Well, good evening, everyone. I am thrilled to be with you tonight. I am especially thankful tonight for the opportunity to share with you. Something that I feel very passionately about, and that is the gospel of Jesus Christ. It's the gospel that I know many of you have come to believe and share in. But it's a gospel that doesn't just impact individuals.

It's a gospel that impacts people all over the world. That impacts people in every different culture. It's a gospel that brings people together, united. and I am eager and excited to share with you the gospel work in Ethiopia that I have done this year that you were a part in helping me do this year. My friends and I, I traveled with a team of four people.

I'll show you a little better picture here. It was myself, Rachel Ustry, Ryan Harrison, and his daughter Aiden Harrison. We traveled 8, 000 miles. To the other side of the world, to Ethiopia, where we traveled to about five or six different places. We talked to thousands of people. We made numerous contacts with people who had never heard the gospel before.

And we passed out hundreds of Bibles spreading God's word all over the Ethiopian countryside. Bibles that you helped to purchase so that we could share God's message with people. And so I just want to say As I start this presentation, thank you for participating in this work with me, because the fact is, I may be the one that goes, but the work that I do is Kingdom work, and it's work that we are all involved in, no matter if you go 8, 000 miles to the other side of the world, or if you do it right here at home, we are all working towards the same goal, and that is to make Jesus Christ known in this world as Lord and Savior, because the fact is, there is going to come a day, When every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God.

We believe in that coming reality. And that's why we live as we do, as Christians. And that's why we go out into the world. Because we are citizens of the kingdom. And we are on a mission. And so I want to encourage you to think about that. To realize that the work that we do is meaningful and valuable.

Not just here in this place, but all over the world as we are making Jesus known. In a world that so desperately needs Him. Not just here in this place, but all over the world. So thank you so much. You know, I've, I've heard a lot about this church from Reagan. Reagan has made more trips out to visit me than I've made trips out to visit here.

And now I've learned that. That's a tough trip, let me tell you. But I am thankful that you all have shared Him with us. But let me just say to this church, I am thankful to finally be with you. I've heard so many good things about this church. About what you are doing to prepare the next generation. What you are doing to further the borders of the kingdom.

And let me tell you what you are doing as a church. people in other places to be more faithful, to be more committed, to get involved and invested in their children and the work that God has called us to do in our families. So thank you for your faithfulness. Thank you for what you stand for as a church.

And I hope that tonight, by our time together, I can help build our fellowship just a little bit stronger by talking about the kingdom work that we all do. Now I want to start my presentation about Ethiopia by, by asking you a question. Who is Jesus to you? At one of our stops out in the Ethiopian countryside, one of my fellow Ethiopian coworkers sat down with a man.

And he was trying to talk to him about the gospel. And he asked him that very simple and profound question. Who is Jesus to you? And it struck me how important and critical that question is. Because, you know, a lot of people, they, they know things about Jesus. And in fact, this man that he asked the question to, he knew some things.

He's the son of God, he's Savior of the world. It kind of took the man off guard, but, but I realize that as I listen to that conversation unfold, that is a question we should be asking ourselves each and every day, because the reality of the gospel is not that Jesus just wants to, us to accumulate facts about Him.

He wants us to come to know who He is, so that it will change us. It will impact us. It will motivate us. To be very different than who we were before. Who is Jesus to you? I can tell you, as I have pondered that question, that has become a very critical and important question in my ministry. Because the fact is, Jesus is a reason for me to go 8, 000 miles to the other side of the world to talk to people about Him.

And that's very profound and very important. We need to examine our why and understand why. So, let me just give you some points of reference for, about Ethiopia. So we started our trip here at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport. We flew over to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, which is the capital. Ethiopia is located in the Horn of Africa.

It's landlocked. You can't really tell on this map. There's a little sliver of land that runs there along the side. And why that is significant is it means that Ethiopia does not have any access to ports for trade, and so it makes it very difficult for them to import and export the things that they need.

There's often border conflicts with the, the nations there. And so the result is, Ethiopia is a third world country that looks like it's going to remain that way for quite some time because of a lot of the challenges that they face. Now, let me just give you a little some statistics and some information about Ethiopia so you can know kind of what we've gotten ourselves into.

Ethiopia is about twice the size of Texas and you can see the capital of Addis Ababa is about smack dab in the middle. And it has about four times the population. So it's by no means a small country. In fact, most of the population is in this circle right here, in that lush green area out there in the east.

It's mostly desert, and so there's not a lot of folks out there. But there are a lot of people here in Ethiopia, and it's a largely tribal country. And within this country, there are more than 86 different languages. Right now there are documented 86 different languages, but they continue to discover more, because The fact is, in some of these remote places, they're still speaking languages that nobody really knows and understands.

And I want to bring this up because this presents a significant challenge to our work. There are times when we will travel a distance of, a couple of miles, and we will run into people who speak two completely different languages, and they cannot communicate with one another at all. You can see how that would make our work very complicated.

Now there is a national language called Amharic that most people can at least comprehend or understand in some form or fashion, but even still, as we push out farther into these remote villages that we are working in, sometimes it requires that we have Two, sometimes even three translators. And so you can imagine, it's a challenge as we're trying to share the gospel.

But let me tell you, these challenges, they don't keep us from going. We go and we find a way to talk to these people about Jesus. Another statistic up here that you can see is that literacy is only about 50%. What that means very practically, is if I were to give a Bible to two different people, Only one of them can read that.

