Night Gives Way to Day in Ethiopia
An update from Michael Granger, Lead Pastor of Trinity Fellowship in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia…
October 31st, 2021 was a wonderful Sunday! It marked 10 months since our official launch as Trinity Fellowship. We had nearly 120 in attendance and there was a buzz of excitement that God was moving in very real ways. We had just finished our first expositional series through Philippians. The Pastors College was steaming ahead like a well-oiled machine. It was Reformation Day. And, it was my birthday.
Little did we know that all was about to change. That same day two cities just North of Addis Ababa were being taken by a rebel military. By Monday night the US Embassy had labeled Ethiopia a Red Level #4: Do not Travel, and was emailing all Americans to evacuate the country immediately. Daily we were being informed of the threat of an imminent Addis Ababa invasion by rebel forces. And by the following Sunday our church attendance was cut in half. The “movement" came to what felt like a screeching halt. A number of brothers approached me with tears in their eyes fearing the worst, saying, “I thought God was starting a gospel movement in our country.”
We experienced decisional fatigue. In light of the constant flood of information, it felt like we were making what could be, life-altering decisions on a daily basis. One friend put it like this, “I simply didn’t want to respond to anything with a question mark on the end of it.” And yet, questions kept coming, and decisions needed to be made. Do we stay or go?
Pastoral ministry is not something to be entered lightly. Nor is it to be exited lightly. My logic went something like this ... "If Christ the Good Shepherd could drain his veins for these saints at Trinity Fellowship, then surely I can endure a little difficultly as their under-shepherd. In John 10:12-13 Jesus says, 'He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.’" With this in mind I thought upon how Christ, the Good Shepherd, and owner of the sheep has made me an under-shepherd, and I'm to endeavor to be like him - "and he gave shepherds" (Eph. 4:11). My responsibility during a war is to equip His sheep for ministry. And at the time, that meant teaching them to be gospel-centered - to trust Jesus - even in a war. I was called to stay so as to ever be pointing to the Good Shepherd - precious Jesus.
So I stayed but I sent my family to the States. I stayed and we limped along for a while. For a while, Trinity Fellowship was a bruised reed, a smoldering wick. And we didn’t know if we’d make it. But he's a gentle and merciful savior, "a bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not quench."
November and December were bleak. Our Pastors College went online because our professors had travel issues due to the war and the Omicron variant. A number of professors flat out canceled on us. And the morale of our students, who really are the backbone of our church, plummeted. I had more brothers and sisters confess they were wrestling with suicidal thoughts in the past few months than in my whole life combined. But the Lord never left us. It was the right decision to stay, and I knew it the moment a single mother came up to me after a service saying, "I'm no longer afraid to die."
In late December my family returned to Ethiopia. We celebrated our 1-year anniversary as a church (pictured below). And by mid January it appeared that our baby church would survive. The threat of invasion has ceased as the rebels were pushed back and effectively defeated. Night gave way to day, and our limping slowly began to pick up running momentum once again.
In recent weeks our attendance has once again increased to over 100 and professors are traveling to Ethiopia to teach at the PC.
One recent story evidencing that the Son is shining upon us happened just last week. For several months a young man named Nebiyou from the Baha'i religion has had business dealings with an Ethiopian gentleman from our church named Joshua Mengisha. Recently Joshua was explaining the exclusivity of Christ for salvation from sins and it caught Nebiyou's attention. He said he wanted to learn more and Joshua directed him to reach out to me. Last Tuesday night Nebiyou contacted me asking if I would tell him more about Jesus because he was having suicidal thoughts. I shared with him the gospel and he made a confession of faith. We met two days later and more fully explained subsitiutionary atonement from Isaiah 53 and he said "I understand and I believe in Jesus, and I want to testify about him to everyone!" The Lord brought him from darkness into his marvelous light! What a gentle a merciful savior he is!
