Our History
Stephanie Lauren Levy was born on October 10th in the town of Monroe, Louisiana.
Both of her parents were born and raised in Tallulah, Louisiana. She is the youngest girl in the family, with two sisters and four brothers.
George Clarence Coleman III was born on May 27th in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Both of his parents were born and raised in Kosciusko, Mississippi. He is the youngest member in his family, with three older sisters.
The Levy family moved from Louisiana to the south side of Chicago, Illinois where Stephanie grew up and attended school until she was a junior in high school. The picture of the brick single family home is where she and her family lived for many years.
The Coleman family moved from Mississippi to Milwaukee, Wisconsin in the mid to late fifties. George was raised and completed school in Milwaukee's inner city area.
Nearly all of his formative years from childhood to adult life was spent living in the duplex home pictured here.
John D Schoop, Stephanie's elementary
school in south side Chicago.
Elma Levy
Stephanie's mother was baptized as one of Jehovah's Witnesses in the 1960s. She served Jehovah while living in Illinois and Wisconsin.
Hopkins Street in north side Milwaukee
was George's elementary school.
Ilean and George Coleman Jr.
Both of George’s parents were also baptized as Jehovah's Witnesses in the 1960s. They served Jehovah will living in Wisconsin and Mississippi.
Former Central Congregation Kingdom Hall
Stephanie became a baptized minister in 1984 at a circuit assembly of Jehovah's Witnesses in Janesville, Wisconsin. George became a baptized minister in 1982 at regional convention of Jehovah's Witnesses in Cicero, Illinois a suburb of Chicago.
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Pictured is the local congregation Kingdom Hall in Milwaukee, Wisconsin where George and Stephanie met, became engaged, and spent the first years of their marriage attending.
Celeste Apartments near downtown Milwaukee
Stephanie enjoys reading, bargain shopping, travel, and nature. George enjoys poetry, classic movies, history, and technology.
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Picture is the first apartment where Stephanie and George lived almost 40 years ago. It was a one bedroom apartment with a kitchenette that had a square footage size of less than 400 square feet. This first apartment was cheap rent but it was clean. A good start for a newlywed couple attempting to make modest lifestyle choices while trying to put their ministry first.
Choices in Secular Employment to Pursue Kingdom Interests
Like a good majority of Jehovah’s Witnesses, Stephanie and George have viewed their secular work as a means to support their ministry. Basically, they viewed being a preaching minister as their primary career. In light of that, over the years George and Stephanie have made secular employment choices with a view to simplify their lives in order to put “kingdom interests first” as admonished at Matthew 6:33. To some, those choices may have appeared foolish or hard to understand, but to George and Stephanie those choices made perfect “spiritual sense” (1 Corinthians 2:14-15)
STEPHANIE
Before Stephanie's senior year the family moved from Chicago to Milwaukee Wisconsin. Stephanie was accepted into the office education program at South Division high school, where she served an internship at a mortgage insurance company in her senior year of high school.
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She was offered permanent employment upon graduation which led to over 30 years’ experience working in the mortgage industry. Later Stephanie began to experience some serious health issues that affected her levels of energy, focus, and time management availability. Since her physical resources where now limited, Stephanie decided to retire early from secular employment in order to focus all of her energy, time, and physical effort toward her ministry.
GEORGE
​As a junior in high school, George was selected to attend the Milwaukee Rotary Club's Camp Enterprise for Young Entrepreneurs. After completing Hamilton High's office education internship program as a bank teller at a major bank during his senior year, George was selected for permanent employment immediately upon graduation. George spent more than 30 years in finance related industries. In that time period George rose through the ranks of being a bank teller to be hired as an assistant vice-president and community reinvestment officer at a bank before the age of 33.
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His job required him to represent the bank by speaking at seminars, public forums and town halls. This involved meeting and working with various public elected officials, community leaders, civil servants, and minority contractors in the community area that included Milwaukee, Wisconsin and parts of Waukegan Illinois. His duties also including spearheading community reinvestment marketing and television campaigns through TV and radio commercials that included himself and members of his staff. George also wrote a monthly financial column that appeared in one of the local minority newspapers that had a wide distribution in the city, and was also invited to appear on the local minority owned radio stations as a guest to talk about housing loan initiatives and credit counseling opportunities.
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What was amazing to his employers was that George was able to successfully accomplish these projects and assignments in the business world while in their eyes only being equipped with a high school diploma and no college degree. One employer even offered to approve of George being granted a work schedule that would allow him to attend college courses and pursue a four-year degree at night at his employer’s expense. George told them no. They then wanted to know where George learned the lecture skills to speak well publicly to large groups, communicate effectively in written form, and use logical developmental thinking to outline strategic plans for implementation.
Examples of George's Various Corporate Secular Employment Experiences
George assured those who asked that there was nothing “special” about him as an individual. George explained that there were many other young ones in the group of congregation worshipers he grew up in as well as all over the world who were enrolled in the Theocratic Ministry School (now Our Christian Life and Ministry) program. As a result of the higher education level training and evaluation the students on the theocratic program received concerning their speaking assignments and exercises over the years, many of those young ones grew up to be adults with highly transferable communication skills that could be applied to other areas and aspects of life. In fact, George is still a student in that Divine theocratic education program today, since you never graduate because there is always room for improvement.
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At the same time that George was fulfilling his secular employment obligations, he was still extremely active in his local congregation, serving as an elder with various congregation assignments, and also as a teaching and shepherding group overseer of a smaller group of members within the congregation. Over time George decided that he wanted to do even more as a preaching minister and severely limit his secular work. So, to the astonishment of his employers, George walked away from his corporate junior executive job and took a job as a contracted temp clerical worker that provided enough income to take care of the basic financial needs of his family. Stephanie and George have never looked back regarding their decisions regarding secular employment, and their God has blessed their efforts.