations around the Durban area before finding ground in 1999, where the Jesus Dome now stands.
The couple said the strength in their marriage came from the love the have for each other and the ability to forgive. They have four children, eight grandchildren and are the proud great grandparents of three.
