This year, the global family of Every Home celebrates its 80th anniversary under the watchword CARRY. The story of the gospel’s movement across Africa can best be described as viral. The metaphor of the gospel spreading like a virus is both striking and fitting. It is rare that we view something good through the lens of epidemiology, yet in a world that has just emerged from the scourge of a global pandemic, the word Carry powerfully evokes that imagery.
We are Christ Carriers—infected by the gospel. The likelihood of transmission through any interaction with us is high. We are a highly contagious evangelism community, and in every encounter with a Christ Carrier, no one leaves untouched.
Today, there are more than 734 million Christians in Africa. Around the year 1900, there were only about 10 million. That means nearly 31% of all believers worldwide now live in Africa, making it home to the largest Christian population on the planet. Every single conversion points to a carrier. This is why the comparison to a virus is so fitting—it illustrates the rapid, organic spread of the gospel from person to person.
Two months ago, I was in Lesotho with Erick Todd and a media team, following the story of the gospel in the remote mountainous villages of Qacha’s Nek. These communities are often described as unreachable—isolated by agonizing terrain. But as we’ve learned, viruses know no borders.
The story there begins with King Moshoeshoe, founder of the Basotho nation. In 1833, he invited French missionary Eugène Casalis to help him acquire weapons from Europe and form alliances with Britain. In Moshoeshoe’s own memoirs, he writes that conversion was never his goal. But when you encounter a Christ Carrier, unexpected things happen. Instead of weapons, Moshoeshoe received baptism—and a Christian nation was born. Today, Every Home carriers in Lesotho continue that legacy, taking the gospel daily on horseback from village to village across those arid mountains.
The history of the gospel across Africa echoes with similar stories. From North Africa emerge names like Tertullian and Augustine of Hippo—single carriers whose presence altered the eternal destiny of entire societies. Moving east to the Horn of Africa, we meet Frumentius, a Greek Christian who led Ethiopian King Ezana to Christ in Aksum around 327 CE. That contagion continues today, as Ethiopia experiences some of the most remarkable exponential gospel growth through Every Home’s witness.
In the late 1490s, Franciscans from Portugal became the first to bring the gospel to Sub-Saharan Africa, landing in the Congo. They, too, were Christ Carriers. Today, Sub-Saharan Africa ranks among the regions with the highest conversion rates in the world.
Even the physical address of our continental offices in Southern Africa tells this story—51 Livingstone Avenue, named after David Livingstone of Scotland. Just a few streets away is Robert Moffat Avenue. These missionary explorers arrived in the late 1800s, but the major gospel outbreak occurred in the 20th century, as decolonization swept across Africa and Africans emerged as a powerful, independent force in Christian missions.
The parallels between Christ Carriers and viral outbreaks are striking—not only in speed of transmission, but also in transformational impact. The bubonic plague of 1665 wiped out a quarter of Europe’s population in just 18 months. Likewise, the statistics of gospel saturation, baptismal numbers, and response ratios across Africa today can feel overwhelming. It’s viral.
Consider the Himba people of northern Namibia. In the early 2000s, Dr. Douglas Mudimba, a professor of veterinary science, was asked by the Namibian government to serve a nomadic tribe whose wealth was measured in livestock. The Himba owned no houses, held no bank accounts, and possessed no stocks—only animals. Their veterinarian, however, was also a Christ Carrier. While caring for their livestock, he shared a message of redemption. Today, an entire tribe once rooted in animism has been transformed. New churches are emerging weekly throughout Kaokoland.
Or take the story of the Ba-Tonga people in the Gwembe Valley along the Zambezi River. Once considered isolated and unreached, their story has changed dramatically. Our original goal was to preach the gospel, but as we encountered people, their urgent needs became clear. We responded by demonstrating God’s love—initiating food security projects, introducing irrigation technology, and improving living standards. As Christ Carriers, we saw people, showed love, and spoke the Word. Today, more than 100 churches line the valley.
Remember the metaphor: a virus infects and transforms its host. We carry Christ, and those who receive Him become carriers themselves. Just as a virus invades and saturates its host at the cellular level, the gospel transforms the very core of humanity. When Christ Carriers move on, the newly infected continue to multiply. What remains are the symptoms—righteousness, peace, eternal hope, and joy.
“For if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away—behold, the new has come.”
Cleopas Chitapa
