Rodney Howard-Browne was born in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, and grew up in the Eastern Cape and Transkei. His wife, Adonica, was born in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, and raised in Johannesburg. Rodney gave his heart to the Lord at the age of five and Adonica gave her heart to the Lord at the age of seventeen. They met and married in 1981 and immediately went full-time together into the traveling ministry. Over the next six years they traveled across Southern Africa, including Zimbabwe and Namibia, preaching the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. In 1983, they pioneered a church in the Northeastern Cape and pastored there for two years. After that, Rodney taught classes in a leading Bible School for another two years. 

 

During this time, they had three children: Kirsten, born in 1982, Kelly May, born in 1984, and Kenneth, born in 1987. Rodney and Adonica knew, even before they married, that they were both called to travel around the world to preach the gospel and they had a particularly strong calling toward the United States of America. In 1987 the door opened for them to go to America. Rodney visited America twice that year, preaching in several churches, and in December 1987 the whole family traveled to America to fulfill the call and plan and purpose of God and to move into the new phase of ministry that God had called them into. The Lord supernaturally provided for their air tickets and they came to America with only $300, four suitcases, and their three children, then aged five, three and seven months.

 

In December of 1996, Rodney and Adonica started The River at Tampa Bay Church in Tampa, FL, and the following year started the River Bible Institute.

 

Drs. Rodney and Adonica are the founders and Presidents of the River Bible Institute, the River School of Worship, the River Bible Institute Español, and the River School of Goverment.