Now, you can imagine, here we are trying to take the gospel into the world, and people can't even read it. And people like you know as well as I do, we believe in the power of the gospel. But how do we deal with this when people can't read it? And so we've been looking into some different options. I'll have more to say about this at the end of my presentation.

Perhaps some audio Bibles that people can listen to. But this presents a very significant challenge Now having said that, I want you to notice the statistic below that. Ages 15 through 24. Literacy is much higher. That's because in Ethiopia they've been making a significant push to educate the next generation because the fact is, being a third world country, they, they need some people to come in and help develop their infrastructure and educating them is one of the best things that they can do.

And so the country as a whole has, has invested a lot in educating this next generation. And what we've found is that not only is there an educated generation, but there's a generation that Eager to know about God's word, to pick up anything and everything that we will give them and digest it and learn about it and live it.

And so we have put a significant focus on this generation as they are the ones that are able to read even in English and communicate. And so we are, we are making a lot of efforts to try to prepare these people to go back out into these villages and not just teach, but teaching their local languages to their people.

That's important. Now, religiously, I turned this thing off. I'm not good with technology. Y'all will have to forgive me. Religiously Ethiopia is dominated by Orthodox religions and Islam. Now, Orthodox is a lot like Catholicism here. It's very traditional. It's very family oriented. It has a lot of ties with the political system there.

And so, people are at least in many ways familiar with With concepts from the Bible. They're familiar with Jesus, but obviously they have a little bit of a skewed perspective there. But it gives us a lot of opportunity to begin conversations with people. Like, who is Jesus to you? But I want you to notice also, Islam is a pretty big deal in Ethiopia.

That whole eastern side, even though it's a lot of desert land, that's dominated by Islam. And they're making further pushes inward, as you can see there. But you notice that blue section down there at the bottom. That's where we're working, the Protestant area. That is a growing population. Where many people are beginning to get disenchanted with these other religions that don't really offer them hope, that doesn't really offer them answers, that has not been corrupted.

And listen, I'm not saying that our form of religion cannot be corrupted, but I tell you what, when you give people the gospel, the gospel is powerful to change their life. And that number is increasing. That 19%? That used to be significantly lower. I believe that's doubled in the past 10 years because more and more people are coming to realize that the gospel is very simple.

That it doesn't require some big system with somebody at the top telling you what to do. What it requires is trusting God and accepting that Jesus is the only way. Now you can see though, we're kind of up against the wall with these religions. There's a lot of challenges that we face when we go into this work.

But we still go, because Jesus to us is a reason to go. We want people to know the truth that sets them free. Now while I'm speaking about challenges, let me just tell you the last challenge that we have. And that is, If you've ever been to a third world country, you know that getting around is no joke. Infrastructure is terrible.

And besides that, anyone and everyone gets to use the road. I've got a, a video here. Now I wish I'd have brought a better video, but this is one of the better roads that we drove on when we were out there. Typically we're driving on unpaved roads, but I want you to notice that these roads that we're driving on, they're shared by everyone.

And everything. And anything goes. I mean, really what I have found in Ethiopia when you're traveling is whoever honks the loudest and moves the fastest gets to go first and has the right of way. But what I, what we see here is we see people on donkey carts. We see these massive pieces of equipment machinery that will just break down on the side of the road.

And people will just leave them there because they don't have the ability to, to fix them. We share the road with these bajajs, those, those, those. funky little blue things driving around with motorcycles with people anything and everything is on the road And so what might take us an hour to get from point a to point b will take us Maybe three to four hours because the fact is we have to go very, very fast There are a lot of potholes.

There is a lot of roads that are just simply undeveloped. And it is difficult. I was very thankful for this road this year. That's part of the reason I took this video. Because when you're in a car doing this for 3 or 4 hours, it kind of jars your brain a little bit. And it kind of wears you out. And we're going to these remote villages that are 3 or 4 hours out and 3 or 4 hours back.

Makes for a long day, but it doesn't keep us from going. I want to make sure I say that. I don't share these things with you to denigrate their way of life or to complain in any way. The fact is these are just realities on the ground that we have to deal with. Logistics that we have to consider, but it's worth it.

It's worth it. Now these are just some other pictures I want to show you. They travel very differently than us. There's lots of interesting experiences. This is one of my favorite ones. Five people on a motorcycle. I would not recommend that. One out of five stars. We, we drove next to this guy for quite a while and I just kept waiting for him to tip over.

I have no idea how that works. It was interesting. But, but this is their life. It's very different than ours. But it's just different. That's all it is. When we go over to Ethiopia, we have a very, established group of people that we work with and I want to make sure I say that because I know and I have experienced that oftentimes in foreign work people will pop up and they will ask for help and nobody really knows anything about them.

That is not the case with this work in Ethiopia. The work in Ethiopia, I'll tell you a little bit more about the history here in just a moment, but this is a work that's been going on since the 1970s. The men that are working in In the Ethiopian gospel work right now, have been preaching the gospel for 30, 40 years.

These are established and mature men that we are working with. They're not just people who are taking our money and running. We know exactly what they are doing. We know exactly what they are teaching. And so these are the people that we work with. And I just want to introduce you to them so you can, See their faces and know them.

This is Mespin. He's probably one of my my favorite Ethiopians. I call him my spirit animal. And that's his wife, Ginette. He's a very passionate man. And he makes every one of my sermons sound so much better the way he translates. I said, I don't know. There was often times I'll look at him and say, I don't know what you just said, but it sounded awesome.

He works with a church in Addis Ababa. called the Sephora congregation. That church is about 15 years old. His father is also a gospel preacher who, in fact, was one of the key men in establishing a lot of our countryside work. His father, Marcos. Converted, and became very passionate about sharing the gospel.

