Ethiopia Update – July 2020
As we keep trusting and serving the Lord; He has given us a strength and Grace to do His will. The followings are some of the activities that we have done in the past month.
1. We’ve organized a fasting and praying time every Wednesday
We believe that this time is very critical for all of us and it requires us to seek the face of God like never before. We also believe that there is a spiritual warfare behind every chaos and fear that is going on in our world. So, we as African Leaders have decided to set apart a day for fasting and praying every week together in spirit wherever we are.
In the past three weeks we have been fasting and praying every Wednesday. God has given us good time and we shared our challenges and prayer requests with one another through WhatsApp and prayed for our families, board members and also for our partners. We have also put the vision of Unite4Africa and all its plans and activities before God and prayed that God would do His will in this difficult times through our ministry.
I take this opportunity to thank Rev. Dr. Okongo for his incredible leadership and for him sending us his words of encouragement, prayers, and communicating with us almost every day, and standing alongside us in this challenging times. I would like also thank our African Leaders Rev. Moses Rianto from Kenya and Rev. Samson Abukari from Ghana who are committed to participate in this platform in prayer and sharing wonderful insights and words of encouragement. God also spoke to us through our brothers by giving us words of encouragement from His Scripture. And that was awesome.
2. Continue supporting the needy people who are affected by the Corona virus pandemic.
One of things that makes us busy in these days is supporting our leaders and communities who are literally affected by the restrictions and lockdown because of the pandemic. So, even in the past month we have continued to support and provided food for more than 150 people in our communities in this month.
They were so exited and thankful for God and for the leadership of our church after they received the donation. This relief project will be continued even in the coming months until the problem resolved.
Our team prepared the donation and ready to make the distribution
3. We have continued encouraging our leaders and doing the follow up during this difficult time.
As I reported in my previous report that; by using the social medias; we have keep communicating and encouraging our leaders even in the past month. Since most of our leaders use WhatsApp, Facebook and Telegram; we have been serving hundreds of leaders in different groups.
- Sharing our burdens and challenges with one another.
- Praying and encouraging one another.
- Sharing best practices in their respective areas with one another.
- Exchanging and updating ideas information with one another.
- Supporting and sending donations with one another.
The above things are some of the benefits that our leaders have got from this platform.
Apart from those social media groups we also do direct phone calls to encourage our leaders who are serving in the remote areas and do not have access for internet and social medias.
4. Conclusion
As I was preparing and reading my Bible I felt like this is the time of testing just like Jesus tested his Disciples when he fed the multitudes.
Jesus therefore lifting up his eyes, and seeing that a great multitude was coming to him, said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread, that these may eat?” This he said to test him, for he himself knew what he would do. (John 6:5-6).
If we put our trust on Him and put our limited resources on the hands of Jesus, He is ready and there to multiply it. It is true that the needs of the people we are serving are very huge and seems like overwhelming and the resources we have are very limited. However, Jesus the one who called us to serve Him knows what He would do. We are working with Him and our role is to put whatever we have on his hands and He does the rest of His part. So, let’s have a trust in Him.
In the past, many years of our ministry experiences as Unite4Africa team we trust Him to do it again and again as we are His disciples.
So, I would like to encourage all our friends and partners to keep trusting in the Lord and Jesus is always with us to do His part. In my conclusion, I would like to share our prayer request with you to pray about:
- Continue praying for the safety and protection of our leaders and their families during this crisis and pandemic.
- Keep praying for the most vulnerable communities that are being affected by the impact of the Pandemic and may God would enable us to continue helping them during this challenging time.
Samson W. /Pst/
Vice-president of U4A and Ethiopia Director