An American missionary who moved to Mozambique in the mid-1990s amid chaos and collapsed infrastructure, Heidi Baker built one of the most remarkable grassroots mission movements in the contemporary church, planting over 10,000 churches across Mozambique and surrounding nations while caring personally for thousands of orphaned children.
CORE CONVICTION
“Love looks like something.”
LESSER-KNOWN FIRSTHAND ACCOUNT
During a feeding programme at Zimpeto in the late 1990s, shortly after Heidi and Rolland Baker had been expelled from their rented property and were operating out of a collapsed structure with hundreds of orphaned children, a man who had been deaf and mute from birth was brought forward during a simple open-air meeting. Heidi prayed for him with no elaborate ritual. Those present reported that the man began to speak, repeating words he had never heard. Local villagers who knew him confirmed he had been without hearing his entire life. The incident was described by Heidi as ordinary: she said that what shocked her was not the miracle but the tenderness with which God treated the man in that moment. The account is documented in her autobiography and corroborated by Rolland Baker's records of the early Mozambique work.
HISTORICAL RECORDS
Iris Global, the organisation Heidi and Rolland Baker founded, has planted over 10,000 churches across Mozambique and neighbouring nations, almost entirely through local indigenous leaders trained by the ministry.
Heidi holds a doctorate in systematic theology from King's College London, a combination of rigorous academic formation and frontline mission that is unusual in contemporary charismatic circles.
Beyond the organisational work, Heidi and Rolland personally raised and cared for hundreds of children who were brought to their compound, often arriving severely malnourished.
