Category: February 2023

Written By: Nia Wong

With 16 of us going to visit 35 huts on every village day, we have had so many stories of God being at work in us and through us on this trip!  

Every day we spend about 1.5 hours travel time to get to these villages on the bus.  We work through city traffic picking up translators and disciple makers along the way, (imagine the bus getting more and more crowded as we make each stop) until the bus has standing room only & we get on unpaved, bumpy, dusty dirt roads for another 5-10 miles.  These are great times to get to know teammates or talk with one of the Ethiopian translators or disciple makers but it was also on these long bus rides in a moment of quiet that I felt the Holy Spirit impress on my heart how much He loved the Ethiopians.  I know He invited me to join Him in His work here.  I responded by obeying but Ethiopia was on the other side of the world, not my first priority and not on my heart and my mind. So I knew, on that stretch of the road, in the quiet of my heart as tears came that this was God showing me His heart for the lost and His heart for the people He loved. It was awesome to experience God in this way on a hot crowded bus in the middle of Africa.

After staying back to take care of Evan who was sick yesterday, it felt good to be able to rejoin the whole team on the last day. There is definitely some spiritual warfare happening as he fell ill after being in a village that had a witch doctor presence. I have experienced some days of low response to the gospel message and I am aware that there are forces against the good news being shared. I have also experienced openness and a welcoming of the messages of both God’s good news through Jesus and also about human trafficking. Today was one of those days. There were a lot of open hearts and decisions made today. Praise God. I was able to team up with Nate (my CA teammate), Hussein (our translator), Meti (our disciple maker) and our village guide ( a person who lived in the village and knew how to lead us to the right homes that had the chickens that were delivered). The most encouraging part was the father of the first hut made a decision to accept Jesus and then he followed us from hut to hut and listened intently. He and the guide were definitely our persons of peace. Our village guide knew the gospel message so well that I could hear him say it even before the translator was able to get the words out. In some ways he was being trained to share the good news while taking us from hut to hut!

I am especially impressed with the teenagers on this team. Many have Gods heart for His people and I got to see Nate’s big heart for Ethiopia. We were firmly rejected by the witch doctor who wouldn’t allow us on his property. As we walked away, I could see Nate’s vision linger back on the hut, the witch doctor and his three children. He asked if we could pray for this family. I was very encouraged by his spiritual sensitivity. So Hussein and I together with Nate had the opportunity to intercede for this witch doctor’s family, asking the Lord to break the strongholds and one day take this whole village for Himself!

As we walked along the dry fieIds on the dusty paths, I was able to hear our translator’s amazing testimony of miraculous healing. Hussein was unable to speak as a child and was often teased and hurt by other children. There were many times he wanted to end his own life because life was so painful. It wasn’t until he was 17 that he was miraculously healed at a big revival meeting. His four non Christian friends who knew him witnessed his ability to speak for the first time and they all wept and accepted Jesus as their personal savior. Since then he has led many others to Christ (in the thousands) and have even been used by God for some real modern day miracles. After hearing how powerful and relevant his testimony was, I encouraged him to share his testimony with the 3 villagers who were walking with us. So we squatted under the shade by the road and listened to his testimony. I hope they were encouraged in their newfound faith as they took in Hussein’s story. Our God is amazing and doing great work here in Africa because of us and in spite of us! God is always working around us and He is always inviting us to join Him in His work. Perhaps you may want to consider whether God is inviting you to come and see what He is doing in Ethiopia on the next trip!!

Written By: Nathan Johnson

Wow! God’s greatness and power was shown constantly today! Today started as a normal day. We woke up, ate a great breakfast at our hotel, and had our team meeting.

When we arrived at the village my mom (Erin Johnson, our leader) grouped me up with Nia, Hussein (translator), and Meti (disciplemaker). Which was cool since I hadn’t been with any of them during a village day.

As we entered the first home, there were three people and everyone accepted! We trained two people and one of them wanted to tell his wife, which really showed God in his actions. Also, he was the owner of the second home that we were going to, so we didn’t go to that home.

So, as I went into the second house, I felt that a woman’s heart was saddened and later found out that her husband died. So we shared the evangecube and priceless cube and everyone accepted like the first house! We trained everyone except the kids.

As I sat down in the third house, a kid was very interested in my notebook, so he wrote seven letters down in English. As soon as Nia started saying the priceless cube, him and all of the other kids sat down in front of Nia. These kids were watching so intently and it was amazing to watch them listen to these messages. I also went over to the kids to sit next to them and one kid quickly went out just to get me a box for me to sit on which was really nice. At the end everyone accepted (including the kids!) and we trained all eight people! We asked them if we could pray about anything and we found out that the woman’s head and legs hurt, so we prayed for her.