In fact, he will talk to anyone, even if you don't want to listen to him about the gospel. And many of the men that we work with, even to this day, are, are men who were converted by the efforts of his father Marcos. And so, he comes from a family that is very passionate about kingdom. And Mesfin is very important to us because he speaks four different languages.

Four different languages. Very well. Very well. And the areas that we go to, he speaks those local languages because those are the areas where he came from. And those are his people. And so he helps us really connect with those folks. This is Tishala. He's another one of our translators. He works with the Derame Church, which is one of the most southern churches that we work with.

Tishala has seven churches. Children and counting. I think that's his hobby, but he is an excellent father and excellent gospel Preacher, one of the things I am most impressed about Tushala is his intensity for the gospel. He doesn't just focus on his local work. He, he is constantly having Bible studies, but he has not neglected his family.

And, and why that impresses me is I, I have come to learn as a gospel preacher, it's really easy to get out of balance. But here is a man who is even while I'm over there instructing me to make sure I am teaching my family to know the gospel. And I see it in his life. Because he also is teaching his kids.

In fact, his oldest son, Samara, is in school right now in Addis, and he's learning some new languages so that he can come along with us. He can be a translator. He can continue this wonderful gospel work that we are doing. He's looking towards the future. He's got a bigger picture than just himself. You know, I have learned in foreign work, you know, it's very easy to feel like you're going and giving something to them.

But what I have found, This is the nature of fellowship. You go, and we get just as much from them.

And that's God's wisdom in the church. We all have something to give and we all have something we need to receive. And we need to be humble enough to realize that. And I have come to appreciate that. When I go here to Ethiopia, these people have so much to give, so much to offer, so much wisdom and insight.

And the fact is, their very different circumstance often gives us clarity about what is important. And I always feel like I come back here From Ethiopia with better focus on the power of the gospel and the need of the gospel and what it does in our lives to bring us together. So that's Tishalah. This next young man is Misgana.

This was his first time traveling with us. Misgana is 26 years old. He's a young professional. His father is a gospel preacher down in the countryside. Works with a church called Ansha, one of the largest, most established churches in the countryside. And so Misgana is very familiar with the church. And currently he is working as a young professional, as a chemist, but he is very interested in getting involved in the gospel work that we're doing.

So I brought him along because his English is developing very well. His translation is getting very good. And he has a heart to do this work, and that's critical. That's critical. We need more people like him who are willing to invest their time. The fact is he took off two weeks to come and spend with us while we were traveling at his own expense.

Now we helped him and the church here helped support him as he came along with us. But that's a big deal when you have someone who is willing to sacrifice for the gospel. It's very profound because to him Jesus is a reason to do all of those things. He's a reason to be with us and to invest his time in hearing and learning and growing because this works.

It's kingdom work. Miss Ghana. I, I've continued to talk to Miss Ghana, in fact in the, in the past, I guess it's been the past month, he and another man have recently started a church in the Addis area. Miss Ghana recently moved to a new area with his job, and there was not a local church meeting there.

And so he and another man and his family have begun that work. They've been reaching out in their community. They are very active and diligent in trying to make Jesus known. In fact, whenever I talked to him, he said, We have been proclaiming Jesus in our area. I love the way that they talk about their faith.

This next man is Elias. Elias is our driver, which makes him very important. Because the fact is, we can't navigate some of these places without him. Somebody like him. And we bring him back year after year after year. We say, I'm not going anywhere without Elias. Because Elias doesn't just drive us, he protects us.

He tells us where to walk, he tells us where to look, he tells us where to put our wallets. So people don't take them. A very important detail. But, but he ensures that we are taken care of no matter where we go. And he does that. Because we have come to tell people about Jesus. You know, one of the most important things about fellowship that I have learned from these Ethiopians is they don't really know us, but they know that we love Jesus.

And they will go out of their way for us. Because that is significant. That's a reason to, to invest your time and to take care of people. Elias loves us very deeply and we love him the same. The final person I want to introduce you to is Zerahun. We call him Big Z. He is probably the key man. In fact, a lot of the work that we do began with him.

When he met a couple named Fay and Dartha Starr. I have more to say about them. More in just a moment, but Zerahun works with a church in Addis called the Kotzebue Church. It is a very well established church. He has three children who are all faithful to the Lord. And Zerahun is the man who organizes the logistics of everywhere that we go.

He is a well respected man who has been preaching the gospel for more than 40 years faithfully. And he continues to do that year after year. He's the one that keeps this work going. Now let me just give you a little bit of history. I mentioned that this work did not begin with me. It began in the 1970s.

There was a couple named Fay and Dartha Starr. They were Americans. Dartha was a university professor. And he was interested in going and doing foreign work. Really what they wanted to do was connect with Christians in other countries. And so, He and his wife moved to Ethiopia where he taught at the university there in Addis.

But they ran into some challenges. They weren't able to find any churches of Christ in Ethiopia at the time. Aside from the churches of Christ that were associated with the mission system. Now what the mission system was, it was basically a A sponsoring church arrangement. You had this one mission that had leadership, and they received money from American churches, and those people in the mission would decide who, who preached what and where they went.

Now, now you can see how that's not right, can't you? That's not God's design. for the churches, that you completely lose church autonomy when you start doing that. But what's interesting is that when Phae and Darthastar showed up, the Ethiopians were already starting to see the fallacy of this system. In fact, they saw the corruption of this system before they saw the biblical need to, to move away from this system.

