The churches have never passed the limits of preaching the good news of salvation other than telling people phrase such as ”Jesus saves you”, “Jesus gives you food”, “Jesus will give you clothes...”. But after this very first Samaritan Strategy Conference, immediate changes started to be seen in the already existing churches and new ministries also started to function to promote a holistic ministry – serving the whole person.
The impact of the seed project discussed during the conference has enabled the churches to open their eyes and evaluate their ministry.
As I tried to explain above, there are lots of seed projects being undertaken by different congregations in and outside Addis Ababa. Motivated Churches have taken initiatives to raise funds to cloth the naked, feed the hungry, help the jobless work, help poor children go to schools, and cleaning garbage in the whole city of Addis Ababa.
More vision conferences are being conducted again during this FY 2000 and we now hear and see lots of encouraging testimonies everywhere. Both Christians and non- Christians are amazed and challenged. Christians are amazed and challenges to see the fruits of their works (Psalm 1: 3) others question what different has happened in the way these evangelical Christian people (“Pentes” as they call them) relate themselves to others.
There are lots of testimonies of many life changes in this regard, but below is only one case, which touched my heart very much which I wanted to share with you. This will, I hope help you understand how the program has impacted many.
One of the fruit of this conference is seen in - Win Souls for God Evangelical Ministries. This ministry is founded by a group of 2 volunteer and visionary young men of God. The Vision of this ministry is to set people free from any influence of the devil using the word of God, To evangelize the street boys, prostitutes, poor families, war victims and Juvenile delinquents; destroy the yoke of poverty from Ethiopia by teaching the way of Holiness, work and diligence....
The volunteers have a wonderful strategy of prayer. They always start the day with morning prayers with two goals in mind: Clean the air and clean the earth.
Clean the air - is a prayer focused on cleansing the air by the power of the Blood of Jesus. This is done to bind the strongholds of Satan, which fights the ministry. All the members will come together at the beginning in the open air, join hands together, pray for a few minutes, and disperse like seeds in different directions for a period of 20 - 30 minutes for clean the air pray individually against the enemy in the heavenly places.
After this, everyone gets together to pray and give thanks to God as well as go for cleaning the earth - to clean the Earth. This second phase of their worship is associated with the daily work. “This is a prayer – Christianity in action” says one of the founding members of the ministry.
Work and prayer go hand in hand in this ministry teaching. As stated earlier the needy people are reached by the gospel and their needs are met accordingly based on the available resources.
In line with this, a work plan was made for November 01, 1999 to clean city garbage in and around the road near Habtegiorgis bridge in the center of Addis Ababa on the road to the Merkato - the biggest market place.
As per their practice, all the campaign members had to be at the site early in the morning at 6:00 a.m.
Clean the air was done and this was followed by clean the earth as usual. The cleaning started and it was going well in spite of the foul smell of mixed garbage with urine and other wastes. Determination and call to minister to people was their goal.
After cleaning the area, the first few people carried the trash to the garbage dumpsite. This was a big metal trash box that municipality trucks have to take, every two weeks, and empty out side the city. In the metal box - dumpsite they saw a human like foot.
They wanted to look at it to know what it is.
People have already started to move around and to see what these guys were doing. No one knew what was inside this big metal box. They uncovered the trash and found out a young man lying. They checked the movement of the chest to make sure that he was alive. No one could call him by name. He barely moved his lips. The seen whose house is a garbage dump was odd to all. They carefully led him out of the garbage dump & took off his cloth. To do this was a big challenge. !!
Somebody from among the crowd who was watching this started to tell unbelievable story about the seen. He heard the story from municipality garbage truck drivers. The drivers took him with the garbage to the garbage site outside the city two times unknowingly and dumped him there. But when they saw that there was a live person in the middle of the garbage, they brought him back to the same site and left him there both times.
His cloth was attached to his body due to sweats and all dirt. He had never taken off his cloth and bathed for years. His body smelled like a rotten egg.
Passer byes were excited to see what was happening, especially one good looking and well to do woman who paid close attention to the Samaritans. Different people spoke different words as to how they see these people doing this. Some appreciated what was being done while some dared to conclude that the group was does this just to attract people to their faith…. lots of varieties of ideas….and even quarrelling among people having different ideas was observed.
His cloth was taken off after soaking him in open air shower and this enabled the group to see his body. In due time one of the volunteers asked him to tell them his name, but no response from his side except some movement of his lips. He was so desperate and lonely. The volunteers later shaved his head to relieve him from the lice and all the shabby looking of his face.
Long after this was done to him and looking into their care, he later started to talk. He told them his name – difficult to understand – like a baby language. His name is Jemal Ahmed. He was born in 1980 in Arsi province, some 200 Kms South East of Addis Ababa.
His parents are Muslim. He came to Addis Ababa in search of better living conditions some years back. He thought the city would provide him with whatever he required. But contrary to his expectations, the city welcomed him to let him live like a dog with dog’s company.
No one gave him food or shelter or a cloth to wear. But he was able to own five dogs, which were abandoned by their owners. He chose to live inside the garbage dump after years of wandering here and there. Jemal later said “ the dumpsite gave me hope for it served me like a home”. No one has ever asked him who he was, or where he came from.
He said he didn’t mind even if the flies multiply in millions from the dumpsite with all the foul smell and the bitterness of life. He had no one to speak to until the volunteers reached him with love and compassion.
They told him about the love of Jesus and how he died for him that he can have life eternal. This was exciting news to Jemal. He said” is there a God who cares and loves me? “. “Yes”, was the reply.
He didn’t hesitate much after he heard the good news. He accepted Jesus Christ as his only Lord and Savior. The good looking woman who was watching the kind act asked the young men of God as to why they decided to do such a humble service. The reply was obvious: “the love of Jesus – we do this to people just to show how He loved us”.
This woman was highly touched by what she saw and heard. She finally decided to make two rooms available for their service. She said, “ as long as you work out in he field to help people like Jemal, use my house free of charge”. She owns a hotel in the area and these are two rooms of her hotel. Now they use the rooms for the people they help to rest in and also pray for them - a satellite station in the city.
Jemal has been taken to the Hospital for health checkups and had received medical treatments. He NEVER wanted to associate himself with people. He rather likes to spend days and eat garbage with dogs. He likes dogs more than people. The psychiatrist who examined him promised that he will be ok but he did not deny this might take him a long time. After this, days, weeks and months have passed and as time goes on Jemal improved in his health.
He slowly started to bath and wash his cloths by himself. He also started to eat with people and socialize with them.
He is a regular church attendant. If you go and ask him who he was, out of his lips come these words every now and then: ”Jesus is Lord”. He speaks of those bad days in which he was under the bondage of Satan, poverty and hopelessness.
Now he has become a new creation. He knows the source of all hopes. It is Jesus no one else. Amen!! |
