Called by God, Questioned by Family
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And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age.”
- Matthew 28:18-20
What's new this week
Pastors are central to what God is able to do with His Church. As shepherds over your flocks, you can encourage or prevent God's people from their highest calling. Your vision for the lost will inspire them, and your support will send some of them out into the harvest fields.
Visit our Pastor Resources page to find resources to encourage you, answers questions you may have about mobilising for missions, links to two organizations that can assist you in your church's journey, as well as videos and resources of note.
new for you
Missionary profile – Sara Fernando Alfredo
I’m a missionary in Mocuba, Mozambique. My decision to become a Christian came after God saved me from a near-death experience, where I was buried deep in mud – literally.
Growing up, my father was a teacher, and one time he had to move to another village. My parents were not sure how life would be there, so my grandmother asked that I stay with her. In Mozambique culture, children are said to belong to the maternal grandmother.
However, she was a Muslim and a witch doctor. I would accompany her to pick roots in the forest for ‘treatment.’ We also practiced Islam.
After a while, I moved back to my parent’s house. By then, my parents had received Christ and had even become missionaries. I could see their passion for people. I accompanied them to the mission fields when they went to preach.
Missionary profile – Estevâo Gomes
My pastor saw the vision for me to be a missionary before I did. He was the Director for Operation Mobilization, and he could sense the call of God in my life. He asked if he could take me to a mission school since I had finished secondary school. I flatly refused. I hadn’t heard from God; besides, I wanted to further my education and be something else, not a pastor or a missionary.
He gave me a few days to pray about it. I told him I didn’t need to pray; I knew I didn’t want to be a missionary. But in those three days, my heart was so restless that I couldn’t sleep, thinking about missions and the lost. At the end of the three days, I accepted to train as a missionary with Operation Mobilization. Many years before this, I had become a Christian. I grew up in a fragmented family.
Missionary profile – Omphemetse Kepuyamore
I didn’t know my father; I was told he rejected me before my birth. But now I’m a missionary among the Khoisan in Botswana, telling them about the good Father in Heaven who sent His Son to save them. I’m the least likely candidate for such a hefty assignment.
I grew up in a single-parent family in my grandparent’s house with about 16 people in one homestead. The whole family was deep in a cult, belonging to a ‘church’ that claimed to believe in the Lord, but did not use the Bible.
When I was seven, my cousin failed in her junior school and was treated meanly. Frustrated, she went to speak to a pastor. He prayed for her and she became the first true Christian in the family. She took me with her to church. I loved the transformation in her, so I, too, became a Christian.
Missionary profile – Lenny Karanja
’m a missionary in Mozambique working with an organisation called Operation Mobilization (OM). I am also a youth patron at my local church Missão Mundial in Mocuba, Mozambique (it means World Mission in English). We are reaching out to the Mozambican youth.
I had settled in my heart that I’d be in missions for some time after graduating from college,. I didn’t know how and where, until the day I made a Mozambican friend.
Here’s how it happened.
I was involved in the university evangelistic teams and that inspired me to be involved in missions. We did short-term mission trips to Kargi and Olturot in Kenya.
Missionary profile – Patrick
After I became a Christian, I would read and hear the Word of God, and be filled with a heavy burden in my heart thinking about the people who needed to know this Good News. I also noticed that both in and outside the church, a Bible was like a precious jewel – hard to find. Many people around me were not able to afford one.
Driven by this burden, I founded a small Bible outreach mission called Salt and Light Initiatives Bible Outreach Mission. I shared my faith with new friends in and outside Uganda, and I started collecting Bibles and sharing them with those in need.
I grew up the eldest child in a family of seven children. We lost our mother before I was 18. This loss affected our family and shaped our course of future life.
I didn’t know about Jesus Christ...
