This year Horn of Africa Mission is celebrating 20 years of fruitful ministry. Looking back we see God’s faithfulness through his people—you, our partners, and the many hundreds of church planters. Let me share a couple of stories: one from a partner and another from a church planter; one from the early years of our ministry, the other from the most recent time, to highlight God’s faithfulness and our partners’ and church planter’s sacrifice.
About 15 years ago our partners in Sudan wrote us about a city called Aroma in the northeastern part of the country, close to the Ethiopian and Eritrean border, where a flood destroyed more than 7,000 homes. They asked us to raise funds so that they can love the people of Aroma in a very practical way at the hour of their biggest need. We sent out a newsletter just like this to our partners to join us in loving our Sudanese brothers and sisters, and one young couple that was getting ready to be married gave sacrificially a significant amount of the funds. When they read the newsletter, they changed their wedding venue from a hotel to someone’s backyard and the meal from being catered to a potluck so that they could be a blessing to the people of Aroma in Sudan.
I can write many stories like this to testify to those who gave sacrificially so that the Gospel can be preached to the unreached. Our church planters are equally serving sacrificially, some being faithful to death.
About two months ago one of our disciples who came to faith from Islam was martyred in eastern Ethiopia for publicly professing his faith in Christ and preaching about Him. “M” was a passionate follower of Jesus and left behind his wife, children, and a house church. As the adage goes, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church”. Now we are hearing a great number of Muslims are coming to Christ from the same region where “M” was a witness.
The root word for Martyr and witness is the same in Greek, the language of the New Testament. When Jesus told His disciples, “You will be my witnesses…” they understood it meant they will be martyrs, and almost all of them died as martyrs. Our church planters know what it means to be a witness in this way as well.
We thank God for each one of you, our partners, who pray regularly and give sacrificially; and for hundreds of our bold church planters who willingly and joyfully go to the most difficult parts of the regions where we are called to make Him known and be a witness.
Looking forward to 2022 and beyond, we see open doors and amazing opportunities to add more workers and reach the remaining unreached people groups in the Horn of Africa and beyond.
Here are a few new opportunities before us this year:
- The war in Northern Ethiopia has changed the region, rebuilding will take years, and life will not be normal again for a long time. The crisis has opened a great opportunity to love our neighbors like the Good Samaritan in Luke 10, and the disaster has made the people’s hearts good soil for the gospel. As someone once said, “A crisis is a terrible thing to waste,” and together we can redeem this for good.
- We will start our Mission School in September of this year. We dream to train and equip hundreds of cross-cultural missionaries in the coming years who will go to places where people have yet to hear the good news.
- Ethiopians tend to get their theology from music and worship more than any other way. Knowing this, we are starting a music/worship ministry where the theology of mission will find a melody and be sung in many churches in Ethiopia and wherever Ethiopians meet to worship Jesus. By doing this we will raise more workers for the harvest.
Everyone has equal value in the eyes of God, but not everyone has equal access to the Gospel. Thank you for enabling us to prioritize going where there is little or no Gospel witness.