Watermark in Africa

What an awesome day of ministry!    Our small team was asked to go visit a small church in the mountains that has been suffering persecution.    On the drive to the church they explained to us that this church had only 4 families & was surrounded by Muslims.    As we got to the church & talked to the people they kept calling this area “Ethiopia Pakistan” since the mosques in this area were funded by Pakastani Muslims.    Many of the women in the area were wearing full traditional dress where they were covered head to toe in black with only a small slit where they could see through.    The church members explained about the persecution they experienced but when we worshipped with them it was evident that in the midst of trials that Christ was alive in their hearts.    We prayed, sang & then gave them an encouraging message from the bible.    What an awesome way to spend our time encouraging believers to sta...

We continue to see the Lord move during our time in Ethiopia!                        When we first arrived to our small team site for the day, we immediately got the opportunity to talk to the leader of the village. As we dialogued with him, we were confronted with a large amount of verbal opposition from others in the village. We soon encountered an Ethiopian Christian on the side of the road, and were told that this entire village only had four families who were following Jesus.   Realizing that this village would be uniquely challenging for us to spread the Gospel, our Ethiopian partners directed us to the only local church so we could cry out to Jesus and ask for His help and protection. In this small 12’x12’ church, we started with time for individual prayers for us, the translators, and the disciplemakers, before moving onto communal, verbal prayers from our team and ...

Praise God for His faithfulness! This morning as we gathered for breakfast, we prayed over our team, translators, disciple-makers, and the Ethiopian people that we would encounter. Specifically, we asked God to move in tangible ways that would make His presence clearly known to both us and them. Boy, did he ever deliver on that prayer! At multiple moments throughout the day, we found ourselves sharing the gospel with precious children and were shocked at their eagerness for what we had to share and at their hunger for the gospel. It was incredible to witness the Lord break down the communication barrier between the Americans and Ethiopians through His provision of our translators. Through the interactions today, many children as well as adults made the decision to put their faith in Christ & not made made rules & religion.    At one point this morning I had 12-15 men surrounding me & listening intently as I shared my story of life change & how God has changed m...

This has been an eventful trip with lots of challenges already.    Sorry I haven’t been able to update the blog but I’ve just now been able to connect to wifi.    Our team was supposed to fly out of Dallas on Friday morning but due the weather in Newark (our connecting point) our Friday flight was cancelled.    We were fortunately able to get booked on a flight to DC that would connect us to Addis Ababa for most of the group but we had to be at the airport @ 4:30AM on Saturday morning.    Our Saturday flight was uneventful but meant that we had a 10 hour layover in DC.    5 of our group had to fly through Houston & due to weather in DC they never made it & had to spend the night in the airport only to take a flight the next day from NYC.    3 days of airports, flights & layovers & most of the team is finally in Hosanna (our mission site) with the group of 5 expected to arrive late Monday night in Addis to join u...