“The need is very high,” Pastor Henok Tadesse Wotango told Al Hawthorne, Thirdmill’s Regional Director for Africa and the Middle East. Pastor Wotango had just received several requests to provide Thirdmill Institute learning community training in four towns in as many months. He was ready.
As the Lead Chaplain for Myungsung Christian Medical Center Chapel Ministry and the Director of Parenthood Civil Society, which focuses on church planting and ministry growth in Ethiopia, Pastor Wotango is a very busy man. But when his two ministries began partnering with Thirdmill in 2020, he saw the immense value in what Thirdmill was offering. He not only began training people to use Thirdmill materials, he also helped translate some of the curriculum needed for the first Thirdmill Institute certificate in Amharic.
His deep commitment to providing biblical training for rural pastors in his country using Thirdmill materials, recently led him to volunteer as Thirdmill’s country representative for Ethiopia.
Ethiopia has a long history of Christianity. Today, there are more than 30 million believers, with tens of thousands of local congregations and hundreds of thousands of leaders, ministers, and pastors serving in the churches.
However, getting access to biblical education can be extremely difficult for these Christian leaders, especially for rural pastors who cannot afford to relocate for theological training.
“Although the work is so huge, we trust that God will help us, through the Holy Spirit, so that his kingdom may be built,” said Pastor Wotango.
So far, Pastor Wotango has helped recruit over 137 students across Ethiopia and has a vision for seeing learning communities established in each of Ethiopia’s 10 major cities.
“It is God’s heartbeat that His children may be fed with a healthy Word of God. That is why Thirdmill pays a sacrifice to train ministers and the whole congregation.”
Please join us in praying for Pastor Wotango:
- that he and the other pastors would be protected as they travel through isolated parts of the country
- that God would raise up learning communities all over Ethiopia so that Christian leaders can be “fed with a healthy Word of God”
- that those leaders would then lead their churches into health and wholeness, for God’s glory and the good of Ethiopia and beyond.
