Why are you so strong against us?

In the 1970s when the communists were in power in Ethiopia, Yoseph Menna was working and teaching at a Bible college in an area with a strong communist presence. Their influence was so strong that they shut the college down not long after Yoseph began teaching there. With it closed, Yoseph took to teaching the students and sharing Jesus with students outside the buildings. You can imagine how the communist leaders reacted. They came to his apartment and riffled through his belongings. One particular book caught their eye, Tortured for Christ. They told him that they would torture him and left.

After they left, Yoseph (you may remember a previous encounter of his with the communists) made arrangements for his family to be taken care of in the event of his imminent death. That night around midnight, two communist agents picked him up. He told me he recognized the car they were driving. It was well established that it was “the car” the communists used to take people away where they were shot and dumped. This time the agents drove him to a huge, local prison. They stopped at the gates and took their pistols out, pointing them at Yoseph. They began to interrogate him, repeatedly questioning him about whether he was a CIA agent. Then they stopped.

They asked him, “Why are you so strong against us?” As Yoseph started his answer, he reached into his pocket to pull out a New Testament. He said the agents almost shot him when he made that move, but he managed to take out the Bible and share with the agents the saving gospel of Christ. When he finished sharing, the agents put their guns away, put the car in reverse and began driving away from the prison. They drove him out to the bush, threw him out of the car and drove away. He walked to the main road and back into town, back the hotel where his family was staying. They were ecstatic to see him alive. He told me that he packed his things and they all left the next day.

I’ve written it in other places, but the Yoseph is our national leader in Ethiopia. The Lord used him to plant over 1,400 churches last year and to mobilize a small army of church planters. He’s an incredibly gifted man.

Buying Your Wife Back

David Kaya, shown here, is our national leader in Southern Sudan.

Where's your point where you'd cry uncle and give up on what the Lord has instructed you to do?

David left his first denomination in Sudan, went to Seminary with another evangelical denomination, and returned to Sudan to plant churches that preached the Word. Let's say the denomination he left was none to happy about this.

In his tribe, a father can recall a daughter at any point and place an additional dowry upon her. It just so happened David's wife's father was not a believer. The "other" denomination went to the father and convinced him to recall his daughter from David. They'd been married three years when this occured.

When David told me this, he stopped here, looked at me and said, "It's not like in the U.S. No one tithed in my church. They had no money." In other words, he couldn't buy his wife back. He was living in a one-bedroom apartment and his lone asset was a bicycle.

He pressed on, continuing the work.

He said this action hurt his reputation greatly, but the Lord blessed his little church and grew it. After some time, the Lord called him to go work in a city where he interacted with a number of churches. They banded together, having more money than out in the bush, and raised the funds for him to buy his wife back from her father.

I wish I had asked him what the timeframe was on the entire ordeal. I will when I see him again.

To read another account of David and persecution, click here and go to page 2.