When we arrived at the last place there was this huge tree and I just felt very uncomfortable and weird. So this guy walks out and we found out that he was a witch doctor (worships Satan). He said we could tell him the messages but the translator told us that he was also drunk and we shouldn’t. But a really sad part was there were three children that were looking at us the whole time and it was clear they were with the witch doctor.

So after this we were walking back when a guy that was walking with us wanted to hear the gospel and he accepted!!

This day was a really empowering day and it was so amazing! This trip I really wanted to train people how to shared the gospel and I loved going with Nia, Hussein, and Meti! A really cool part of this trip was also Hussein’s testimony and how he shows God through his actions (see more in Nia’s post). Also, today we had some of the people have friend’s children being human trafficked which was very sad to hear.

Even though this is the last day of evangelizing in the villages it won’t be the last day of evangelizing to people from all over the world. Ciao!

Written By: Allison Johnson

I have been to Ethiopia five times and I absolutely love coming back! I feel so at home here! This past week has been hard with sicknesses and sleepiness but it has also been an incredible week with lots of acceptances and learning.

Yesterday I had an incredible experience with my mom. I went out with her and Mesfin and I was put to the test. They wanted me to run a whole day by myself and see if I could go out by myself! I ended up passing the test but it was also a great learning experience. In my life I have learned that I love to keep busy and fill up my time with fun activities. The problem is that when I do this I also start to get in the motions and find myself checking off boxes instead of being in the moment. In Ethiopia I notice myself doing similar things where I feel like I need to go into each house and stick to a routine. However, yesterday in the first house the woman of the house started to cry because two of her children were sick. After a little bit I felt uncomfortable because I did not know how to move on. My mother then used this as a teaching moment to remind me that I don’t need to know how to move on and that I don’t need to stick to the routine. Just this little reminder felt like such a great teaching moment for me. This day turned into both a training and learning day and I was so grateful for it.

Today was also such an amazing and God filled day. I was able to go with my father, Anne and Dan, one of the best translators out there. In each house everyone accepted, praise God! A couple of just fun things that happened today was we got to make coffee, wash clothes, pitchfork hay, pump water, and play games/talk with some of the village kids. Also throughout each house we had different kids follow us and their excitement and curiosity about following us was one of my favorite things. Every time I say hi or come to any of the Ethiopians they have to biggest smiles and the best laughs that it always makes me feel so happy!

One of my favorite things that happened today is we started to attract more and more people and they would come into the houses that we were evangelizing to. Every single time, they would accept! They didn’t get the gifts and they were just neighbors but their excitement and eagerness to follow Christ always made my day!

I love Ethiopia and I am so thankful that we were able to welcome a ton of new people into the family of God!

Written By: Anne Reifenberger

Today when I woke up I was pretty nervous about the upcoming day. I didn’t know if people were going to accept Christ or not. On the bus ride over I was pretty tired and just tried to get some sleep.

When we got to the place I got paired with Karen as my teammate. I have really been enjoying getting to know a lot of the adults I haven’t really talked to at church before. They have all been really awesome and just fun people to learn from.

After we got to the house I realized that we were the team with the closest home which for me meant “No walking!”.

Each and every house we went to today accepted Christ. They seemed very happy about it and were glad to know that Jesus loved them.

The third house we went to was interesting. It was a local bar/ home. They basically would sell alcohol to anyone who came into their home. Karen did the Evange-cube because I had done it 3 times before. Karen was awesome with it and all the men in the home accepted Christ!

I also got to play soccer with the Ethiopian kids. I quickly noticed that the girls were not chasing after the ball as much and playing. I would run after the ball to try to get the boys to pass to me a lot and they would just laugh whenever I actually got the ball. I am very thankful that I can play sports in Ethiopia because I love to play games and run around.

Today was an amazing day and I am thankful to be a part of the Lord’s work in this country. I hope that everyone is doing well wherever you are at and enjoying each blog.

Written By: Emily Johnson

Ethiopia is my happy place. I am sitting writing my blog from my hotel room and I can hear children laughing outside and it is so peaceful. The villages are beautiful, and the people are even more beautiful. I absolutely love it here!

Yesterday, I was on a team with Dan and Nate, and it was such a cool experience! I went to Ethiopia with them a few years ago and they have grown up so much since then! I was so proud of them!

Today, I had another cool experience! In the last home my team went into, Alli and I helped pour scalding hot coffee into the cups (Ethiopian’s have a really impressive heat tolerance). About halfway into visiting, our translator said that the people in the home had already been saved about 2 weeks ago! Alli, Zoe and I were really excited and asked them a lot of questions about how they got saved and it turned out that a friend had led them to Christ! We were still going to present the cubes for teaching purposes, but one of the men in the home said he already learned them at his church. Turns out Mesfin had gone to his church earlier and taught him the cubes. We heard that there was a lot of persecution in the village and so we decided to pray for them, and it was an absolutely amazing experience. They prayed so fervently and enthusiastically! It was such an honor to be in that house with them. The cherry on top was that we got to ride a horse cart from the last home to the bus.

