After two hours of sitting on the plane waiting to begin our 17-hour flight to Addis Ababa, we still hadn’t moved from our gate in Atlanta. It was going to be more than 19 hours before we got off the plane. I prayed that the Lord would give us his Spirit for the upcoming week in Ethiopia. I knew that my own strength and power would not be adequate.
My FAS co-worker Raj and I had accepted an invitation from an Ethiopian Asbury Seminary DMin student to teach and preach in this African country that had never been colonized. This was my first visit to Ethiopia, but I had come to love the Ethiopians I met as I oversaw the developing work of the Free Methodist Church on the continent of Europe. These Ethiopian Christians were working to develop a network to strengthen and encourage the faith of their brothers and sisters in the Lord within secular Europe.
Our primary focus for the week was to teach a four-day conference on holiness. Our host told us that Ethiopia desperately needs to hear the message of holiness—of the self-giving love of God which he desires to share with all.
From the first day of the conference, God’s Spirit was clearly present and at work in the hearts and minds of pastors, organization leaders, and young professionals from several denominations. The atmosphere was quiet, hushed, and reverent.
The faces of these 70 men and women showed expressions deep with emotion as they assimilated a biblically grounded message of what holiness really means and how much love and freedom God intends us to have. Our host pastor said, “I am learning new things! I didn’t realize that even in the Old Testament God is promising, ‘I am the LORD who makes you holy.’”
Others said:
- This is so understandable yet so deep.
- It’s going to take a while to digest all this.
- Wow! It’s not just up to me and my works, but God is the source of holiness.
- I loved the teaching that holiness starts with the Trinity. I’ve never heard that before.
One evening, I described God’s plan of salvation, which includes but does not stop with being forgiven of our sins and being made “fit” for heaven. I invited the group to pray to surrender all to Jesus and to be filled with the Holy Spirit—who promises to fill us with his life-changing love. Nearly everyone stood for prayer.
One young professional told me that after praying prayers of surrender and for the infilling of the Holy Spirit she felt great release. She reported a dramatic freedom in her prayer life and a peace that allowed her to sleep deeply—two areas of her life that had been a struggle.
Raj and I took the opportunity to describe our eyewitness experiences of the recent Outpouring in Wilmore. Out of Isaiah 64:1–3 and Joel 2:12–14, I showed the great truth of how God desires to come down to us and bless us with his holy presence.
We saw real hunger for God and his holy love. We saw hearts and minds filled to overflowing with God’s Spirit. We saw seeds of revival and awakening being planted to affect personal lives, local churches, the city of Addis Ababa, and Ethiopia. One pastor told me, “This week I am seeing a shift in how the church in Ethiopia does things.” May it be!
One of the many blessings from this trip was receiving invitations to return. Several denominational and organizational leaders expressed a desire to hear more and have invited us back to speak to their groups. One denomination has over 10 million members. Another inviting network includes all the evangelical denominations in Ethiopia. One Christian university has the goal to train 100,000 pastors within the next five years and would like us to help train them.
I continue to thank God for opening this door to be part of networking in this North African country. “Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the LORD Almighty” (Zechariah 4:6b).