Born in 1929 and raised near Jacksonville, Florida, Rosemary knew at an early age that she wanted to tell others about God. In the summer of 1946 when a pastor challenged a group of youth to give their lives to the foreign mission field, Rosemary felt compelled to answer the call. Her journey in overseas service began as a missionary to Tanzania for nearly a decade, then as the executive director of Bible Study Fellowship International, and most recently as the founder and now president emerita of the Rafiki Foundation. She was part of the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy, the council of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, and one of the original signers of the Chicago Statement.

“I remember when I first met Rosemary I was struck by her commitment to the Scriptures,” pastor and head of Truth for Life Alistair Begg said. “Her enthusiasm for discovering what the passage means and then explaining why it matters is infectious—and that is presumably why so many caught the bug for sanctified biblical scholarship.”

Beginning in 1985, Rafiki was a sending organization; doctors, dentists, teachers, and businesspeople answered God’s call to bring medical care, vocational assistance, and Bible teaching to the African people. In 1988 Rosemary founded the Widows Program to provide a market in the US for African women to sell handcrafts to support their families. In 1992, in response to pleas from government and church officials to help the children of Africa during the AIDS epidemic, Rosemary expanded the role of the foundation, providing for the physical, spiritual, and educational needs of orphans and vulnerable children. Now the organization has established Rafiki Training Villages in 10 of the poorest countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

In her mid-90s, Rosemary Jensen serves as president emerita of the Rafiki Foundation and runs the Rosemary Jensen Bible Foundation (RJBF). Since founding this organization in 2017, it has gifted more than 40,000 Bibles to African pastors, seminary students, teachers, and schoolchildren. Their partnership with Ligonier Ministries means 60,000 more Reformation Study Bibles will be sent by 2028. RJBF’s partnership with Crossway ensures that both Bibles and commentaries are distributed by the thousands to our African church partners and outreach schools.

“Rosemary Jensen is one of the most driven people I know,” Westminster Seminary California professor Michael Horton said. “And in all of her leading roles as a humble servant, scripture has been the common denominator. She knows it, reads it, cherishes it, follows it, and literally sends it all over the world and especially throughout Africa. The personal friend of presidents and first ladies all across the continent, she has exploited every relationship not for her own political ends but for one purpose—to teach and reach the nations with God’s Word.”