Ethiopia

Ethiopia is Africa’s 2nd most populous nation with around 100 million people. It has a GDP per capita of $570 p.a., compared to neighbouring Kenya’s $1’269.

Multiplier Ministries has supported the following projects in Ethiopia:

  • Missionaries to Muslims
  • Leadership training
  • Rehoboth Feeding & Study Centre
  • Seed money for income generating projects
  • Support to Shalom Academy primary school Nazret

.Missionaries to Muslims

Ethiopia is strategically placed with two war-torn Islamic countries on its borders: Somalia and Sudan. While Ethiopia is currently undergoing significant revival in its churches across all denominations, at the same time 34% of the population are Muslim.

Multiplier Ministries currently helps to support one missionary in southern Ethiopia who focuses on reaching Muslims for Christ. He is one of several ex-Muslims and therefore knows the Koran and the challenges faced by those who convert.

There are more trained missionaries needing financial support of $50/ month.

Leadership training

In rural areas, the Ethiopian Orthodox church is very dominant and for this reason evangelical churches often work together for evangelism and training. There is nevertheless a revival happening within the Orthodox Church with many coming to accept Christ as their personal saviour. This rapid expansion has created a great need for leadership training for new pastors and elders.

May 2016: In Addis Ababa, we gave leadership training to around 80 pastors and elders from 48 Kale Heywat churches (Word of Life) – the themes were making good leaders effective leaders, bringing breakthroughs and building a people movement. After the meeting, on their own initiative, they decided that all 48 congregations would continue to meet and pray for better breakthroughs and movement for evangelism work, church planting, and discipleship among other topics. We then travelled south to Mojo where we continued leadership training to around 60 leaders from several denominations who came together for the two day meeting. We also had the chance for two teaching sessions on marriage and children.

October 2017: Multiplier Ministries visited Wonji, Wolonchete, Nazerit and Modjo where we held church leadership meetings. These were attended by pastors and elders, which varied from town to town, from between 5 to 10 churches from various denominations.

Rehoboth Feeding and Training Centre

Rehoboth Feeding Centre in Addis Ababa was founded in 2011 by a husband and wife team who cashed in his pension to build the facilities. Their objective is to assist needy school children with lunch, a place to study, tutoring and school materials, as well as maintenance of personal hygiene. The project is registered with the government and has its own bank account.

Services provided:

  • Daily lunch and support for after school tuition to vulnerable children
  • second hand clothing, provide counselling on hygiene and a small library
  • food packs to the children before the holidays so that the children have enough to eat even when school is closed.

Seed money for income generating projects

In 2016, Multiplier Ministries helped women start small businesses with one time grants of around $250. The women used these funds to buy equipment and supplies to start small businesses such as tailoring, catering to conferences and hotels, or (popular in Ethiopia) preparation of spices. The economic impact for their families is profound and allows their husbands to focus more on church ministry as without additional income, pastors and church workers usually hold two jobs to make ends meet.

Nazret Genet Shalom Academy (primary school)

In Ethiopia in 2015, the literacy rate was 49.1%, which is one of the worst in Africa. Access to primary school is limited to urban locations and they are mostly owned by the private sector and Faith Based organizations. Primary school education consists of two cycles from grades 1 to 4 and grades 5 to 8. Secondary schools have two cycles from grades 9 to 10 and grades 11 to 12. Primary schools have over 90% of 7 year olds enrolled although only about half complete primary school and even fewer go on to secondary school. As a result, most families try to put their children in private schools but many cannot afford it.

In this part of Nazret, there is only one government primary school for a community of 32’000.

A group of local churches has constructed a primary school which is attended by 150 students. Their school fees are only 50% of what other private schools charge as their objective is to include as many needy children as possible. The school is well managed but lacks equipment and several children learn without desks. Those that are in desks are squeezed four children to a desk. The classrooms are also in poor condition, unpainted and with sandy floors. The school has classes from pre-primary to 4th year (5th year from 2018).

Budget and current funding

The school relies on the small school fees that parents are able to pay which amount to around €900 per month in total. From this they have to pay teachers and all school supplies. The highest teacher salary is €93 a month.

 

Pray for Ethiopia:

  • For the church leaders to have wisdom and that their zeal would not be dampened
  • For effective evangelism specially to the Muslim community
  • For the expansion of God’s kingdom