
Portrait of Zeb Moss. IMB Photo
Zebedee “Zeb” Moss, an International Mission Board missionary emeritus who shared the gospel in Zambia, Malawi and Kenya, died Oct. 19, 2024, in Pinehurst, North Carolina. He was 94.
Zeb was born April 7, 1930, in Hoke County, North Carolina, to the late D.L. Moss and Sarah L. Moss. He graduated from Hoke County High School in Raeford and received the Associate of Arts from Gardner-Webb Junior College (now Gardner-Webb University), Boiling Springs, North Carolina; the Bachelor of Arts from Wake Forest College (now Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina); and the Master of Ministry and Doctor of Ministry from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina. He also studied at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Zeb came to faith in Christ when he was 13 years old. During his sophomore year of high school, he felt God calling him to special service. While seeking missionary appointment, Zeb wrote, “I think this experience was a growing awareness of the needs I could meet and of my responsibility to meet those needs by being a preacher of the gospel of God.” After high school, he entered college to prepare for ministry. In his first year there, he met Evelyn Krause and married her four years later on Aug. 16, 1952.
During seminary, Zeb began to feel a strong call to foreign mission service and wrote, “After a stirring message by Dr. [Baker James] Cauthen on a mission emphasis day, I volunteered to be willing to go as a foreign missionary unless God stopped me. In other words, I was saying that I would be willing to go if God continued to lead in that direction.”
After seminary, they moved to Mobile, Alabama, where Zeb was an intern assistant to the pastor at a large church for one year. Afterward, he was called as pastor to Caroleen Baptist Church in North Carolina. While serving there, Zeb and Evelyn committed themselves to go as foreign missionaries. Zeb wrote that the people of the church prayed “with us that if God wills, we may be laborers in His far-flung vineyards to His glory.”
In 1959, the International Mission Board appointed Zeb and Evelyn missionaries to Zambia. Later, they also served in Malawi and Kenya. Their work focused on evangelism, church planting and discipleship. Zeb served as associate area director of Eastern and Southern Africa and as a media consultant for the region. He oversaw the coordination of media planning and served as researcher and evaluator for specific media ministries to unreached people groups. Zeb and Evelyn retired from missionary service after more than 37 years with the IMB.
He is survived by Evelyn, his wife of 72 years; two daughters, Dr. Lynn Moss and Suzanne Moss Mullen (Dr. Patrick Mullen); and two grandchildren.
A celebration of life service was held Oct. 28, at Aberdeen First Baptist Church, with burial in Bethesda Cemetery.
Read an obituary here.