And Darthastar showed up Zerahun was a young man. preaching in the mission system. And he was very discontent with the corruption, with these men who were trying to tell him what to preach, and were using their money to leverage that and so he was trying to find a way out of that. He was trying to find a way so that he could just teach the gospel.

The way God intended the gospel to be taught for local churches to support local preachers. And so they worked with him, and they tried to help him, but something happened in the late 1970s. There was a revolution in Ethiopia, and so all foreign nationals were forced to leave, and Faye and Darth Astar had to come back to the United States.

But they stayed in contact with the Ethiopians. And even after Dartha Star died, his wife Faye continued to be in contact with Zerahun, asking how can we help? She really wanted the church to grow and to develop. And during her time, she came across a man named David Pickup, you may be familiar with the name, who is a preacher.

And David Pickup at the time was doing a lot of preacher training. type stuff here in the United States. And, and Darth Faye rather, just happened to run across this and she thought that would be a great thing for the Ethiopians to have somebody come and just help these men, educate them about what the scriptures say, equip them to go out into these other places and spread the gospel.

And so she got together with David Pickup And proposed the idea that he go over to Ethiopia and he work with there, and they got in contact with one another. And as you can see there, in 1999, David Pickup made his first trip along with Melvin Curry, Bob Owen, and one other man who is escaping me. I didn't put him on the slide.

Their first trip in 1999. And they worked in Addis, the capital city. And they worked with preachers. They did preacher training. And what they realized was there was a great need for this. But they also realized they were a little bit too old to be doing this work. And so, when they came back to the United States these men started teaching.

Recruiting other preachers to go over there with them. And the two men that got recruited that decided to make the trip were David Holder and Randy Harshbarger. Two names you may be familiar with. David Holder works in the Fort Worth area with the Castleberry Church, and consequently he's my father in law.

And Randy Harshbarger works up in Nacogdoches with the Stallings Drive Company. And beginning in 2000, both of those men started going to Ethiopia and teaching preachers. Now they realized pretty quickly that in the city, in the capital of Addis, it was very difficult to do the work. Because travel is difficult.

The traffic is horrific in Addis, and it's expensive. And they connected with Zerhoun and with Mesfin, and discovered that there was a lot of opportunity in the Ethiopian countryside, specifically south. So these men started pushing their way out into the countryside. Year after year, pushing farther and farther.

And for 20 years, these men, David Holder, Randy Harshberger, they, they took many men along with them. Curtis Pope, you may know that name. He's been over there with them. They went out into the Ethiopian countryside. And where? At first, there was only a handful of sound, faithful congregations. Here, after about 20 plus years of their work, there are more than 300 autonomous Churches of Christ teaching the Gospel that are locally supported and that are supporting local preachers as a result of the work that these men are doing.

So this is a work that has been going on for some time. And when I was introduced to this work, or rather brought into this work in 2020, I came into this dynamic where there was already a lot of churches that existed, and they needed encouragement, they needed edification, they needed to be educated even further.

And this new generation needed to be taught. And so that's why in 2020, David brought me along. He finally brought me into the family business, as I like to say. I told him it took him long enough. You know, I grew up at Castleberry hearing all of his presentations about Ethiopian. I was chomping at the bit.

I went, I said, I know these people already. Those are my people. Let me go. He said, You're not ready yet. You can see I'm a little eager beaver sometimes. He finally brought me. And that same year, Randy Harshbarger brought with him Ryan Harrison. Now, Ryan Harrison is not a gospel preacher, but he is a deacon at the University Oaks Church of Christ in San Antonio, Texas.

For And Ryan and I immediately hit it off, and we both, when we were there, found that this was a work that needed to continue and that we needed to be a part of. And after a lot of prayerful consideration, he and I decided that we were going to do this work together to help equip this next generation.

To, to give them the resources and the connection with the Americans that they needed in order to establish their church. Now let me, their churches. Now let me tell you this. It is, and it's important that I tell you this. This is a work that needs to continue. Not because we want to continue to nurse these churches along.

Not because we want to continue to be their only source of gospel work. But because in Ethiopia, they still severely lack the resources that we so easily take for granted. Getting your hands on Bibles is difficult and expensive. And a lot of times these men are studying with people and they cannot get their hands on Bibles.

That's a big initiative I'm going to talk about at the end of this presentation. They need our resources. They need our help to continue to do that. We take for granted that if we have questions about the Bible, we can just go talk to our local preacher, or we can get on Google, or we can find a book about it.

They don't have Google! And what they do have on Google is not very helpful. It's not in their language. The local preachers are still very limited, because the fact is there's a generation of preachers in Ethiopia right now who don't have the education to be able to answer the difficult questions. Now, don't get me wrong, these men know the gospel.

But they are having to give answers to this younger generation who is educated, who has very difficult questions at times. And so a lot of our work is trying to help fill in those gaps as we are also at the same time giving them the resources that they need to establish themselves firm in their faith.

And one of the things we continue to try to remind them, both the older and the younger generation, that is that the gospel is not complicated. It's not complicated. You, you may, you may have more learning than someone else, but the gospel does not change no matter how much you read it, no matter how much you learn about it.

The gospel is very simple. Jesus Christ came to this earth and died to save us from our sins, and he has established a kingdom over which he is king, and he is giving us an opportunity to have peace and life with him if we will follow him. That is the gospel. And everyone is looking for what Jesus has to offer.

And so, one of the things that we do when we go over there is we try to remind both sides. This is not a tug of war about who knows the most. It's about reminding ourselves that the gospel is powerful, that fellowship is critical, and that we gotta love one another. And that's why we continue to be involved in this work, because there's still some rough edges that need to be massaged out as they're establishing themselves.

