in the late 1920s, SIM sent missionaries to Ethiopia. The govt, being dominated by the Ethiopian Orthodox church, sent them out of town but still in the highlands areas. In the early 1930s, Italy invaded and the whole world was off to the races for WW2. After the war, SIM returned to Ethiopia ... Whooaa! whered all these churches come from?! That was the beginning of a series of gospel movements that left many highlands people groups with 80-90% commitments to evangelical Christianity. That group of churches is called the Kale Hiwot Church (means word of life). In the last 50 years, those churches have tried to recreate their own successes among the pastoralist peoples of the lowlands, along the border with Kenya and Sudan... but without success. In the last, maybe a decade, they have begun to look seriously at their failures and ask why? - So, Ive spent the last month with a KHC leader, at the invitation of a former colleague from Christian Veterinary Mission (partnering with SIM), in one of those lowland valleys among a handful of those pastoralist peoples. These guys know they need to use oral methods vs. traditional literate ones and want to use more indigenous, disicple-making CPM strategies rather than the more traditional build a building and say, yall come! They had a variety of sources for the latter but I turned out to be the guy they knew for the former. And, without putting too fine a point on it, I was available ... - I got to do all the fun things missionaries do without having to do all the really tough things they have to do. I visited a half-dozen ministry sites to interview the evangelists there. I taught a week long module on storying to another group of evangelists. I set up oral curricula for both a purely oral CPM training course and a hybrid oral-literate bible school. And, except for one time, I experienced no physical discomfort (well, other than the normal sorts of things re. long hours on bad roads). Seems I got hold of some bad water at some point. Felt a bit queasy for a couple of days but thought I could hold it together for the next ride on bad roads. Then, half-way down said road, I heaved loudly, copiously, and with great authority ... but afterwards, I felt So Much BETTER! I thought, I shoulda done this HOURS ago! So, a coupla Cipro later, I was on the mend. Really, it was the Disney Theme park version of missions. - So, I had a great time and hopefully gave some useful aid to the Ethiopian evangelists there. But what ever comes of that, it seems they are just on the cusp of some very significant work. Apparently, several years ago, in one of the locations, a local chief took a very personal dislike for one of those very lonely believers. But she stayed faithful and, time after time, he would threaten her and publically call down spiritual curses on her, and even tried to get the local government authorities to trouble her. But to no avail. For example, this is a high mountain area (one of the few high elevations in the region) that always gets rain. But theyve had drought for a couple of years. So the chief blamed her (her Christian faith angered the spirits yadda yadda), so he called the govt to physically move her out. When they arrived to move her, it was raining ... but only on her land. Then, she walked to the meeting place to tell the govt she was not leaving her land. The rain followed her. Then people started saying she had to pray to her god for the rain to go on their land, too. The govt guys watch all this and see its all just political, and refuse to move her. This, like all the other harassment, took place in full view of everyone. So, when the chief cursed her again and soon after died, everyone understood who the real God is (like Elijah on Mt. Carmel, though without all the dead prophets of Baal). After that, a local witchdoctor, widely known for his power, took up the dead chiefs cause. Same story. Also died. Now, the new chief gave permission for anyone to believe who wants to ... lots of people want to. You just cant buy or fake PR like this - so, God is working and I got to see some of it. Yeah - had a great time in Ethiopia.
Posted on: Thu, 24 Jul 2014 14:31:31 +0000