Watermark in Africa

Day 3 was full of joy, repentance, and acceptance of Jesus. The team was encouraged as we saw many Muslims accept the Gospel. Starting off the morning, our team shared the gospel and testimonies with a Muslim family. After a long beautiful conversation, they all decided to put their faith in Christ. PRAISE THE LORD! Another highlight of our day, we came across a compound with a Muslim family working in the yard. They welcomed us with a place to sit and open ears. They were intrigued & wanted to know why North Americans would come all the way to Ethiopia to talk with them    After hearing the Gospel, he boldly said he accepted this message and asked for prayers to confidently share with his daughters, sons, and wife.  To leave you with an encouraging story - we were wrapping up the end of the day, resting on a porch on the main road. A man suddenly approached us, looking physically disheveled and mentally broken - an obvious social outcast. We were hesitant to engage b...

Day 2 was hard but also encouraging as small team 2 kind of had a hard morning but awesome afternoon.    This morning we started out by driving outside of town into the countryside to a more rural village.    We got out of the van with our translators & disciple-makers & walked the dirt roads looking for a person of peace (described as a person who shows open-ness to us & our gospel message).    The receptiveness of the people was quite different from yesterday as the villagers were kind & smiled at us but when we started to engage them they were not very receptive.    It is clear that the Muslim leadership of the village told the people overnight that we were in the area & warned them not to talk with us.    It was a little disheartening but our spirits were not dampened as we see our responsibility as planting seeds of gospel truth & God’s responsibility to change people’s hearts.    We switched to a d...

Day 1 of ministry- Can you believe it? We are having a great time here in Ethiopia! We started our morning at a local church, where we were greeted by the community with praise, worship, coffee, tea, and bread. We then transitioned to meeting with our Ethiopian partners who are Ethiopian translators and disciple makers. One particular story stands out, which has energized our team to share the gospel even more over the next few days.    One team encountered encouragement, but with resistance, which showed the power of the gospel. Thirty minutes before the team were to go back to the hotel, they were sharing the gospel to local children when a couple Muslim men came to see why white people where in their remote village.    When they realized that we were sharing about faith in Jesus Christ they became aggressive and frustrated. We quickly got into the van to leave and they began hitting the van as we drove away. In the meantime, one curious man tagged along in the van...

It's 4:00AM Ethiopia time but the July team arrived in Addis Ababa safe & sound.    We are feeling good & all the bags arrived.    The time difference is 8 hours ahead of Dallas time so we’re understandably exhausted after being on a plane for 24 hours.    We’ll try to get some sleep tonight & tomorrow do the 7 hour drive to the mission site, do our in-country training & meet our national Ethiopian partners.      Please pray for: •        Ethiopian hearts would be receptive to the message of the Gospel 
 •        Unity between the North Americans and Ethiopian partners •        Continued good health for North Americans  •        Safety & good health for North American family members at home

In a few short days (Friday, July 18th) the 2nd Ethiopia 2025 team will get on an airplane for the long flight to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.    Our mission will be to share how Jesus Christ has changed our lives & how much he loves the people of Ethiopia.    This will be the 2nd of 2 Ethiopia trips for the Watermark Young Adults partnering with E3 Partners this year.    The “journey” to Ethiopia started long before getting on the plane as we had our 1 st  training meeting in early February of this year so we have been praying & planning for this trip for 6 months.    Our training and preparation for Ethiopia has consisted of support raising (learning how to share the financial need in healthy ways), immunizations (shots) party and cultural awareness training, practice sharing the gospel, roleplaying sharing our testimonies, and giving a biblical defense for the gospel for common Orthodox and Muslim arguments. As I think about these summer...

Today (Friday) is our last full day in Ethiopia so this will be our last blog post for the June trip.    This has been an awesome week as we have seen God move in BIG ways not only in Ethiopian hearts but also in the hearts of the North Americans.   Our remaining time in Ethiopia will be spent eating some good food, trip processing & re-entry training & getting some rest preparing for the flight home.    People ask what is the impact that a short term trip can have & I would answer that as only God knows the full impact of our work in Ethiopia.    I told the North Americans that only in heaven will we fully understand the impact as some people have accepted Christ but many seeds were planted (people heard the gospel) & we will never know if someone else will harvest the fruit that we planted.    The disciple makers are believers who live in the areas where we were sharing & their responsibility is to follow up & shephe...