Every Missionary Needs a Pastor
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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
Part one of two reports on the World Missions Conference held in Abuja, 2025
In the heart of Nigeria’s capital, a historic moment unfolded. From October 1st to 4th, 2025, the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion), under the visionary leadership of the Primate, The Most Rev’d Dr. Henry C. Ndukuba, convened the inaugural World Missions Congress (WMC) at St. Matthias House, Abuja. Themed “Arise and Shine: Pushing the Frontier of Global Mission” (Isaiah 60:1), the Congress was not merely an event—it was a prophetic convergence, a catalytic moment in the story of African missions.
Read more below.
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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. We were taught about salvation, our fallen nature, and the need for a Saviour.
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.
When I finished my graduate studies, I joined Life Changers, a ministry of African Christian Mission International (AMCI).
Missionary profile – Daphne Kabeberi
Towards the end of my studies at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology in Kenya, I did the Kairos missions mobilization course (www.kairoscourse.org). For the first time in my life, I realized that missions is for every believer, myself included. I saw that the Bible is one book of redemption, not random, unrelated stories.
In 2017, I left East Africa for the first time to serve in the UK, the land of the missionaries who first brought the gospel to Kenya! I served with the ’20schemes’ ministry, which seeks to plant churches in the hardest areas of Scotland.
I assisted with immigrant outreach, youth and children’s work, befriending unbelieving women in the community and doing general jobs around the church.
Missionary profile – Kirubel Girma
Kirubel Girma, missions mobilizer with SIM’s East Africa Sending Office in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, says, “I am finally embarking on my long-awaited dream to serve as a full-time missionary, focusing on mobilising, facilitating and sending missionaries from East Africa to the global mission field.”
Despite setbacks due to Covid-19, he is amazed at the unwavering commitment and passion of local churches and candidates. He adds, “We have been working to send eight couples and five singles from Ethiopia, Kenya, Eretria, Rwanda, Uganda and Tanzania. Our focus is least-reached communities.”
His first five-year goal is to see at least one church from 11 East African countries mobilised.
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. After a little while, seeing how the Lord had helped build her life back, she and her children received Jesus.
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 – Deborah Sekyi
As a child, I enjoyed missionary movies and storybooks. The stories mostly featured an evil force, fetish priests in a community, and sometimes people in a community who spiritually attack the work of missionaries who have traveled far to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with them.
These missionaries faced hostility and attacks from the people; they had to suffer a great deal even after leaving their cherished possessions and coming to a people they did not know. However, in the end, the power of the Holy Spirit moved mightily in the whole community and everyone, including the main enemy of the gospel, most often a fetish priest comes to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.
Missionary profile – Gusty and Elena Makhutcha
While training to be a pastor at the Evangelical Bible College of Malawi (EBCoM), I had many classmates from Mozambique. They always told me, “There are many pastors in Malawi, but in Mozambique, there are few, yet we have many unreached people. So why don’t you come and work with us in Mozambique?”
I thought and prayed about it for a long time, and as they kept asking, my interest grew. But when I finished Bible school and explained my vision to my seniors, it turned out that I couldn’t go.
I worked as a pastor, and the call to be a missionary stayed with me for nine years. One day, I met a mission mobiliser, Watson Rajaratnam. He asked me about my call and vision.
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; I studied Theology and Intercultural Studies.
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.
Missionary profile – Chris and Nancy Maphosa
I felt God’s call upon my life to do Christian ministry full time in 1988. I joined the Pentecostal Bible College in Zimbabwe and graduated in 1993. I became a pastor in 1994 and served in several churches. In 2001, I decided to further my education and enrolled for a bachelor’s degree in counselling, specialising in children’s behaviour. I felt a huge gap between churches, parents and children, and my need to concentrate more on preaching to children to children grew.
In 2003, I volunteered with a missionary working with children, and the passion for reaching children grew. My wife, Nancy, and I worked under Hope for AIDS (Widows of Hope). We worked with a cross-cultural missionary until he left us in charge and returned to his country.
Missionary profile – Rev. Edwin B. Fussi
Rev. Edwin B. Fussi is a Tanzanian full-time missionary, with a business background. Before going to missionary training school and starting work among an unreached group in Tanzania, he owned a small shop.
“When my family arrived in the community where we serve it was 99.9 per cent Muslim. There were many barriers to the gospel: we experienced rejection, insults and ridicule.
Our strategy was door-to-door evangelism, but the community rejected us. The youth ran when they saw us, afraid we were government spies. The mosque leaders warned others to avoid us because we would convert them to Christianity. Some people said, “You have your religion, and we have ours.”