So much has happened again since the last newsletter!
A week ago, I returned from an amazing outreach that took place among an unreached tribe in Southern Ethiopia, called the Desenech. We did a full-blown crusade among these particular people, which resulted in a breakthrough of 239 registered decisions for Jesus during the event and 126 during the promotion campaign prior to it. All in all, 365 souls entered the kingdom of God in this extremely remote area where there is very little to no Christian witness.
The five pastors that work in the area said they’ve never seen anything like this among this tribe. The one pastor who has lived there for 40 years told us that no crusade has ever been done there before. Some people walked more than 60km on barefoot to get to the event. Many brought their amulets and juju to be burnt and surrendered their lives to JESUS.
Several notable miracles also took place. A man who had diabetes for 10 years and wasn’t even able to speak properly due to his condition, got totally healed. A lady with severe pain due to a tumor in the womb received her healing. She couldn’t feel the tumor anymore and the pain was gone. A young man who wasn’t able to walk properly due to pain, was able run on the stage.
What a joy and privilege it was to get to bring the gospel to this unreached tribe and see them saved, healed and delivered!
Afterwards, we also did some Kids Crusades in the area and the response was wonderful!
I hope to return to this area soon and reach out to the remaining unreached tribes that are dwelling there and haven’t heard the gospel yet. There are 16 of these unreached tribes living in the area called Omo Valley. They all practice different traditions that are very demonic. One of them is called “mingi”. A baby is declared “mingi” if it’s born out of wedlock, out of pregnancy that is not blessed by the tribe elders or if the baby’s upper teeth come out first! This “mingi” baby is considered cursed and would bring disaster upon the tribe and therefore must be killed. They drown these babies in the Omo river or leave them in the forest to die. Some of the tribes still practice this horrific tradition, among them the Hamer and Bana tribes where we plan on going next.
We did Kids Crusades among the Bana tribe and it was amazing to see how the Holy Spirit led us during those days. First of all, we needed a local translator, because the Bana children didn’t understand Amharic so well. So I had an impression that we should stop by a particular building and ask what it is. At the gate, we met five men in their twenties who told us that this place was a hostel for children from various difficult backgrounds: from extremely poor families, orphans or “mingi” children who had been rescued just before their death. In this center, they had a total of 50 kids, representing all the 16 tribes of the Omo Valley. One of the young men at the gate called John became our translator for the Kids Crusades because he was from the Bana tribe and knew the language and the area. Turned out that he was a born again believer whose dream was to become an evangelist. So for a couple of days, he ministered together with us and got to be the evangelist conveying our message to his own people in his own language. God’s sense of humor! John was greatly encouraged by this and invited us to come to the hostel and do our program there. That turned out to be one of my high lights of the whole trip. I got to share the gospel with the 50 plus children, who represented all the 16 Omo Valley tribes, and they all prayed the prayer of salvation. These kids are future leaders for their respective tribes. Only God knows, what will come out of these young lives and how He will use them to bring peace and salvation to their own people!
As I already mentioned, there are 16 tribes living in the Omo Valley and just like the Desenech, most of them haven’t had people come and share the gospel with them. That’s why they are still today sitting in spiritual darkness, practicing demonic traditions, such as the “mingi”. Someone needs to go there and bring them the gospel so that these atrocities will stop. The circumstances out there in these very remote areas are extremely challenging and that might well be the reason why people don’t go there with the gospel, but I together with my evangelist friend Marita from Sweden, have it on my heart to go to these tribes one by one and start as soon as possible. One crusade in the Omo Valley region costs around 10.000€ so we need a miracle! I’m asking you to please help us complete this mission so that these tribes will get to hear the gospel. Jesus will not return before every nation (=people group) has heard the message of salvation. Jesus reminds us of this in Matthew 24:14 and says: “This gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” We can hasten the coming of this day by doing what Jesus told us to do: TO GO AND PREACH THE GOSPEL TO ALL CREATION! You may not be able to go but you can enable others like me and Marita to go and that way do your share of the Great Commission and become a partner in this great harvest!
If you’d like to help me do this and in some way partner together with me in this great vision, please contact us at info@awakethenations.org. For financial contributions, our bank details can be found at the bottom of this email.
For more pictures from the crusade and the kids crusades, please scroll down to the picture gallery!
In case you’d like to see a short, touching video about the work of an organization that fights the practice of mingi in the Omo Valley, CLICK THIS LINK. The video is available only in English.
In April, I worked as a leader at the CfaN FireCamp in Germany. For 8 days, 56 students and 27 leaders from different nations got together to grow further in their calling as evangelists. Most of the students were in their twenties so this was a week that surely marked these young lives forever. During the outreaches in Cologne and Gießen, 171 people gave their lives to Jesus!!!!
There are more FireCamps coming up in Europe this year so if you’re called to be an evangelist, want more training and want be part of a global family, check out https://www.cfan.eu/firecamp/
Thank you for standing together with us in everything we do for Jesus! If you have any prayer requests, we would be honored and happy to pray for your needs. Please send us a message and let us know how we can pray for you and your loved ones.
