Ethiopia Newsletter

Joseph Chu（June to Aug, 2017）

        This Update was dispatched to you on today the 11th of September – which is the first day of the Ethiopian New Year of 2010. Let me first quote from Psalm 37:4-5 :

“Delight yourself in the Lord; and He will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He will do it.”

        These Scriptures assure us that when our joy is in the Lord, which means our abiding in Him producing the fruit of joy in the Spirit, He will grant us the desires of our heart. These verses will mean a lot to ACM as we are anticipating God-sent laborers in our ministries, men and women who are in the Light be our contracted paid workers, ‘Phrase by Phrase’ development of our Camp Site in the days ahead, and many others. Yes, commit our ways to the Lord, fully trust in Him, and He will accomplish it on our behalf!

The Prospect of a Youth Centre:　　In our original Proposal & Profile over 13 years ago, ACM has already projected these two arms of Ministry, namely the ‘Youth Camp’ and the ‘Youth Centre.’ In the original plan, these two were intended to be separate with the Youth Camp on our current Camp Site whereas the Youth Center would be somewhere in a strategic location in the Capital city. But due to the very high rental cost these days in Addis Ababa it is unfeasible for ACM to look for a place, say just around 300 to 400 sq. meters, to function as a Youth Centre.

        In various interaction with people, this idea of combining the ‘Youth Camp’ (targeting juniors from 7 to 15 years) and the ‘Youth Center’ on our Camp Site has been very positive. Unlike the Camping outreach, the Youth Center will focus on older youth from 15 to 19 but not excluding those in their 20’s. Besides those more affluent residential areas such as Ayat Villages and Summit, let me present these statistics of those government Condominium (for the mass of people) close to our Camp Site: a) Yeka Abado Condominium with an anticipated population of 43,000; b) Yeka Ayat Condo. 1 around 15,000; c) Yeka Ayat Condo.2 around 17,000; d) Chofa Ayat Condo.1 around 35,000; e) Chofa Ayat Condo. 2 around 23,000. Out of the total combined population of these 5 Condominium Complex of up to 133,000, 40% will be youth and children. So clearly the city people are moving steadily to our area close to the border of Addis Ababa which means New Flower in Amharic.

        The ‘Abyssinia Youth Centre’ may likely be incorporated into the Final Phrase of the development of our 2,200 sq. m Camp Site. Like the Youth Camp, the Center will also be Bible oriented. Besides facilities like library and canteen, there will be regular “Scriptural Counseling” service plus weekly ‘Film Show’ and Bible clubs. We also envision ‘Language Classes’ say teaching English & French & Mandarin, ‘Musical Instruments classes’, and ‘Computer Classes’ etc. Bible time is not optional but it will accompany whatever Classes being tailored out for the Youth.

Wait patiently for the Lord:　　Patience is something that none of God’s people can be exempted from here in Ethiopia. We have been waiting for the new City Master Plan for over 9 months now. It was told us about one month ago that the City mayor had affixed his important signature on this set of documents, which still need the final binding and may likely to emerge during the New Year months.

        We must pray without ceasing for the laborers ACM has been waiting for, whether a couple to serve as our Programmer or the vital big brothers and big sisters for our overall program and expansion. Prayer is our responsibility whereas thrusting forth laborers is the sole work only the Lord of harvest can accomplish.

        Lack of patience will always lead to compromise, which we could recall painfully with our employees at ACM. We do always pray for children of Light yet without patience we, with Joseph in particular, were tempted to employ people with certain skills yet clearly without Christ. In every case of such compromise, without a single exception, our Camping Ministry suffered ending in things dishonoring the name of our Lord.

Transference of vehicles finally accomplished:　　This is another praise item that with the good cooperation of SIM Personnel here and with our amended Constitution authorizing our manager to sell and to buy, the whole transference was finally completed by the end of August.

The Gospel booklet Outreach:　　Over one month ago the reprint of ‘The Mystery of the Cross’ in Amharic came out. 3000 booklets were printed costing 3.60 birrs each. Pray for the effective distribution of this Amharic booklet and may some be taken up to the Orthodox north spreading far and wide in this ancient land.

        With funds (contributions up to around 50,000 birrs) said to be available in Hong Kong, we are ready for the printing a new Gospel booklet ‘Born from heaven’ with 7000 in Amharic, 5000 in English, and for the first time planning to print 3000 copies in Chinese. It is still quite small in view of over 100,000 Chinese from mainland China in Ethiopia these days. This booklet’s theme will be on repentance in relation to new birth from heaven. It will boldly tackle all those most deadly obstacles that have been blinding millions from finding the path of life to God. Thus this booklet could offend particularly those who are deeply religious yet devoid of the Spirit of Christ. Let’s hold up this Gospel booklet ministry before His throne of grace!

Download PDF Version (English)
下載 阿比西尼亞營工 回應表