Now, when we go here to Ethiopia, we have three very clear objectives, and I've already kind of mentioned these things. We go to encourage churches, because the fact is, a lot of these churches that are out in these remote villages, three or four hours away, sometimes they wonder if they're the only ones doing this stuff.

And so we go and we encourage them. We talk to them about Jesus. We spend days with them. We eat in their homes. We, we, we. Invest in fellowship. That's something that we are very sure to do. We don't just go preach and leave. We make sure that we are there for them. Because listen, the gospel brings people together.

It brings people together in fellowship. It brings our lives together. People who are so vastly different need reminders of that from time to time. So we go and we spend time with these churches. They often have these big they're basically like gospel meetings, but they're tent meetings. They set up big tents outside and people from all over come to see us.

And then we teach preachers. I've already mentioned this. We have times when it's just us and these men. We usually work through a book of the Bible, but our goal in teaching the preachers is to give them material to be able to go back to their home congregations and teach them. And then finally, we equip the next generation.

Obviously, this is, you know, This is the responsibility of every church. This is what kingdom work is about. Looking ahead and looking behind and making sure they are ready. But again, we have put a special focus on this because we believe that in the Ethiopian gospel work the next generation is going to be critical in establishing churches, in establishing the trajectory.

Now God's going to do what God's going to do. But we're doing our best to give them the tools that they need to be able to go into all the world. Now on this trip, I, I won't go into it extensively for the sake of time. If you would like more information about what we did specifically each day, I wrote a blog while I was over there in Ethiopia.

And I'll make that available if you would like to see that. But here's just kind of a brief overview of our trip. This was the shortest trip we've taken so far. We were in country only about 11 days. Usually when we go, we stay for about two and a half to three weeks because, quite frankly, to get where we need to go takes that much time.

But this year, we had two women with us, and if I'm being honest, we wanted them to have a really good experience because we're trying to get more women involved in this work. And so we shortened it. We only made we, we traveled to Addis and then we traveled down to the Hosanna region. And we didn't do a lot of moving around so that they could kind of get their feet under them.

But basically what our trip looked like is we traveled down to this, this place called Hosanna. We stayed and we did countryside work out in the villages. And then we stayed in Hosanna. And we brought people to us where we did these focus groups, youth events, and then we ended by going back to Addis where we spent some time with the preachers and with the churches.

Now the area that we went Hosanna it's about six hours by car. And, and thankfully there, half of that is now a paved highway, so we get to do a, a big part of our trip. Smoothly, and we can catch up on our rest after we've flown on a, on a plane. By, by the way, it takes about a day and a half to get there by plane to Ethiopia.

It's, it's a lot of traveling, and that'll wear you out. But it's worth it, I'll tell you that much. So getting down to Hosanna, we stay what we do is we stay in hotels, and then each day we travel out, out to these different countryside locations. People have asked why we don't stay in the countryside villages, and I'll tell you plainly, it's because it's not safe.

We're in a country that we are very white, quite frankly, and we stick out. In fact, if we, if we sit still too long, a crowd starts to form because most people have never seen a white person before. And there, there are some dangers associated with that. Some of it's religious, some of it's political.

And so what we do every day is we, we drive out to these countryside villages, and that usually takes us three or four hours, and so we're in a car. Six to seven hours a day, but, but what's wonderful about that is that gives us some additional time with our co workers to talk to them about their lives and their families.

So this year we went to Hosanna, we went east and we went west, we went to a city called Moloto and a city called Bucha, or village rather where, where we did some which is in the mountains. In fact, if you've ever seen pictures of Ethiopia you've probably seen pictures from the Hosanna region.

It's, in my opinion, it's a very beautiful. country. They grow something called teff, which is a lot like wheat. That's their primary export next to right after coffee, of course, which we drink a lot of when we're there. Buna is the word you want to remember if you're in Ethiopia. That means coffee. I don't know many words, but I'm learning the important ones, of course.

So countryside work, and when we pull into the villages, this is usually what we're greeted with. The children will chase us. There are lots of smiles. They are just thrilled that we have come to see them. They come and press their faces up against the glass, which if that's, if it's your first time doing it, it's a little intimidating.

I imagine it's what celebrities feel like when the paparazzi's trying to get pictures of them. But just look at the joy on their faces. They are thrilled. And this continues into our worship services. As I mentioned, when we show up, there's usually already a tent set up. There's usually about two or three hundred people already there.

Because to, to these people, Jesus is a reason to come and sit and wait. For someone to come and teach them about the gospel. In fact, many of these people have traveled from other local countryside villages. Some people traveling long distances. In fact, I met a man who had traveled more than 600 miles on a donkey cart, by foot, in various different ways, to be with us.

And I, you know, I, obviously I know why he was there. But he told me, he said, this is worth it. It's worth it to be with God's people, to hear the Word of God, to hear what you are offering. Man, that puts some pressure on us, I tell you what. I tell my buddy, I say, we better bring it. These people are no joke.

We are here to give them the Gospel, let's give them what they came for. And that's what we do. We come and we stay as long as they want us to. In fact, there are many times we will, we will teach them. And we'll finish our program, as they call it, and they'll say, And they just keep sitting. They just keep sitting.

And they just keep sitting. And we will teach as long as they want us to. Because to them, Jesus is a reason to listen. A reason to learn. A reason to sit there. Now here at Molotow, we probably had a crowd of about 400 people singing and praying. At Bucha we had about 300. This is some singing at Bucha.

