Missionary profile – Tshepang Basupi

By Mercy Kambura

Tshepang Basupi

A missionary from Botswana to Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya

I work with Africa Inland Mission (AIM), supporting those in the field from Nairobi. I’m the Executive Director for Southern Region mobilizing African missionaries. I oversee a team of about 100 missionaries, visiting, offering pastoral care, member care, vision, and strategy.

I grew up in Botswana as a middle child. My mom was a nominal Christian and she took us to the Zion Christian Church. It’s here that I first heard the gospel from teenagers who had met Christ in Scripture Union meetings in School. They preached salvation, and the church leadership was uncomfortable. They were kicked out of the church, but the seed had been planted.

At the age of 14 while in junior secondary, I attended a camp by Scripture Union and heard the gospel from Romans 3. The simple message pierced my heart, and I got saved.

There was no discipleship and no gospel-preaching churches where I lived. It was trial and error for about three years. I went to university and got into the Christian Union. My discipleship was accelerated, and I grew in my walk with the Lord.

I had a desire to reach out, so I made goals on how many people I’d reach in a year. I first planned to preach to 300 people, and it happened. I then set a goal to reach 1000, and I did it. I went room-to-room preaching to my fellow students.

But there was a problem – I’d preach, people would get saved, but a few months later they’d fall away. Something was off. So I decided to get training on how to disciple people.

I got a booklet and read it, but it wasn’t sufficient. A friend gave me an idea to go to a missions training. I went to a six-week training organized by Ray Mensah, the Director for Africa, One Way Ministries. I heard about the unreached people groups, and the Lord was working in my heart.

I was convinced to support missions and started looking for missions organizations I could work with.

God was telling me, “I’ve called you. But you need to mobilize others.”

I started a movement – Global Soul Harvesters International – which we later changed to Student Missionary Society. I went to the missions agency CAPRO and asked them to train us. We identified locations where there were no indigenous churches, reached out to them, and planted churches.

I finished my studies, did my missions training in CAPRO again, and got to work among the unreached in Northern Nigeria.

I later met and married my wife and fellow missionary, Queen. She was working among the Yao Muslims in Malawi. It was important to me that she was already a missionary with a clear vision to spread the gospel.

After Nigeria, we went to Botswana and served there for five years. We wanted to work with an organization eager to mobilize Africa or we’d start our own. We joined AIM in late 2017.

Africa has over 180 million evangelicals – yet we’re sending about 50,000 missionaries. All my years in church, I never heard Christians being told to go as missionaries. Pastors are holding the key to the churches; therefore, we should focus on pastors being trained.

#Pray:

*That we will see people mobilized to go.

*For our family to honour God in the way we serve one another.

*For our children to grow in their love for God.