Helping Christmas Mean a Little Bit More

For the de Jager family, the most important present this Christmas won’t come brightly wrapped with ribbons or bows. There’ll be plenty of those, but the gift that matters the most will be spending Christmas together. For the first time since moving from South Africa to the United States, Cornelius de Jager will have the holiday off.

“We are extremely grateful to have Christmas together as a family,” says Cornelius. “I work in agriculture, and my job doesn’t have benefits. In the past, I’ve always had to work on Christmas because we needed the income.”

Thanks to Melaleuca, the de Jagers not only have more time together as a family, they also have financial peace of mind during the joyful, but often expensive, holiday season. “We used to have to start three or four months ahead of time to save up for Christmas gifts, but this year we don’t have to worry about it,” Cornelius says. “Some of my cousins and friends are also building Melaleuca businesses. So it’s not only our family that’s going to have a blessed Christmas; it’s other families too.”

Helping people is one of the key reasons the de Jagers enrolled with Melaleuca. When Wanda and Cornelius first heard about Melaleuca, they were concerned it sounded too good to be true. “We didn’t want to make money by hurting other people,” Cornelius says. “I was impressed that a 28-year-old company was debt-free. And the products sounded good, but I didn’t understand the Compensation Plan.”

Their enroller invited them to a Leadership Celebration dinner to meet some of the business builders in their area and learn more about how Melaleuca worked. That was a turning point for the de Jagers, not because they heard tales of big paychecks or easy incomes, but because they saw other people just like them—teachers, farmers, moms and dads—sharing the success stories of others. They heard how Melaleuca helped people get out of debt, find increased wellness, and spend more time with their families. After seeing Melaleuca’s Mission Statement in action, the de Jagers went home and began building a business.

“I’ve really fallen in love with this company because of how it allows me to help others,” Cornelius says. “Most people think ‘helping others’ means giving them money or writing out a check and that’s the only way you can do it. But with Melaleuca we help people not by giving them money but by showing them how to make a living. Then, they go out and help someone else, and so on and so on. I love it.”

The de Jagers see building a Melaleuca business not just as an opportunity, but also a responsibility. “We’re Christians, and Proverbs 3:27 says if it’s in your power to do something good for others you do it,” Cornelius says. “I take this business seriously and do it correctly because I don’t want to deny people this blessing. I have an obligation to help people, to teach them about Melaleuca. It’s a blessed thing—it truly is a blessed thing.”