I'm not going to have sound, am I? I warned you guys, I was going to throw you under the bus.

Oh, here we go, alright.

I don't

know if you've learned this from me at this point, but I'm someone who likes to be involved in what's going on. And oftentimes, I don't, I mean, obviously, I don't know what's going on, what they're saying, as they're singing. So I'll lean over to my translator and I'll say, Hey, tell me what they're saying, because if I can't sing with my words, I at least want to sing with my spirit, right?

And what I have found is many of the songs that they sing, Are about the mercy of God and the power of God and asking God to help them because you see these people their circumstances are very different than ours and they have a very clear understanding that they are at the mercy of God and they acknowledge that and it makes them a very humble people.

In fact, in many of the places where we go, they have dirt floors and at the end of every service, they get on the floor and they pray on their hands and knees. In fact, I had one Ethiopian man tell me, we're not afraid to be humble before our God because we know that He will provide for us. Now, I tell you, I'm always very challenged by that.

And look, I don't want to rag on us Americans who sit on our padded pews. As you can see, I do the same thing. I sit on the padded pews. But I tell you what, our brethren that live in very different and difficult conditions, they, they admonish us to, to think about why we come and what Jesus means to us.

Because the fact is, they, they sit in conditions that are much more difficult than we sit in every week. But they have already decided, this is worth it. And they will sit there as long as they need to. You know, we struggle sometimes to sit through an hour, sir, how long are you preaching these days? An hour?

Two hours? How, however long Reagan goes, right? It's hard to listen to him sometimes. I know. But you know, it's because we haven't fixed in our minds. This is important to us. Because the reality is, when something's important, we make time for it, don't we? Listen, when I go over here, I see people. I see people who have decided Jesus is so important to me.

That I will sit there and I will listen. I will take in his word. I will join in the fellowship. I will sing with my spirit. I will encourage one another because it is worth my time. You know, that's a good encouragement to us. To see that there are people on the other side of the world that Jesus means that much to them.

I'm sure he means that much to us too, but sometimes we forget, don't we? When it's easy, when it's easy. These people are just thrilled that we are there, and these are your brethren. These are the people that we have fellowship with. You know, every time I go to Ethiopia, my concept of fellowship changes because these people are so vastly different than us.

They're not just a different color, they speak different languages, they have different life circumstances. But we have one critical thing in common. that brings this kind of joy to our faces. It is Jesus Christ and His salvation, His lordship in our life. It is a wonderful thing that has brought us together.

And when they sit, they will listen attentively. I always love when it's not my turn and I'm sitting back watching. The faces on these people, they are paying attention to the things that we have to say. Now, when we go to the countryside villages, we usually have a pretty standard order. We'll get there, and whenever they finally stop singing, whenever that is, we will usually preach one lesson.

And then we'll do breakout sessions this year. Since we had women, they took the the women and children into another room. And we, we took the men into another place. And then we would come back together all at the end. But as you can see, some of these places that we are having our breakout sessions, they, they were packed to the brim.

Because people just want to be in the room when, when teaching is being done. In fact, this was one of the most difficult spaces that we were in. You can tell, you see, it's dimly lit. There's no air conditioner in there, I can tell you that. But by the end, I had men sitting on the floor all there in front of me because they just wanted to be in the room while we were talking about what the Bible had to say.

Now, following these countryside visits, we did what we call focus groups. And essentially what focus groups are, They are youth weekends, essentially. We invite these people that are in the younger demographics, who are active and involved in their church, to come and participate with us. And we help them financially make the trips.

In fact, some of the money that you gave me to take with me on this trip, we use to help people come. to Hosanna to be part of these focus groups. And we gave them a place to stay, we gave them food to eat, and we rented the place, and we gave them Bibles. And we did two of these different focus groups.

One of them was in Hosanna. Now, Hosanna is a college town, and so there are lots of young people there. And this focus group in Hosanna, we had more than 200 people in attendance. And then south in Derame, we did another focus group, which was essentially the same thing. We had 200 people there. And as you can imagine, when you get a room full of young 20 somethings, there's a lot of energy, a lot of enthusiasm.

They are very idealistic, and they were very eager to hear what we had to say. You can see this is the group in Hosanna, and this is the group. And I recorded some of their singing as well.

I I don't remember exactly what that song means, but I wrote down a few of the thoughts. It's a song of praise, magnifying God's name, His work, His mercy, and asking for His name to be magnified among us. And man, if, if, that needs to be our message too, isn't it? When we are together as God's people, we are at His mercy, and we need His name to be magnified.

Now, now when we go the focus groups are a primary effort of our work right now for a couple of reasons. Again, I mentioned, these are people who are educated. Who, most of these people either speak English or they are able to read in English. And so we are equipping them to go back into their countryside villages and teach in their local languages.

And we are giving them also materials. So that they can share that with their churches, with their local communities. And so whenever we have these focus groups, we are very deliberate about the time that we spend with them. Our structure in these focus groups goes like this. We, we are with them from about 10 o'clock in the morning till about 4 o'clock in the afternoon just studying the scriptures.

And in the morning we teach through a text. Our goal at every focus group is to make sure they have an understanding of a text of scripture. This year we taught through the entire book of James. And so in the morning session we, we told them what it said, what it meant, what they can do with it. In the afternoon, we open it up for Q& A.

We allow them to ask any questions that they have about the text. And any other questions that they might have just in general. Now that's the scary part for me. I always tell them, y'all only ask me the easy questions. Ask Ryan the hard ones, that's what I tell him. But, but what's, what I like about that, and why this is important to us, is one, it gives us a touch point about where they are, and what's important to them.

