A Brief History of the Lord’s move in Ethiopia
The Lord’s move in Ethiopia began in Addis Ababa with a group of young students. In 1998 several members of a campus fellowship in Addis Ababa, began to read the writings of Watchman Nee. Three years later, a little over fifty saints out of this group began to meet as the church in Addis Ababa according to the teaching of the Bible as opened up through Watchman Nee’s book, The Normal Christian Church Life. At that time the saints were unaware of anyone else meeting according to the ground of the church (Acts 13:1; Rev. 1:11). Four years later, in 2005, they joyfully established contact with brothers and sisters in other local churches. Since December of 2005 the saints have been enjoying the rich supply from the visitation of coworkers who have been ministering the truth and life supply through conferences held twice a year. These annual conferences have brought in much building up and perfecting to the church in Addis and the saints in Ethiopia over the years.
In 2008, an annual perfecting training began in Ethiopia to take care of the growing need of perfecting the saints in this part of Africa. This proved to be a source of much supply and perfecting, strengthening the Lord’s move in Ethiopia and establishing a channel of blending among the saints in Ethiopia and with the saints from Kenya and Uganda. In addition to these conferences and trainings, an International Blending Conference was held in Addis Ababa in 2013. The IBC was attended by approximately 2000 people, of whom about 180 were from sixteen countries outside of Ethiopia.
Over the years, the Lord has used the rich supply, perfecting, and blending through the conferences and trainings to raise up 34 places throughout Ethiopia where saints meet. The Lord has gained many fresh and young lives who are burdened and open to be sent out to the Full Time Training to be perfected and equipped to be useful vessels for the spreading of the Lord’s recovery.
Based on the desire and need for many that the Lord was gaining to be perfected for a longer period of time, saints began to apply to the Full-Time Training in Pretoria, South Africa. While the need for serving ones and the desire among many of the saints and younger ones among us to be perfected and trained was increasing, none of the saints who applied to the FTTP were able to go due to their inability to secure visas into South Africa. Aware of this growing need for trained, perfected, consecrated, and available serving ones, the co-working brothers who visit Africa fellowshipped that in the interim, while looking to the Lord to open the door to the FTTP, perhaps something in the way of a full time truth pursuit could be begun in Addis for the saints who had already given themselves to participate in the FTTP.
When this matter was made know to the saints in 2016, the response was beyond what was expected. Forty saints responded, some dropped their professional occupations, others put on-hold (or dropped altogether) their further pursuit of advanced degrees to participate in the Full-Time Pursuit. In August of 2016, the first group of those participating in the pursuit was 30. A year later, that number increased to 46 saints who were involved in the Pursuit. 24 saints have finished the entire two-year pursuit with a total of 36 presently involved. In addition to the renewed and deepened consecrations, perfecting in life and truth rendered, and increased function of all the saints who have passed through the Pursuit, the Lord has also gained 7 as a result of the Pursuit to serve in a job-dropping way. All of these are clear and strong indications that the Lord wants to raise up even more serving ones to strengthen and advance the spreading of the Lord’s testimony here in Ethiopia. The Pursuit has been a great step to propel the Lord’s move into another stage.
October 4-6, 2018 marked a very significant milestone for the churches not only in Ethiopia but also throughout the continent of Africa. The International Training for Elders and Responsible Ones was the first time one of the seven annual feasts in the Lord’s recovery was held in Africa. This training was a glorious time and representative of a monumental step in the Lord’s move in Ethiopia and on the continent of Africa as a whole. Conveying the Lord’s particular burden, the general subject—Propagating the Resurrected, Ascended, and All-Inclusive Christ as the Development of the Kingdom of God was fresh, enlightening, penetrating, and worthy of our cooperation. It was through Philip’s propagation of such a resurrected, ascended, and all-inclusive Christ that today there are many saints and churches in Ethiopia and on the continent of Africa. We believe that the Lord would indeed affirm that these churches are His kingdom. May the Lord, through the riches released during this feast, gain many saints in Ethiopia, Africa, and in His recovery to be the ones to propagate this Christ to develop into and enlarge His kingdom. May the Lord bring us all into such a living and labor to propagate Christ as the Firstborn Son of God, developing into the kingdom of God.
In Ethiopia, the propagation of the resurrected, ascended, and all-inclusive Christ has yielded over one thousand saints meeting in 25 localities throughout the country.