God has been doing some remarkable things in Ethiopia. Dick McClellan shares one wonderful story
‘Sit down, young man. Sit down. You cannot go. Sit down.’
The pastor leading the meeting waved to the man to sit down again. But he remained standing, leaning on a stout walking stick and looking around confused, not understanding. An older church elder called out to him: ‘Fanta. Wait. Just sit down now’. The young man sat down in the crowd.
This was at a District Convention among the Wolaitta people. Several thousand Christians had gathered for their annual Bible Conference. For five days we had a precious time together studying God’s Word and praising the Lord in song and testimony. It was my privilege to give several messages there. One of these was the missionary challenge, when I called for young men and women to leave their home area and go as national missionaries to take the gospel to other tribes.
Just as much missionaries
Some people call these people ‘evangelists’ and they surely are that, but they are just as much ‘missionaries’ as we are, who come from the Western world. They leave their own ethnic group, travel hundreds of kilometres and live among diverse people groups. Where necessary, they live in different types of houses, learn new languages, eat some different foods, adjust to strange cultures and customs and humbly live a peaceful, joyous life-style that causes their neighbours to enquire why they are not afraid, as they are themselves. Friendship evangelism opens up many contacts.
Standing in the centre of the people, I called young people to give themselves to Christ for his service. Sitting nearby were the pastors and elders, the leaders of the churches. They were the ones who would eventually interview any who came forward. They would examine each candidate carefully and send some back to receive Bible School training or to get more preaching experience. They would send others out immediately, if they thought they were ready for the hardships ahead.
Fanta
About 20 young folk came forward. Then Fanta stood up and called out that he would also go and the leaders told him to sit down. He stood there, holding on to his stick. I soon discovered why the elders rejected him. Fanta was a cripple. When he was only about six years of age he had a stroke. Perhaps it was polio, meningitis, cerebral malaria or some other disease that caused it, but he was left completely paralysed down the left side and crooked in stature.
There had been nobody in the area to give Fanta the medical treatment and specialised care he needed. His family had no money to take him to the city either, so he grew up misshapen and handicapped, with a withered arm and leg: they just hung at his side. Fortunately his face recovered and he was able to speak clearly and sing beautifully. His leg was a nuisance. Fanta just dragged it behind him. To move, he stood on his right leg, which was very strong, and moved his stick ahead a pace. Then he hopped forward and, when he caught his balance, he did this again, and again! It wasn’t a pretty sight and it took Fanta a long time to get anywhere. So he really wasn’t much of a candidate. We wanted strong men who could walk hundreds of kilometres over rough mountain trails.
‘I want to go’
Without stopping to think or pray, I moved over to the young man and repeated what the elders had said – that Fanta could not be a missionary. I suggested that he could have a ministry of prayer. However, Fanta interrupted me: ‘That is what the elders said two years ago when I asked them. They told me to go to Bible School and learn. So I went and completed the course. Now I am ready to go. God’s Word burns in my heart. I want to go to the cattle herders along the Bilate River and near Lake Abaya. I know they are enemies of the Wolaitta people, but they need Jesus too. God has called me to go to them. Please ask the elders again to send me’, he pleaded.
Unafraid
When I told him that the Oromo clan killed all outsiders – they had murdered the evangelist Omochi, the husband of Baloti who worked with Vida in Women’s Conferences – Fanta was undeterred and seemingly unafraid. He couldn’t run away, nor could he stand and fight either. ‘God has told me to go, so I must obey’, he said. He asked me to pray for him and also to intercede with the elders again on his behalf. Then slowly he hopped away on his stick.
I am always amazed at the grace, the patience and the long-suffering of the Lord. He makes no mistakes and moves for our good at just the right moment. Sometimes he must grieve at my stupidity and my lack of faith and trust! A year later I met Fanta again, the candidate we had rejected.
Five days not two
Fanta was so sure that the Lord had called him that he had gone alone into the lowlands by Lake Abaya. None of the other candidates was able to go there. Over the years, these cattle herders murdered other travellers. The area Fanta went to was two days’ walk away for the average person. It took him five long days. Sometimes he fell and he was a bit scratched and bruised when he arrived. He found a semi-nomadic clan with large herds of cattle that they guarded jealously.
The warriors were dangerous and their fierce reputation as killers was correct. Few would go near that tribe. But this young man, compelled by the love of Christ, went down to them. Fanta really had nothing to lose. If those savage warriors killed him, he would go to be with his Lord.
An amazing discovery
Then Fanta discovered an amazing thing about these cattle herders, that was different from all the other tribes around. They honoured cripples! Maybe there had been, in generations past, an awful epidemic – polio, maybe – that had left many people in the tribe as cripples. None of the other tribes in that area seemed to have any handicapped or deformed children around, as they leave them to die, usually of starvation.
Directed by the Spirit of God, Fanta had found the only tribe where he could safely go and no one else could! The tribe actually accepted, welcomed and respected him. It was no problem for him to live among them. He was able to hop from one village to another and to the cattle camps and tell the gospel story over and over again. It took him a long time but he visited all the camps. The Lord powerfully blessed his witness and he started churches in five villages!
Within a year at least 250 people had accepted Christ as their Saviour. Many of them came to the next Convention with Fanta and I met them there. They came: some women dressed in bark skirts and cowhide aprons; some men in animal skins and carrying their weapons. They came singing chants of praise to Jesus Christ. They all walked slowly to keep pace with their leader who hopped along on one leg and a stick. I marvelled again at the grace of God and thanked him that he uses any person, no matter what handicap they have, if they love and obey him. The elders accepted the rejected candidate at last!
The Wolaitta church leaders soon sent another national missionary to help Fanta teach the new Christians. They asked me to preach at the first baptismal service, when 28 believers were baptised in the Bilate River near the place where it flows into Lake Abaya. A curious crowd of armed warriors stood on the other side of the river and watched the proceedings. On our side of the river, a group of teenagers kept throwing large rocks into the river to keep the crocodiles away from the baptismal site.
Today in that clan of the Oromo tribe there are more than 20 churches. Young men have been trained in Bible School for leadership positions and some are pastors to their own people. Others have gone to other groups to tell the story of Jesus Christ. Fanta, now with a wife and family, still serves the Lord faithfully in that area where, at one time, no one but he could go.
