Written by: Tanya Gardiner, CfaN
CfaN is well-known for our mass Gospel Campaigns in Africa. Yet, as successful and fruitful as this strategy is, it can never be the answer to reaching all of Africa for Jesus. Why? Because 55% of African people do not live in anything resembling a town.
A heart for the unreached
It was just such a rural area that God put on Evangelist Kaisa Fischer’s heart four years ago. Kaisa (a CfaN Bootcamp graduate), and her co-partner Marita Orevi Tornes, have been ministering in the Omo Valley in Ethiopia, where 13 of the 16 local tribes are unreached. “Unreached” does not always mean “zero Christians”, but rather that the Church is still very small and fragile, needing help to evangelise and disciple. Kaisa and Marita have been working especially with the Hamer, Desenech,
and Mursi tribes. This is physically taxing, dangerous work. The days are blisteringly hot, there are often no real roads, and it can take a whole day to reach some of the most remote villages.
Strengthening the Church
In 2025, CfaN evangelists trained locals from 13 of the tribes in evangelism, discipleship, and church planting. Many of these young people have continued evangelising after the missionaries have left. And when the missionaries return, the testimonies are extraordinary.
God doesn’t stop moving because the foreigners have left! Churches have been planted in almost every village reached so far, but there is often fierce resistance to the Gospel at first.
Persecuted and beaten for the Gospel
Kaisa shares, “In May 2024, we visited a village with three believers. People mocked us, laughed, and rejected our message. We left feeling it was useless. But then we returned a year later and heard what happened after we left. One believer from that small group, a young man called Alex*, got set on fire for God. He started preaching everywhere, spreading revival fires to his village and other villages nearby. People started believing and most of his own family came to faith. This made the village elders furious. They threatened the believers, tore down their hut-church, and cursed them. One night, the persecutors came for Alex. When they couldn’t find him, they seized other believers instead, beating them savagely until they bled. Someone managed to call Alex and he rushed back, only to be bound and beaten nearly to death himself. He survived and went right back to preaching.
Their curses were turned on them
Later, while he was sharing the Gospel, two elders – known for cursing people to death – watched in rage as two women accepted Christ. The elders began to curse the preachers, but suddenly, they both dropped dead on the spot. Alex was eventually forced to leave for his own safety. Then, something crazy began to happen: his persecutors started dying. One died from a snakebite, one by vomiting blood, another by suicide. One just went mad and disappeared. Finally, the young evangelist’s own brother, a chief opponent, fell gravely ill, urinating blood and near death. Seeing all this, the village elders gathered everyone and said, ‘Look, this Jesus they preach must be the real, true God. We need to ask those young believers to come back and pray for us. We must ask their forgiveness.’ The believers returned. Their first act was to pray for Alex’s sick brother, and he was completely healed. Today, that once-dying brother is the pastor of the village church. At least five of the former persecutors are now saved. The whole village has confessed Jesus as Lord. What was a tiny, mocked group is now a church of about 50!
‘Your God doesn’t love us’
We went to a far-off village where, again, the people didn’t want our message. We went hut to hut, greeting and praying where allowed, and found a 16-year-old boy lying on the ground, mute and paralysed. His mother explained he’d gone to a bull-jumping ceremony, a demonic fertility rite where men jump over bulls and women show ‘love’ by having their backs beaten until they bleed. The boy had only gone to watch, but on his way home, he went crazy, then mute and lame. He had been like that for a month. We prayed for him, and he stood up, talking, completely healed. But despite witnessing this miracle, the village resisted, because the elders were bitter. They said, ‘Your God doesn’t love us. We’ve had no rain here for five years.’ We still blessed them, prayed for rain, and then left.
‘We’re all believers now!’
Months later, one of our local pastors went back. The place was transformed – green and lush, no longer a desert. A church had been built. The people greeted him saying, ‘We’re all believers now. After you left, the rain came the very next day. It’s been raining ever since.’ When I returned in 2025, I saw it myself. We asked a young man if he knew the healed boy. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘he’s my brother. I’m a believer now too, because of the healing and the rain.’”
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Date published: 17/03/2026
Feature images provided
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