Open hearts to the gospel of Jesus- Wednesday update

Today, we got the opportunity to share alongside a market road where many people of varying beliefs would buy food, drinks and such. In one of these particular tea shops, Joe and I (Daniel) got to share with a couple guys who turned out to be believers. We encouraged them and went ahead to carry on down the road to talk to some other people. As we were walking, we met a man who didn’t speak the common language that our translators spoke. However, after asking around our translators found that one of the men, we had just spoken with previously that we found out was a believer spoke this specific dialect! So, Joe was able to convey the message of the Gospel through our translator who in turn related it to the man. The man was a Muslim, and remained fairly quiet throughout Joe sharing the Gospel; however, he ended up saying that he was ready to accept Christ as his Savior without need for any questions. Praise God! It was incredible to see firsthand how God used another believer in this community as a tool to further His kingdom. While one of the big wins was bringing this Muslim man to Christ, it was so cool to see the spark of Gospel light up in a believer and empower Him to continue to share with others. Our prayer for both of these men is that the Lord keeps revealing himself to them both and give them the courage to share their faith with their loved ones and even go out and make a huge impact in the community. A big takeaway is remembering that the Lord goes before us and after us and will provide what is needed in every moment.  Story by Joe & Daniel

 

After a morning of sharing Christ, our small team ate lunch and worshiped the Lord across the street from our afternoon mission site. This area has a large tree that the local Ethiopians would worship, along with animals and other parts of creation.  After we finished lunch, we walked across the street into the village to share the good news of Jesus. As soon as we got to the tree, it started raining and thundering so we decided to leave the village. As we are leaving the village Sierra and I (Chris) were in the back of the group discussing with our disciple maker Demeke. We passed a man standing outside of a tin building, and the rest of the Ethiopians with us told us to ignore them because they were drinking alcohol and might be drunk. We decided to stop and talk to them anyway. We entered the tin building, which we discovered was a bar, and four soldiers of the Ethiopian Army were there drinking during the rainstorm. We asked if we could share the story of our faith in Christ with them, and they stopped us a few moments into sharing. In the Ethiopian Army, soldiers are not allowed to share their faith with each other because they are to be for all of the people of Ethiopia. A few moments later, their leader walked in and was curious about why we were there. He said he was very appreciative of us coming all the way from the United States to see them, but again told us that they cannot talk about faith in the Army. I told them that I (Chris) was in the U.S. military for 12 years, and after that his tone changed. He said that he respected my time in the military and asked about my story of life change. I told him that I found Jesus while I was in the military four years ago. He asked how my life changed so drastically over a three-year time span and if there was a friend in the military told me about Christ. I told him more of my testimony about a friend outside of the military who sat with me and answered all of my questions over the course of three months. Suddenly, he was very interested in the gospel story that we were sharing. After sharing gospel message, he said that it was an incredible message and that he would store it deep in his heart. He also shared that now I had given him the idea that he could seek more about the message of Christ outside of his fellow soldiers.  Story by Sierra & Chris

Our team has had an awesome week already of sharing Christ.  Many seeds have been planted and while some have responded to the gospel message, our responsibility is to be faithful to share the good news and it is God’s responsibility to change the heart.  The team for the most part is feeling great but we have one team member who is not feeling 100%.  Please continue to pray for:

·      Good health for the North Americans

·      Open hearts for the good news of Jesus

·      Unity with our Ethiopian partners 

·      The new believers faith would be strengthened in the face of persecution