Ethiopia: The Fruit Follows the Toil

Demelash Lemma is Horn of Africa coordinator for Samaritan Strategy Africa. He recently traveled from his home in Ethiopia to the DNA global forum in South Africa where he shared the following testimony.

Demelash was first exposed to DNA teachings at a Nairobi Vision Conference in 1999. For the last 10 years, he has worked with Harvest International. In that time, Demelash has trained over 10,000 local church leaders in 4,000 congregations.

“It has been a great privilege for me to share this message,” he said. He went on to acknowledge that the first six years was difficult, like breaking hard ground.

“The idea was not welcome because of the traditional church things,” he admitted, “but the last three or four years the work has begun to pay off.”

In recent years, Demelash has had opportunity to work with a new denomination, the Emmanuel United Church (EUC), founded about 20 years ago. Today it has 130 local congregations, and all the pastors have completed a Vision Conference. Many have also finished a Training of Trainers.

“These leaders are young, professional and passionate,” Demelash says. “Whenever they plant a church, they start it not only with the idea of soul winning but they also go to the local government and ask how they can help their communities.”

God has used the EUC to serve the brokenness of Ethiopia’s families affected by HIV/AIDS. Each local EUC congregation has taken care of “at least two orphaned kids with clothing, food, school materials, and visiting.” Some churches have even started Saturday tutoring classes with professionals giving their time and expertise. Every member is contributing their time, money, gifts to heal the brokenness of that community.

One congregation in the capital city is supporting 85 orphans and poor families. Each child is “adopted” by one or two church members. Church members are also offering tutorial class every Saturday.

Improvement in church and government relations is one of the benefits of this ministry.

“The local government sees this church caring for elderly people, planting trees, caring for HIV victims and poor families,” Demelash says. “As a result, the government has changed its mindset about the church. Government officials, when approached by funders from the West wanting to help, says, ‘Please go to that church. They know what you should do!’”

This congregation also has 50 home Bible studies, and Demelash expects further stories of impact.

“I am hoping to see the seed projects going to a bigger level and bringing transformation to that community.”

Youthful Vision Conference in the Philippines

Young conference attendees huddle to discuss a seed project

Twenty-two people participated in a Vision Conference in the northern Philippines, May 31- June 5. Pastors, youths, adults, and children attended, as reported by Kosh Raj Dahal.

Kosh and his wife serve among “orphans, widows and needy people [who] are vanishing without food and Christ.” They have seen God use Vision Conferences to open the eyes of “church members, leaders, [and] pastors to see their community as harvest field and they will be encouraged and equipped to serve them practically in order to bring them into Christ.”

The sessions were led by an engineering professor and an elder of an evangelical church at Baguio. The teachers also facilitated discussion by participants as they met in “Discipline of Love” (DOL) groups. These groups gave attendees opportunity to practice sharing the gospel. Kosh reports that the “participants are now confident to share gospel without any fear.”

The DOL concept builds on the Bible’s emphasis of demonstrating the gospel through loving service.

“Tomato juice comes out when you squeeze tomato; apple juice comes out when you squeeze an apple, which is good for energy and thrust; but ‘Love’ comes out when you squeeze the Bible, which provides everything … that a community needs. Therefore, in order to demonstrate Christ love in the community, committed DOL groups are the demands of the world.”

Children demonstrate worldview

Of particular interest to Kosh was seeing 8-10 year-old children participating “extensively the entire Vision Conference.” The children made a powerful impact in their worldview demonstration. “Instead of three adult participants, four children participants came in front to demonstrate the [worldview] eyeglasses. They performed better than adults did!” The creative way in which these kids engaged in a mock argument, each one claiming to see the world correctly through his or her set of glasses, effectively pictured the effects of a person’s worldview.

Vision conference "grads"

At the end of the conference, some of the participants used a skit to demonstrate that people have  different worldviews.

“They wanted to influence the society with their own worldviews,” wrote Kosh. “Some were politicians, some representatives of different beliefs. Some were bagging money for food and some youths were as drug addicts. They showed the corrupted community that needs to be served. At that time, one evangelist shares gospel to all of them, being humble and served to them. As a result, God transformed their lives through his service and evangelizing.”

Cynthia teaches on ministry to Muslims

Another important feature of this Vision Conference came from a woman named Cynthia who works among Muslim children in a high-risk area of Baguio. Her teaching about Islam was very helpful in equipping those participants who have Muslim friends but were unsure of how minister the gospel to them. “Now, the participants have known some of the ways to minister Muslim friends,” Kosh reflected.

Kosh hopes to see fruit from the conference, but in the meantime he’s not waiting around in the shade. His plans include a second-level training conference in September in Manchester for 20-30 adults and the same number of children.

He also plans to follow up a medical mission held in February that reached 3,000 people with the help of Korean doctors who joined local believers for the effort. In September, the same Korean medical team will return, this time to serve with even more local participation. “We are going to use 30-40 disciples from Manchester fellowship to accomplish the mission as well as some local churches.” Kosh hopes to reach 5,000 people, including 100 Muslims, with this ministry.

“Please pray that God will empower Korean team, team of disciples, Church team, IGSL team and other concerning persons, as well as for me as I lead the mission as mission coordinator.”