Inspirational Friends

Recommended Reading: Out of the Black Shadows: The amazing transformation of Stephen Lungu African Harvest: The captivating story of Michael Cassidy and African Enterprise

Michael Cassidy first met Frank Chikane when, as a young pastor, he was a rising star in the Apostolic Faith Mission. He had a strong heart for evangelism but also a piercing understanding of the importance of relating the Gospel relevantly to the sociopolitical...

Philip Yancey describes himself as an “author, thinker, climber”! He has won 13 Gold Medallion Awards from Christian publishers and booksellers for his many books and currently has more than 15 million books in print, published in 35 languages worldwide. Yancey worked...

Dallas Willard came into the lives of Michael Cassidy and the rest of the African Enterprise team when he was a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southern California. Beyond that, he was not only a profound and highly effective Christian apologist but he...

Long before Michael Cassidy met Eugene Peterson in a Presbyterian Leadership Conference in Northern Ireland where they shared the ministry together, he had loved him at a distance and been blessed and inspired by his assorted writings, not least The Message, Eugene’s...

James Catford represents to Michael everything involved in getting the Bible out around the world and into the hands of ordinary people. Likewise his passion for evangelism and his commitment to standing by African Enterprise and its programmes have often been a great...

Michael met Blair Carlson when he was working for the Billy Graham Association in the Set-up Department. When Blair was working on the set-up of the third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelisation held in Cape Town, October 2010, Michael was deeply encouraged and...

Archibald Hart was the city engineer of Pietermaritzburg when the first African Enterprise team came to town for the Mission to ‘Maritzburg in 1962. A highly energetic, competent and well-regarded layman, he was a natural to become Chairman of the interdenominational...

Warwick Olson, Founder and Director for many years of the Pilgrim communications company, was the Founder of the African Enterprise Board and Ministries in Australia and its office Director, and also initiated African Enterprise United Kingdom in the early eighties....

David Watson was a contemporary of Michael Cassidy’s at Cambridge University and emerged to become one of England’s most inspiring evangelists, rectors, and teachers on renewal. David, Michael and Michael Green enjoyed periodic times of meeting to reflect on how the...

Daphne Tshabalala was principal of the Nichols Primary School in Edendale, Pietermaritzburg. One day during the children’s break she tossed away a crust of bread to a dog lying outside her office and was horrified to see a ravenous little boy rushing to retrieve it....

Esme Bowers has been a great and inspirational evangelical leader in the Church of South Africa generally and in matters relating to women specifically. She has been a considerable force in PACWA (Pan-African Christian Women’s Association). She also participated...

Doug Birdsall has been Honorary Co-Chairman with Michael Cassidy of the Lausanne Movement. In 2004 he was named Executive Chairman of the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization. In 2007 he stepped down from presidency of Asian Access to focus entirely on the...

"Evangelism is the overflow of joy in fellowship..." - John Gatu John Gatu, a great Kenyan Church leader, ecumenical mission thinker and exponent of the East African Revival, stood deeply by the African Enterprise ministry from the time of its first Pan-African...

There are few authors anywhere whose writings have blessed and challenged Michael Cassidy as much as those of Gordon MacDonald. Although Gordon and Gail MacDonald had a week with Michael in an African Enterprise discipling conference, in reality they never had much...

One of the senior business people of South Africa, Graham Power runs a vast building construction enterprise that is almost an empire. His journey to faith in Christ began when he attended a Civil Engineers breakfast in mid-1998 addressed by Michael Cassidy during...

Phillip Le Feuvre and Michael Cassidy were contemporaries at Oxford and Cambridge respectively. From that time to this they have been great and close friends, a friendship that came to include their wives, Charmian and Carol. Michael was always challenged, inspired,...

Over a number of decades Mvume Dandala has been one of those Christian leaders who has most loyally supported and encouraged Michael Cassidy and the African Enterprise South Africa ministry. Michael has loved the way his ecumenical spirit combined with an evangelical...

When Charles Fuller, Founder of Fuller Theological Seminary, called Michael Cassidy in 1960 to his office to tell him he wanted to help get the fledgling African Enterprise vision underway, he named three people he was putting forward to be the first three Board...