Friends,
Leaving Ethiopia is getting harder and harder. The poverty is striking. As you walk the streets the orphans and widows crowd in with open hands. The need is truly overwhelming. I’m not used to that. In Tanzania, there are plenty of orphans, but they are usually absorbed into their extended families or sent to an orphanage, so foreigners encounter them less. I asked a veteran TLI trainer if he knew how to emotionally deal with the begging. He had no answer. Just that it never gets easier.
There is much unrest among the Ethiopians. One of our trainees was told that he had to pay a hefty price or they would kill his wife and kids. He wasn’t able to attend our training this week because he was raising money to pay the rebels. Praise God he raised the funds. Another pastor’s brother-in-law was killed by the rebels in this recent war. In the West, these realities are so foreign to us, yet each of our trainees’ lives has been impacted in some way by this war and decaying economy.
Eternal life will be sweeter for the Ethiopian Christians than for me, I’m sure of it.
On a positive note, we had one pastor in our training with an amazing testimony—from pagan spirit-worshipper to church planter. When Kumaa* got a job as a security guard for a church he continually overheard the pastor discipling church members. Each day he would sit outside the pastor’s office learning about our God. Kumaa approached the pastor and asked to be discipled. He gave his life wholly to the Lord and was baptized. His heart burned to return to his hometown to evangelize his family. After several trips home, more than one hundred people came to know the Lord, and several churches were planted. The main church has over 5,000 members now and is responsible for bringing in TLI to Ambo. Because of Kumaa’s zeal, thousands of Oromo Ethiopians are now Christians and TLI is training pastors in Ambo. What a testimony!
Please, continue to pray for the pastors and Christians at our TLI sites in Ambo, Hawassa, and Shasamane as they evangelize the lost and shepherd their churches in obedience to Christ.
In the Wise, Good, & Sovereign God,
* Not his real name.
Newsletter Sections
• Class in Session
• Preaching in Ambo
• Family Update
• Prayer Points
Class in Session
Last I heard, the headcount for this course was over 90 students! Mike and I co-taught a class of over 25 leaders on how to faithfully preach from the OT prophets using Isaiah as a model. Many good and crazy questions were asked, for some, I had an answer. 🙂
Again, God and the gospel were glorified each session. Often, after the lesson, the students would break out in song and prayer because the truths we are proclaiming are so great and glorious.
Alex, my interpreter, and me. 
The church stage.
Our interpreter was Alex. Although he is young, Alex is a professor in the local college, a full-time pastor, and has already planted 17 churches! His English is excellent and interpreted strong for 5 days straight. Not to mention preaching and teaching at several church meetings of his own during the evenings.
Ambo is an Oromo town. So, the primary language was not Amharic, but Oromo. It uses Latin characters and was easier to pick up than Amharic. Though I thoroughly enjoyed learning both.
Preaching on Sunday
On Sunday, I was privileged to preach in a local church on Matthew 15. On the way, our taxi driver decided the road was too destroyed to continue, so he let us out. My interpreter, Taye, and I were left to walk the next half mile to the church. It was slightly funny because neither of us knew the way, so Taye was asking random people for directions. Thankfully, we eventually arrived. After the service, however, we walked the dusty, broken road over a mile back to the main road in our Sunday best!
Since Ethiopia uses a different calendar than the U.S., it was Christmas weekend and the kids of the church put on a small nativity play. Cuteness overload!
The pastors took me out to traditional lunch. This was hands-down the best tibbs I’ve ever eaten! 
My interpreter for preaching, Taye.
Miscellaneous
Prayer Points
Thank you for your continued prayers and loving support!
- Pray for Fikadu, the site host, as he continues in ministry after we leave. He runs an organization called Community Transformation Ethiopia with an American extension called Hope in View. They help orphans and families in poverty. They minister to the whole family providing basic needs like food, clothing, and education.
- Pray for peace and unity among the Ethiopians. Their civil war is a warning light revealing a deeper rift between tribes. Unfortunately, this can bleed into the church as well. Pray for them to have one mind according to the gospel and Christian unity in the Holy Spirit.
- Pray for national Ethiopian missionaries to be raised up out of our training and these local churches to go out to the 35+ unreached people groups in their country.
- Pray that the training would take root in the students’ hearts and explode into faithful Bible-based preaching which would lead to transformed lives in the pews.
- Pray for Miranda and me as a new semester of school begins. Pray that I will be faithful to my work and also give the proper amount of time to family and ministry. Pray that she will have love, strength, patience, and joy in homeschooling our daughters.
