Podcast Transcription:

Welcome to the last and final Arise Africa podcast in partnership with the AEA. This first season has been quite a ride as we explored seven different countries throughout sub-Saharan Africa. We spoke to many open-door speakers and believers about the persecution taking place on our beloved continent.

In this episode we are looking at the beautiful Ethiopia. It is one of the African countries that are ranked number 36 on the Open Doors World Watch list. Persecution in Ethiopia is complicated, but what is consistent is that we have heard that there is an increase in the radicalisation of Islam, meaning believers face severe hostility, ranging from family rejection to physical violence.

Open Doors has supported the church in Ethiopia since the late 1980s through local partners and churches. Interviewed on this podcast is Ruth. She works for one of the partners of Open Doors.

The World Watch list actually depicts a clear picture on where faith is most costly. It helps us to be aware and to correspond in compassion and action. So it also details on what persecution means in this context in this country.

So for Ethiopia, I’d like to mention main three engines here. As you’ve said, the threats. The first one is Islamic oppression.

We are noting a rising trend where Islam is being radicalised. There are certain groups that are taking this violence at a whole new level. To give you an example, churches have been closed for over two years now.

And it’s the community that went up and closed all churches saying our language, which they speak Arabic, is a holy language, that you cannot preach the gospel or sing a song or do your any different religious programmes that are not Islamic. It’s just been closed. And this issue has been escalated up until the prime minister’s office, where he mentioned this in a parliament, ordering them to take the appropriate action and reopen churches.

And you’ll be amazed to know that it’s still now, as we speak, churches remain closed. We have areas in Ethiopia, for example, 250 kilometres from the capital city. A whole community of Christians were forcibly kicked out of their homes.

The community leaders, the chiefs said, you are kafirs and you don’t belong in this land. And they ordered the whole neighbourhood to not buy from them, to not rent their house to believers, to not provide them any goods if they want to go to the market and buy anything. So they forcefully evacuated the believers from that area.

So you note how powerful the communities are in this Islam-dominated area. However, the believers in Ethiopia have become salt and light despite the darkness that surrounds them. Open Door’s vision is to see a well-discipled and unified persecuted church that is well-prepared and empowered in the face of persecution.

Ruth shares about a young girl who was persecuted for her faith while sharing the gospel. I met a very young girl who was about 18 or 19, and she was sharing her story. As a student, they had this street evangelism mission, and they went out to share the love of Jesus.

But how the community responded was very much shocking. So she was just sharing this to one young man who fetched his friend, and there were two of them just standing. And she kept on telling them about who Jesus is and what it means to accept Jesus and to receive his love.

But soon she started noting that there is a certain movement behind her where people are gathering. So she was kind of alerted because she was separated from the group that she went out with. They were going out two by two.

So there rise in tension and commotion was very much scary, as she said. And she tried to go find the friend that she was up with, but they surrounded her. And this was not happening just to her, but to every one of her friends that went out to share the gospel that day.

So they dragged them to the roundabout in that area. They beat them. They insulted them.

This specific girl was dragged by her hair through the streets, humiliated. And they threw her to a ditch where they further continued to humiliate her to an extent of even peeing on her. My sister, I can’t even begin to tell you how broken we are to see her as she shared her story, because you could see the trauma.

You could see how that has broken her in more ways than one. And she was passing through all that, very young girl, just because she said Jesus loves you. So, yes, it’s very much scary on how that communities where Islam is the majority is very hostile towards Christians in Ethiopia.

It’s when I came to work for this ministry that my understanding of persecution and its depth was really expanded. If I ever use that word, God broke my heart in a whole new way. Because for me, when we went out to share the word of God, to do street evangelism, we used to get either insulted or chased away or, you know, say this and that.

But now there is this trend, a very much scary growth in violence against Christianity. And this ministry gave me an opportunity to witness it in various parts of Ethiopia, where my exposure was limited to the capital city. But this persecution and how it’s affecting the church in many parts of Ethiopia, I was able to see as part of this work we do in this ministry.

You know, sometimes you feel discouraged when you only hear the pain, the suffering, what’s going on here and there. But so far, thus far, I have seen how faithful God is. The peace that surpasses human understanding, it really is true.

It’s really encouraging. But parallel to these threats, the church is growing. God is moving.

The love of Jesus is still fresh and still captivating many hearts in Ethiopia. When the church provided clean water, then the community had to come into the church to fetch water. So that made a bridge to have women start conversations as they’re waiting for their turn to fetch the water. Relationships were built. The gospel had means in the community. And when we went there to visit, it was actually the community’s reiki that came out to receive us. So the peaceful coexistence within the community was actually possible because of these interventions that we do.

God is indeed building His church even in the most hostile of places. This wraps up season one of the Arise Africa podcast in partnership with the AEA.

Please share this podcast with as many believers as you can. We have heard about what is happening in sub-Saharan Africa and we are not discouraged as our brothers and sisters share the gospel even with their persecutors. It has been a joy to journey with open-door speakers and ministry workers who labour on hard ground in sub-Saharan Africa.

I hope you have enjoyed listening through our first season of our podcast series. Before you go, do go to the Open Doors website and sign our Arise Africa petition. All the believers who face persecution remember that we only bow down to Jehovah.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.