Ethiopia Updates – January 2022

We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers, remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.1 Thessalonians 1:2–3 (ESV)

Dear Brothers, Sisters, Partners and Friends,

Greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. By His Grace the year 2021 has ended and God has granted us another year about to be ushered in, I thank God for you all for your faithfulness in the previous years to work in partnership with us for the advancement of the kingdom of God. I am writing this news letter to inspire you all to remain diligent and intentional about your walk with Jesus and encourage you to continue serving God with us.

1. The Impact of our Animal project in the Southern Remote Regions of Ethiopia.

The place called South Omo in the Southern Region of the country; is one of the most unreached areas in the country where majority of the communities are Pastoralists. God is doing tremendous things in the region and just in the past few months more than 20 Churches have been planted in various villages.

There are also huge needs in the region particularly helping orphans and vulnerable children to get out of poverty. Just recently our regional coordinator Pastor Chachi and our local missionary Wondemagegn / Wondye/ facilitated our animal project in the region. 15 orphans and vulnerable children received goats and the good news of this support has been spread to the entire region and opens the doors of Evangelism and church planting.

The children particularly those who were born with out traditionally recognized marriage suffer a lot. Because, the people considered them as cursed children and majority of them abandoned by the communities.

But, we thank God because God is being rescued them through our animal and other projects.

Our Regional Coordinator Pastor Chachi together with our local leaders & care takers

2. Our Discipleship & Mentorship program develops many Leaders

Unite 4 Africa offers different levels of training, seminars and workshops for local leaders and church leaders of various backgrounds to teach them how to develop positive, culturally relevant approaches. We train church leaders and youth to do effective outreach and discipleship through training programs including Disciple Making Movement (DMM), It’s All About Relationship (IAAR), Oral communication methods focused on non-literates, Discovery Bible Studies and J-life Africa.

Kaleab/Kalu/ Alemu is one of our new emerging young leaders whom we / Rev. Dr, Okonog & I) have been disciple and mentored him in the past many years. Now, he has become one of our master trainers and he is being trained and mentored more than 50 youths in the town Adama /Nazareth/.

This is just one of the indications that our movement of Discipleship and Mentorship continues.

Kaleab /Kalu/ in the Discipleship Training Session.

3. Christmas Celebration

Every year we celebrate Christmas with our orphans and school children. This program is very impactful in the lives of orphans and school children. Majority of them never received gifts in their lives from anybody. And in this program we organize an event for the children. There are a number of activities in it that the children participate such as sinning songs, Dramas, and some other things that make our children joyful and have fun. We also provide them cookies, candies, soft drinks, food, cakes and other gifts.

In this Christmas, my wife Addiskidan organized this event in two of our schools in Butajira and Wonjishowa towns. More than thousands of orphans, vulnerable children and other school children attended the event. The children enjoyed a lot and she prayed for each one of them and share the story of Jesus from the Bible.

Thank you so much all our partners for your prayers and support.

Christmas Celebration events

4. Conclusion, Praise & Prayer Requests

These are praises and prayer request items to pray about with us:

• Thank God for our Discipleship & Mentorship Program. God has been raising new emerging young leaders among us through this program.
• Thank God for our Animal Project. This project has impacted not only the lives of Orphans and Vulnerable Children but also the entire communities and villages.
• Thank God for the year 2021. God has given us lots of victories and successes through challenges and hardships of in the past year.
• Pray for all our plans and goals for this year of 2022. May God would continue gives us wisdom. discernment, directions, courage, strength as we execute our activities for this year.

Samson Weldemariam /Pst/
Vice – president and Africa director of U4A