|  Miracles
Continue to Stir Believers in Ethiopia
AIMS
News: Posted 1/1/2004
One
night, "Shaif" and his wife sat at a table
with one last bowl of macaroni between them. They heard
a knock at the door. Custom dictated that they must
feed their visitor too, but with what? Faithful to his
beliefs, Shaif invited their guest to share their last
meal. When he returned to the table, the bowl was full
of macaroni. His wife served their guest, Shaif and
herself until everyone was satisfied. At the end of
the meal, Shaif looked at the bowl and noticed that
the amount that was leftover was the same amount they
had at the beginning.
That
night, Jesus appeared to him in a dream and said, "I
am the One who multiplied the macaroni. If you follow
me, I will multiply your life as well." Throughout
the next ten years, Shaif has served Christ. He joined
the Evangelical Churches Fellowship of Ethiopia (ECFE),
which represents 98% of Ethiopian Christian churches,
where he teaches church-planting strategies.
|
"We've
got to do something better. We have to be more
strategic." |
Bringing
the Harvest to Moyale
During
the recent October ministry trip to Ethiopia, "Josiah"
traveled with Shaif from the capital of Addis Ababa
to the southern Ethiopian city of Moyale, where Somalis,
Oromos and Amarahs live just north of the Kenyan border.
About
100 pastors, church leaders and missionaries from seven
different churches attended the Harvest
Connection seminar, including leaders
from three churches in Kenya. These leaders formed four
informal partnerships around unreached people groups
to focus on prayer and research. Josiah was also able
to teach Faith Promise Giving.
"What
you are teaching brings together all I have been learning
from my missions work," Shaif told Josiah daily.
Shaif's
ministry particularly focuses on taking the Gospel to
Muslims in Ethiopia. He has already planted a church
among tribes in Addis Ababa and is developing a curriculum
to train other Ethiopian Christians how to reach the
community for Christ.
"We
are dealing with what I believe are the top international
leaders in the world," said Josiah. "They
are doing what we are sitting around studying and trying
to understand."
Church
Growth in the Ethiopian Rift Valley
Before our team departed for Ethiopia,
our contacts in Awasa requested to deliver a report
to the team in person. On his return journey from Moyale,
Josiah stopped in Awasa to receive this report.
Awasa is considered the most Christian
city in Ethiopia. 75% of all Ethiopian Christians live
within Awasa. Just outside its borders lies the famous
Rift Valley, one of the largest landmarks on the continent
of Africa. Within the Rift Valley live one of the largest
concentrations of unreached people groups, most of which
are Muslim or Animist.
|
"What
you are teaching brings together all I have been
learning from my missions work." |
In
April 2001, AIMS held the first AIMS training in Awasa.
110 pastors and missions leaders chosen by the ECFE
attended. That December, AIMS held a large scale follow-up
training with multiple tracks including an HIV/AIDS
track.
While
in Awasa, Josiah met "Tesfaye," whose life
was changed at the conference in April. "Howard
Foltz is my spiritual father. What he came and trained
us in a couple of years ago has changed my entire life.
He revolutionized the way I understand missions and
has revolutionized missions in the Fellowship."
A
former intelligence officer of the Ethiopian army, Tesfaye
now oversees church-planting in the Rift Valley. During
the past six months, 131 new churches have been planted
in this region, and four people have been raised from
the dead. Tesfaye's passion is to mobilize the seven
million Christians in Ethiopia to raise up missionaries
who are supported by their local churches.
"We've
got to do something better. We have to be more strategic,"
said Tesfaye. "I grieve every time I see checks
coming in from other countries. We have seven million
members in our Fellowship. Just think if every one gave
only a burr (1), that's seven million burr (1). We could
do so much, and we would not be dependent."
Yet,
the most important aspect of this ministry trip was
the Ethiopians' change in focus as related to church-planting
strategies. Instead of planting Ethiopian churches and
using Western forms of praise and worship, Ethiopian
missionaries and church leaders now want to help new
Christians develop churches in the context of their
own culture using an indigenous style of praise and
worship.
(1)
One burr is equal to about 12 U.S. cents.
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