Missionary profile – Francis Kuntenga

By Mercy Kambura

When I was 13, I became a street kid. A Rastafari preacher found me and convinced me that I’d find peace in Jah Haile Selassie I, so I became a Rastafari. I became a ganja and Indian hemp farmer and supplier. Years later, I’m a missionary among the Yao in Mozambique, teaching them Farming God’s Way. We use the Biblical foundations of farming as we spread the love of Christ. I lost my parents in quick succession when I was five years old. We lost everything we had.

After five years in the streets, I heard a preacher on a microphone in the market. I decided to go and see who the lost man was because he wasn’t preaching Haile Selassie, the emperor. I don’t remember walking to the front, but in a short while, I was standing there. On the 7th of September, 1997, I got saved. The pastor who mentored me gave me a load of mission biographies to read. My heart was stirred for the unreached. I attended a missionary conference by the Pentecostal Holiness Association, which fanned the embers of missions in my heart. I started an evangelistic team with some of my friends.

Later, I attended a theological college, Finish-line Bible College. Later I studied Cross-Cultural Studies at the Grace Foundation Inland Mission in Nigeria. I came to understand what unreached people mean. I learned how to be a better missionary and live on a bare minimum. Now I know I can stay anywhere in the world. My zeal was to reach the Yao people, my people. I was among the few Yaos who didn’t grow up Muslims and needed to see how I could reach them. Blantyre Baptist Church wanted to send some missionaries among the Yao of Mozambique. In 2019, I was commissioned as a missionary.

I got my visa after almost three years. In between, I’d go for a few weeks and go back home. We’re teaching the communities how to eradicate hunger through farming. We organize training and follow biblical farming principles—God was the first farmer; he gave man a garden to tend. I’m a trained farmer and trainer of trainers. I’m also working with Operation Mobilization in a radio program designed to reach the Yao.

We share the word of God, and people are giving their lives to Christ. We’re also conducting trauma healing and counselling to the people affected by the civil war in Mozambique. African Church, this is our time to send more missionaries. We need many mobilizers and missionaries to move to the lost world as fast as possible.

#Pray:

For God to bring more partners to work alongside us.
For indigenous believers to stand firm in the faith and to reach their own.
For more mobilizers who will walk the talk to stir the African Church to go as missionaries.