And two, It helps us equip them to go back and talk to these people, because the fact is, most of the people that come to these focus groups, they're reading their Bible every day. They are diligent about their faith, but they're also studying with other people, and trying to talk to their friends in other denominations.

Trying to talk to their friends in other faith groups. Trying to talk to people in their community. And they have very real, very practical questions just like you and us, you and I do. And so we are trying to equip them for that. To go back and to teach and share the gospel. And you can just see the joy that they get.

These are your brethren who care about their faith, even though they are young. You know, the world that we live in, it often talks about how, how, we got a generation that doesn't want to do anything, and it's going to pot, and maybe that's true, but you know what? The Lord has people for Himself. There is always a way.

Men and women who will rise up, even if it is just a remnant, who will follow Him, who will serve Him. I saw that when I was in Ethiopia. I see that in local churches here. The fact is, the world will always be going to pot, but God's people will always be there. Because God has made sure of it. And so part of our work is to equip God's people in those efforts as they continue.

Now, towards the end of our trip we headed back up to Addis and we did something that we don't normally have time for and that is we just spent time together with some of these men that we work with. The fact is, when you are out in the countryside, often we're just kind of blowing and going. You know, we get up in the morning, we get in the car, we go, we teach, we come back, and we're just, our brains are hamburger meat, we crash.

Right? And so we wanted to make sure that these men and women that we work with during our time in Ethiopia, we got to know them, we got to see their families, we wanted to be in their homes, because In Ethiopian culture, being in someone's home is important. Eating together with someone is important. I mean, we see value in our culture in doing that.

But to them, it means something completely different. In fact, there was we went to Elias house this year for the very first time. I don't have a picture of it, but I'll show you some of the other ones. We went into his house, and we had a meal with him. And as soon as we started eating, he started weeping.

And I said, Elias, what, what is wrong? And he said, now I know that you accept me. I said, what are you talking about, man? You've kissed me on the forehead 20 times, of course I accept you. But being in his home, it meant something to him. And listen, fellowship is about understanding what is important to people and meeting them there.

Realizing that in Christ we have been brought together to share our lives together. We don't just go and preach and leave. These are people. Just like you and me who have lives that are complicated at times and difficult because of the world that we live in. And we need encouragement. We need to know that there are people that care about us.

And so being in their homes with them is an important part of the work that we do. And so that's what we did. We, we were in the home of this man named Wubeshet. Now you didn't see Wubeshet in any of the pictures this year because Wubeshet is, is actually in kidney failure. He's a, he's a dying man at this point.

But Wubeshet was a man. Who spent many years as a translator going out into the countryside villages with my father in law and with Randy. And, and we were in his home, and what we saw in his home was joy. Joy from his little kids, and from his youngest son, Chu, who became my best friend. They had joy.

Because there were other Christians who came and encouraged them and reminded them that even though his outer self is wasting away, his inner self can be renewed day by day because of the hope of the gospel. This man labored in the gospel. And he is reaping the benefit of the gospel. Fellowship that we all can share.

We got to see this new building that the Cote Be Church is soon going to be meeting in because they have outgrown their other church building and they wanted to share with us this new place that they are going to be. Hun and Addey are the two preachers there, and they were just so excited to share this.

We got to be in the home of T'Challa with all his kids. And taste his wife's home cooking, that was awesome. She makes the best coffee, by the way. Ain't nothing like picking coffee off the tree and getting it roasted right in front of you. It was awesome. But being in his home, seeing his family, seeing how he has instructed his kids and the way that they serve and, and, and realizing that the things that are important to him are the same things that are important to us because we are following the same scriptures and the same Lord as we're trying to raise our families and do the kingdom work on a very grassroots level.

We got to see the joy of Mesfin and Gannett with their nine month old, Nathan. Because we are family. That's really what fellowship means. Fellowship has got to be more than just, hey, we come and meet together in the same church building with the right name on it. Fellowship is we understand that we serve a risen Savior who loved Himself and gave Himself up for us so that He could sanctify the church, that we can be a part of, that we can become part of this body of believers that loves one another, For no other reason other than we have been redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ.

It is a wonderful and powerful privilege that we share here that we far too often take for granted, my friends. And I have to go all the way around the world for me to even realize it sometimes. Fellowship is sharing our lives with people realizing this world is hard and we have been promised something better than this world.

So much better than this world. And we are the special and the privileged people who have been called to experience that together and to share that message with the world. We serve King Jesus and His kingdom purposes and we got to see that even more when we were in the homes of these. Now I want to share with you.

This is now my third time to go. And after some some consideration and prayerful consideration with my co worker Ryan, we have three key initiatives that I just want to share with you that we plan to promote going forward and that are going to require more support. More help, more prayers moving forward.

And I just want to make you aware of these things. And the first is to make Bibles readily available. I mentioned that many people cannot read. But the fact is there are many who can, and just can't get their hands on Bibles. And so one of the things that we are working towards is having The funds available and really the Bibles available so that no matter what area they are in preachers can go and get the Bible in fact Before I left I purchased 500 Bibles with some of the money that you gave me and I left them Some in Addis some in Hosanna some in another area.

We work in called your Gillum and we left them with some men So that anytime a Bible is needed People can have it. But that's an ongoing project that needs funding. It needs help. Also, we're trying to find audio Bible. The fact is with 86 different languages in Ethiopia, it requires money to get those things translated.

It requires money to get the audio recordings that they need, but we're working towards those things. And I'm looking for people who are willing to help with those things. We have men who can translate. We have men who can do these things. It just takes time. And so it's one of the things that we are making one of our top priorities because we believe in the power of the gospel.

