From Yorkshire to Ethiopia

In March, Ashenafi Mekuria (Pastor of Grace Gospel Church, Leeds) and Peter Dunn (Biglife Europe & YBA Discipleship Enabler) travelled to Ethiopia to serve the Ethiopian Baptist Convention.  Peter and Graham Ensor had met Pastor Yonas, the General Secretary of the convention, nearly two years ago at the Baptist World Alliance meetings in Norway, and he had expressed an interest in learning more about Disciple Making Movement (DMM) approaches.

Pastor Yonas describes the current state of Ethiopia to one of “Golden Harvest” with many people coming to faith in Jesus.  There is a need for equipping of church leaders who in turn will equip their people to reach and disciple their own family, friends, neighbours and colleagues.  Simple things multiply, and so the approach of Biglife was well received, in that it is accessible to everyone.

Over the course of the week Ashenafi and Peter were able to train about 40 church planters, who came from the area surrounding Addis Ababa.  In an interactive way they shared the Biblical principles of how Jesus and the early church went about making disciples, and some simple tools to use.  After the first day of training one lady called Saba returned to her home and started a simple discovery Bible study straight away.  Pastor Yonas said recently, “We are following up those trained and are really encouraged to hear stories of how they are putting the training into practice.”  Already Pastor Yonas is keen to have a return visit to cover other areas of the country.

What is happening in Ethiopia we are also seeing impacting the YBA church family with a number of churches already receiving training and support and encouragement as they step out in faith. 

If you would like to know how we can help you, please contact Peter at peter.dunn@yba.org.uk.