Stephen Lungu, Africa’s Enterprising Evangelist, Dies of COVID-19

Author - Umn ministry

January 20, 2021

Coronavirus claims life of Malawi leader known as the “Billy Graham of Africa.”

Stephen Lungu, a beloved African evangelist and retired leader of African Enterprise (AE), passed away Monday morning after being hospitalized with COVID-19 complications in Malawi. He was 78.

“We all prayed. However, it has pleased the Lord to rest him,” Stephen Mbogo, who succeeded Lungu as AE’s international CEO in 2014, told board and team members “with great sadness” in a January 18 bulletin.

He cited Psalm 116:15 (NIV): “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his faithful servants.”

Mbogo noted that few colleagues and supporters would be able to attend the funeral, due to public health restrictions to combat the coronavirus. More than 300 people joined a private Facebook group to watch Lungu’s burial.

Pre-pandemic, many more would have come to honor the man often referred to as “the Billy Graham of Africa.”

“To be sure, there will be thousands and thousands of people in heaven because of Stephen Lungu,” stated Michael Cassidy, honorary chairman of the Lausanne Movement for World Evangelization, who founded AE in 1961 while a student at Fuller Seminary.

“I have known many preachers over the years in African Enterprise, and beyond it, but I don’t think I have ever known a more passionate and endlessly energetic preacher of the Gospel than Stephen,” stated the South African evangelist. “None of us could ever match his energy or his day and night sharing of the gospel, whether from public platforms or in shops and restaurants.”

Lungu grew up abandoned and abused at age 7 on the streets of Salisbury, Rhodesia (pre-independence Harare, Zimbabwe), and became leader of “The Black Shadows” gang. As AE noted ...