Here is something the Lord has been teaching me on this trip: The first day my team and I got to a home late, and we had previously missed a home. I was worried because I didn’t know what to do because missing a home was a big no no and we weren’t able to get in contact with Mesfin. In our last home I was processing why I was so stressed and was reminded that I am not in control, but God is always in control. He knew how this day was going to go, and I could trust in Him to make it right. It ended up all working out! I don’t need to worry because God has got it. I just need to rely on Him and trust in Him!

I am so glad I came on this trip! It has been awesome to see God work!

Written By: Karen Maples

I am so happy and grateful to be part of God’s work in Ethiopia! It’s an incredible experience and a dream come true to be sharing the gospel here. I love the huge smiles on people’s faces when they accept Christ!

The Ethiopians are truly beautiful and kind people. I love their passion as they worship God. I was blessed to watch a worship rehearsal at Mesfin’s church. The music is beautiful and even though I can’t understand the words I can hear the love for God and passion in their voices. We are also blessed to hear the translators and disciple makers quietly singing praises as we are on the bus going to and from the villages.

One of the biggest honors has been working alongside and getting to know the translators and disciple makers. They are truly awesome Christians with incredible testimonies of healing and amazing things God has done their lives. They truly love the people in the villages we are visiting. It’s comforting to know that they will be following up with those who have made a confession of faith.

Written By: Evan Wong

To day was a great day! We had a ton of fun and success evangelizing today and God worked out everything perfectly! We began the day with a fun bus ride where we sang worship songs on the way to the village. When we got there, we split into our groups for the day. My group today was made up of Jody as my partner, Jonah (or Yonas) as my translator for English to Amharic, and Benti as my disciple maker and translator from Amharic to Oromo. After we split into our groups, we walked to our first hut, where I shared the gospel and someone was saved for the first time! There is truly a special kind of joy that you feel when you bring someone to God! It was also really cool to see how life works there and how the huts look. It was exciting because I got to see how people farmed and made money and stuff. At all the huts we first looked at the villager’s chickens, which were all healthy. Once we went inside, Jody would share the Priceless cube (perfectly!) and then I would share the Evangecube. It was really awesome seeing Jonah and Benti double translate for me; they both did an awesome job! After we shared the cubes, we would give the gift bags, which had lots of things to help the families. At the last house, our bus driver happened to be inside, and he listened to our message, accepted Christ, and shared it with his friend shortly after, who I believe also accepted! We also played soccer and volleyball with the village kids which was awesome and a ton of fun. I’m super happy and excited because I shared the Evangecube 5 times to many people, and every single person accepted God! I’m super grateful to God for blessing me with this opportunity; I feel like he answered all my prayers and just completely removed all of my stress and fear! I’m having a lot of fun, which I really didn’t expect coming into this trip. God has just been so good to me this trip, and I’m totally looking forward to the next few days! Ciao!

Written By: Ethan Wong

I am amazed at how God provided what I needed on my first field day!

This morning Dave gave our devotional, and he shared how God sustains us, and that we don’t need to rely on our own strength. I really saw this play out in my day, as I went into the village unsure of whether I would remember what I learned in training days about what to say, how to show respect, how to share the messages with others, and a lot of little details. I had all these things I was trying to memorize, and I was worried that I would make a mistake, but as I got to the first home and just listened and talked with my team, my concern and fear went away.

I was on a team with Emily, with Hussen as our translator and Tilahun as our disciple maker and translator. This team was a last minute arrangement by Erin, as we had an obstacle today that meant we needed to reassign every team on the one hour bus ride to the village. In spite of this, God used it to put me with an amazing team! Every person on my team talked with me and helped me feel comfortable and encouraged in sharing the gospel and meeting Ethiopian people.

By the end of the day, our team had counted a total of 29 Ethiopians who accepted Christ! After talking with other team members, I realized that not every team had an immediately successful day that went how they expected. I was able to appreciate how God provided for my team throughout the day. At our evening meeting Nate shared a verse about how we don’t need to worry about whether God will take care of us. Everyone really related to the verse and I recalled how worried I initially was and how comfortable I was by the end of the day. Going into it I was starting to feel nervous about how the day would go, but God prepared the villagers’ hearts to welcome us and to hear us share the gospel with open minds, despite different challenges.

Please continue to pray for team health, that we would be excited and bold in sharing the gospel, and that we will be able to continue to love on the Ethiopian people in the villages.