Missionary profile – Gewa
I was a missionary in South Sudan, preaching the Word of God and planting churches in the locations of Abowg, Atar and Yabus. One night, our station was attacked and burned down. No one died, but we escaped with only the clothes on our back. We were evacuated to Nairobi, where we debriefed and underwent trauma healing counseling. Four months later, motivated by the Holy Spirit and urged on by my nine-year-old daughter, we packed our bags and went back. Persecution wasn’t new to me.
I was born in an Ethiopian Orthodox family, and I got saved as a teenager after my teacher shared the gospel with me. After accepting Christ, I faced difficulties and alienation. Even my father tried to kill me when I was sleeping. In school, I was being starved for confessing my faith. I left home and began to live with Christians. The nasty experience in South Sudan was not too hard to overcome because of these occurrences.
Missionary profile – Wondimu Woldeyohannes
I left my job at the Wushwush coffee plantation and became a missionary. The Lord is using me to reach out to people who are under the fear of witchdoctors in the Kafa Region. I’m one of the third batch of graduates of Bonga HubSchool, a missionary training school of the Ethiopian Kele Heywet Church (EKHC).
As I was thinking and praying about how I could win the people of the village, a widow and her children came to my mind. Her family’s life was plagued by problems after her husband was killed by the people of the village. She couldn’t benefit from the land she has and there were no relatives to help her fix her dilapidated house. I decided to support this widow and use her as the door to the village. I took the evangelism group and built her house in three days.
Missionary profile – Swahib Fathi
I was restless. In my heart, I knew I lacked peace and I set out to find it in every nook and cranny. I was Catholic, and I wasn’t feeling the peace there. My mom was previously a Muslim before she joined my dad in Catholicism, so I went to her religion to see if my heart would find rest. It didn’t.
I quit that faith and joined the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and then quit. I joined Eastern Mysticism which promised me the peace I craved. My heart was still disturbed even after learning all the yoga tricks. So, I quit. I later became a legalist and tried to do good all by myself. I was still sad and empty. I quit.
I was introduced to the church of science, and despite all the ‘facts’, I was still a shell inside. That’s when I decided it wasn’t worth it at all. To me, God wasn’t real. So I became an atheist.
Missionary profile – Zack and Ruth Joshua
We are missionaries in Niger, involved in community development to transform people’s lives and perspectives with the gospel.
Ruth is a psychologist, and so we’re also doing post-marital counselling to help save marriages and show how godly marriages should look. There is no pre-marital counselling here. We now interact with six families. We also engage with the youth through sports.
In addition, we help young girls, who rarely go out of their homes because of the culture. Ruth teaches them skills to help build self-reliance in their lives.
Our first major task has been language learning. We were initially in the area where they primarily speak Hausa, which we also speak fluently. We are now in the capital learning French.
Missionary profile – Olivia Acheampong
Missionary profile – Gideon Mashauri
In 2005, I was a refugee from Democratic Republic of the Congo living in a camp in Nampula, Mozambique. I began sharing the gospel with my fellow refugees and with the Makua people outside the camp.
While there, a missionary loaned me Adoniram Judson’s biography, and I spent hours praying and reading in the bush nearby. The committed prayer life of this man stood out to me. He fully trusted the Lord to provide his needs. This inspired me to spend extravagant time in prayer and fasting.
When I went to this bush area, I constantly prayed God would perform a miracle — grant me leave from the refugee camp to serve Him anywhere. Eventually, a missionary blessed me with money to attend Scott Theological College in Kenya
Missionary profile – Jared Oginga
I’m among the very few people who were paid to hear the gospel. I was a language instructor, teaching adults, mainly expatriates such as missionaries, to speak Swahili. I wasn’t a Christian, and I thought this was an easy way to make money.
I taught the missionaries daily for two hours. As the translating and teaching continued, I developed a deep interest in the things I was hearing. One day, I went home and told my wife, “I think I will become a Christian!”
Even after the missionaries had learned the language, they continued inviting me to ‘teach’ them and translate. They had noticed I wasn’t a believer, and they used this time to reach out to my heart. I was more than happy to go to these ‘classes,’ since they still paid me as long as I showed up.