You know, I can go over there and I can be as excited as I want to be, but the fact is, you just give somebody the gospel, it will change their life. And we believe that. And so that's what we're trying to do with this initiative. Also, we're starting a Bible study website. We realized the great lack of resources.

And so we started a Facebook page where we are making Bible study resources available to these people. Again, this is something that requires time and energy and resources because a lot of our materials, obviously, are English. But we're trying to get them translated, and that translation process just takes time.

And so, we are making sure that they have the materials they need on their end, and they are working on the translation, but that requires some funding. That requires time and effort. But that's one of our key initiatives. We see As critical moving forward and finally we're going to start working with some outreach events.

It became very evident to us this year that as we're talking to these preachers and as we're talking to these focus groups that they're talking to their friends about the gospel. Go figure, right? These people that care about their faith, they're bringing people to these events that are made that we are designing specifically for them.

And so in the future, one of our hopes is to have more events where we are outreaching into the community. And providing opportunities to teach people about Jesus who have never heard about them. Now, we had many opportunities to do that, but we're talking about doing this on a larger scale. Because the fact is, nearly every one of those 200 people that we invited had at least one or two friends that they were studying with that they told us about.

And my friends, that's a great opportunity to push the kingdom farther out and help these people. especially in their work that they are doing. Because it's not, it's not us that makes the gospel special, but we can certainly assist them in what we are doing in providing the things that they need. So those are some very key initiatives that we have moving forward.

You know, as I reflect on my time in Africa, I am I'm always struck by the gospel's ability to alter my life and the lives of other people. You know, this year more than ever, I, I had people ask me, you know, why in the world would you travel so far to go talk to people? And the answer is obvious, because to me, Jesus is that important.

To me, Jesus is a reason. To invest this time and this effort because His kingdom is coming in its fullness because He already rules and reigns. And because I want people to be prepared to meet Jesus. That's why we practice our faith, isn't it? We need to be reminded of that sometimes. Jesus is worth our efforts.

He's worth our lives. And not just for limited periods of time like a mission trip, or in extreme moments, but even in the most private and mundane moments. His story is not something to admire, but to invade our lives and change us. As my co worker continued his conversation with that man that day, After asking him, who, who is Jesus to you?

The man had some very profound things to say. Jesus is the son of God. Jesus is the savior of the world. My friend looked at him and he asked him one very, one other very important question that I want to leave with you as a means of invitation this evening. He said, who are you to Jesus? The fact is if Jesus doesn't change who we are and how we live, Jesus didn't step down out of the glories of heaven and suffer and give his life so that we could say, Amen.

Amen. Thanks and go along with our lives as usual. Jesus gave everything for us. He came to us when we were at our worst moments. The gospel is that God so loved the world that He gave His only Son that when we were dead in our trespasses and sins, God has made us alive together with Christ. We don't deserve any of this.

And yet so easily we take Jesus for granted at times. We just treat Him like someone who offers us something to eat. In the spaces that we can't fill. Listen, my friends, we've got to take Jesus seriously. We've got to realize that not only did Jesus die for me, but He was raised by the power of God to an indestructible life.

He is now seated on a throne and He ruled and He reigns because God has given Him this position. That at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, His grace is wonderful. But His rulership is important for us to see because if we want the benefit of His grace, if we want the value that comes from knowing Him, we must understand our role as citizens of His kingdom and as followers of Him.

To give our lives to Him. Jesus must be a reason that we completely change who we are. And that we go into the world. Because isn't that what Jesus said? Go into all the world and preach the gospel. And for some people, it means we go around preaching. All the way to the other side of the world. For some of us, it means we go home and we sit down in the living room with our families and we teach them about Jesus diligently and faithfully.

It means we go into our jobs, we use our influence, we use our abilities to promote King Jesus. It means that we realize that we have been bought with a price and so we must glorify God in our bodies. It means we realize we have been bought Crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.

And the life that I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Who Jesus is matters, but what Jesus wants from us matters. It's to think about who we are to Jesus. Our lives must be different. And He deserves it because He gave so much. He is a reason to live.

He is a reason to share this message. He gives us purpose. He gives us peace in the future. He is the only one that can offer us all of these things. But do we see that? And do we live for that? Do we commit our lives to Him the way He committed His life? He gave everything. How could we give any less? And so that's the invitation this evening.

We must search our hearts, and we must be to Jesus committed. Faith, citizens of His kingdom who let people know that Jesus rules and reigns and He wants others to be a part of this kingdom. We must submit to Him in the way He desires for me to live my life. How I think, where I go, what I do. All of the things Jesus is in control for good because we believe that with Jesus we find life.

And that is true. That is the gospel truth. We can recapture and have life that God intends for us to have when we walk with Jesus. So my question is, are you walking with Him? Who are you to Jesus? Perhaps you have not been following Him faithfully. I would, I would hope that we all do that. But you know, I also understand that we have our moments.

Well, we're not as faithful. We get distracted, we get discouraged, we kind of become numb at times. Perhaps this is the wake up call you need to re examine your heart. To give your life fully to Jesus. Or perhaps you've never done that. Perhaps you've never given your life to Jesus. Jesus makes it very simple, the gospel message.

It's to put yourself to death, to be buried in the waters of baptism, to be raised to walk in newness of life. And Jesus promises you life and peace and purpose in this life if you will give yourself to Him. That is the gospel. That is the invitation if you need to respond to it this evening. The invitation is yours.

Come and talk to me while we stand and sing this invitation song.