Royal warrior calendar, swords and shields, milk shakes — some great business ideas from Heaven!

It’s not every day that you meet a mom who tells you that she and her three young children are all having the time of their lives running with business ideas given to them by God.

This week I spoke to such a mom, Juliet Lawrence of Cape Town, wife to Grant and mother of Noah, 12, Ray, 10 and Hannah 8 about their remarkable, divinely-inspired business enterprises. See our Q&A interview below.

Please tell us a little about yourself?

Greetings in the awesome name of Jesus! If I tell you about myself I will be telling you about God’s goodness and kindness from beginning to end. Firstly I have to thank Andre Viljoen for giving us this amazing opportunity to share our testimony in Gateway News. What a privilege this is! We are super thankful!

I am also eternally grateful for being able to study first and second year with the Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry in Cape Town. This teaching has completely revoloutionised my life in my understanding of how important our identity in Christ is. It is largely due to this that I am now passionate about children walking in the fullness of who God created them to be, so they can win the battles that rage around them, and change their families, cities, and even countries! There is little that is more precious than watching children encounter Jesus for themselves. I am also so grateful for Esme Schmidt who has taught children’s church at Journey of Grace in Bellville, Cape Town (and internationally) and modelled how to facilitate these God encounters among even the youngest of the class.

We have also seen our marriage changed by Jesus. We were again extremely blessed to have done the Love After Marriage course through Nothing Hidden Ministries. This is how the world changes, one marriage at a time!

What inspired you to embark upon your projects?

I get most excited when I see whole cities changed by Jesus. Do you ever long to see every man in South Africa gainfully employed in a business that uses all their potential talents? I do. 

So it was with growing expectation that I attended Nigel and Debbie Desmonds Infinite Leadership Course in Cape Town, and listened to Nigel share about God’s infinite creativity in business. It was an excellent and phenomenally well-presented course. But one thing in particular that Nigel shared, really struck me. He said that because God is limitless, there were limitless business ideas up in Heaven, more than enough for everyone to have lots each. All we needed to do was to reach up to Heaven and pull them down.

And that is exactly what my children and I did. The very next day we asked God for His business ideas, and within 20 seconds we had eight. Within a couple of weeks my 7 (just turned) -year-old had started her first business, selling milkshakes at our local weekly food market. My 11 and 9-year-old boys decided to start a wooden sword and shield business, following on from some excellent woodworking classes run by Tekioo, a woodwork teaching team, whose vision it is to actually empower young children with skills from which they too can start their own business. 

How did you go about starting your businesses?

So, my experience of this business has been so gentle. A lot of waiting for God to show us the next step. A lot of working but also being strict with ourselves and making sure we take a sabbath rest of one day a week when absoloutely no work on the business is done. As far as possible. No emails. No sanding. No phonecalls. Nothing. From sundown on Friday until Sundown on Saturday. Especially after a week of intense work it has been so helpful for our family to rest, spend time together and have fun and play and together to focus on God. The last thing on earth we want is a successful business but no family relationships left! Especially getting off our phones, to just stop. To put them aside for the day and look up into each others eyes.

A year on, the boys have been faithfully building up their stock in the quieter months of lockdown, and were ready to start selling. When thinking about what kind of photo to make for an advert, I was woken up one night at 2am and saw a picture of a white horse on a mountain backdrop, with the children standing in front of the horse holding their swords and shields and a caption that read; “ Children of the world, rise, and stand up for Truth and Righteousness, remember Whose you are, you belong to Jesus, the King of the Universe” And then after the vision, I clearly heard God say “ASK ME for EVERYTHING you need”. 

While we did our utmost to bless everyone who has helped us in any way we could (lots of free sets of swords and shields, bottles of wine and paintings!) God has provided an excellent photographer, free of charge. A stunning venue for the photoshoot, free of charge. A white horse, free of charge. A graphic designer, free of charge. A lawyer, free of charge. A website builder, free of charge. Willing children and their faithful, supportive mums, free of charge. And apart from many other miracles along the way, ANOTHER business offshoot! 

The Royal Warrior Calendar just kind of morphed out of the advert. Our hope for the swords and shields was that they would be mounted on children’s walls and constantly remind them of their royal warrior identity (and weapons) in Christ. So too, our strong desire is that when children across the earth see the calendar, they also receive His revelation that they are royal, and that they are powerful, and that they have His victory, and His hope, no matter what. Children need to know that they are never alone, that God is fighting for them, that they have powerful weapons to fight with, and that they are so valuable and precious and greatly loved in His sight. 

What have been some of your challenges and highlights?

During lockdown with no markets at which to sell, and many people being out of work, while sewing and sawing and hammering and drilling there were those wondering thoughts of: “Are we wasting our time? Are we deluded? Did God really give us these ideas?” It was with great relief that at only our second market, we sold six sets of swords and shields and had so many encouraging comments and people were genuinely impressed by the workmanship. Oh, and even that market was another testimony! I had been feeling discouraged at how expensive markets were (for a table to sell from), and I asked God to please help us to find a really cheap market or better still, a FREE market or some kind of platform from which to sell, and the very next week we were at that same market, where we sold six sets, free of charge!

Something that is the most precious to me in this whole adventure is the Holy Spirit coaching me throughout and reminding me that I need to do the whole business with an attitude of love and honour, not just so that He can bless it. There is an amazing book called Imagine Heaven by John Burk which talks about the reason we are on earth…of course the reason is to Love. This is quite challenging if you are a naturally task-focused person! But God soon dealt with that — He just said to me, your task is to love. The business is a side issue. 

Another testimony is that our amazing photographer (Bruce Tuk, food photographer) and the gorgeous venue (Langkloof Roses near Wellington) we used, while struggling over the months of lockdown, have now been exceptionally blessed financially since the time that they helped us do the photos. I really believe they were reaping heavenly rewards (at least partly, if not wholly), because of their generosity and investment in this calendar.

One of the great benefits of learning how a business works in the safety of your parents home, is that you have the freedom and creativity to experiment with new ideas without the pressure to only make the money that puts bread on the table. We are so thankful that our children have this opportunity in their homeschooling to learn firsthand about all the business aspects of developing a product, marketing and selling, with the freedom to make mistakes. Considering the future of our country, it is possibly a big gap in the mainstream school education system, that the practical side of developing your own business is not facilitated.

What next?

Our hope is that our products will go across the earth and our prayer is that The Holy Spirit will use them to change children’s hearts and minds everywhere. Also that they will not just be a prophetic declaration to the people buying them, but that we will expand and grow enough to actually be able to employ other people. May God make us the soloution that gives other families the opportunity to get out of the cycle of poverty, to put bread on their own tables and to clothe and feed their own children.

How can people order your calendar, swords and shields?

The Calendar is R170 and a set of sword and shield is R375. Swords on their own are R150 and individual A3 size posters are R50. These prices all exclude postage if ordering from outside of Cape Town.

Feel free to email me at admin@royalwarrior.co.za or contact us on +27 76 573 7486

You can also visit and order through our brand new website at royalwarrior.co.za