Ethiopia & Sudan Part IV

Nadine Breiner is a full-time e3 staffer who helped me lead this Ethiopia trip. This is a story from her area.

On Monday, our first day in the field, our national leaders asked us to prayerwalk our areas. Nadine did just that, plus they evangelized a bit in the afternoon. They decided to gather the new believers together (to start the church) under a tree beside a school. They reasoned the school was a good landmark to direct folks to.

On Tuesday she spent the day with one of our campaigners who became very sick and had to spend the day in bed. On Wednesday, our national leaders sent her to another area to work. On Thursday morning it became clear she was going back to where she prayerwalked if she had to walk there herself. The motivation was to see how God would honor their foundation of prayer three days earlier.

Boy-howdy did He.

In the morning, Nadine and Lucy Chang (another e3 campaigner) began to share the gospel with about eight men in the street. Suddenly cresting the hill and coming towards them to see what they were doing was a group of about 40 men. More came from other directions and Nadine and Lucy began to share the gospel with close to 60 men.

From my previous emails you may have gathered that few people would publicly pray to receive Christ. This was primarily out of fear of persecution and secondly out of deference to whomever in the crowd was the oldest male. Nadine is from New Jersey, she's pretty direct, and she called them out. She said, "I know in your culture you won't pray in front of one another, but Jesus said that if you're not ashamed of me on earth, He wouldn't be ashamed of you in heaven." (Luke 9:25-27)

As she continued talking the men began to peel off and walk away until only 13 remained. All 13 bowed their heads, publicly no less, and prayed to receive Christ. How glad they'll be when they stand before His throne.

The afternoon
That afternoon they gathered next to the school. "Inexplicably" the owner of the school came by. With God, however, there are no coincidences. Clearly he had brought the owner, a woman who lived nowhere near this school, to the site that day because He willed it. The owner asked Nadine what they were doing and immediately told them they could use the school as the new church. They went inside and began to worship, and the owner fell down and actually laid down flat on her face in the dirt. She wept and the team led her to faith in Christ.

On Monday, Nadine's team had prayed for a person of peace. (Luke 10) This school owner had influence over not only many teachers in that entire region of Ethiopia, but she had almost completed building a new hospital and had wondered how she was supposed to use it.

The Lord, I'm sure, has a specific plan ...

Next, a photo montage from Ethiopia and how God is leading us in SUDAN!