Craig and Allison Fowler, members of CMF’s church-planting team in Ethiopia, shared good news recently from the field. On Sept. 11, Ethiopia’s New Year’s Day, team members baptized 18 nationals in the village of Aygali. These new Christians are the “first wave” of folks who have heard the team’s entire 21 episodes of Bible story telling. They have also attended a special set of classes on becoming Christians and Christian living, are regular attendees at church services, and were part of another class on the meaning of baptism. Some of them are also helpers in the story telling project, going with the evangelists to share the stories in other areas on a weekly schedule.

Another “wave” of about 15 people are presently going through the “Seven Commands of Christ” class and will be ready for baptism in about two weeks. Two of the villages the Fowlers are working in, Mesereta and Bunt, will soon be ready to host a new class.

The people who were baptized on Sept. 11 were from the villages of Manda, Ampu Bayt, Airstrip Village, Aburr, Duban, Pawe and Mofrij. People from these villages are walking to attend the church that has been planted near the health post every Sunday. Pawe is the farthest away, a 40-minute walk. The church building is basically a wood stick shelter with two tarps covering it to keep out the rain. It holds about 100 people when absolutely packed. Those who don’t show up early have to sit outside on the ground to hear the singing and preaching.

New churches have also been started in the villages of Mesereta and Bunt. There are people from both of these villages who walk one or two hours (one way) every Wednesday and Friday for special training and/or night services in the “mother church” at the clinic. For example, Mengistu of Mesereta first heard about God when the Fowlers visited his village and started telling stories from the Bible about 4 months ago. Something about the stories really made an impact on him so he, along with a few others from Mesereta, took it upon themselves to start coming to a special class on Sunday afternoons studying the book of John. Somewhere in this process Mengistu prayed to God to heal him from a chronic stomach illness, and his prayers were answered. After this, Mengistu organized several of his friends and family together to have a time of “singing and sharing” about God every Sunday and Wednesday night. These special “singing and sharing” services were not initiated nor attended by our evangelists. Then, Mengistu and his core group received permission from the village leader to build a wood stick structure on village land for a place to meet, because the “core group” got so large it couldn’t fit into one hut. Now they are in the process of building this structure and have grown to a group of about 70 to 80. Our evangelists are completing the initial 21 Bible story set (our “evangelism” track) with the group, and will begin a “Seven Commands of Christ” series with those who are interested.

 “God is doing great things in our area!” the Fowlers concluded in their report. “Please continue to pray for the villages we are working in.”

Five families graduated from the three-month training course at CMF’s church planters’ training seminar near Arusha, Tanzania, in a great celebration on May 29, reports team leader Scott Price. These families have now returned to their own tribal groups to begin their ministries.

Unfortunately, one of the students was diagnosed with cancer at the end of the training. There aren’t many options in that area of Tanzania for medical treatment of cancer, said Scott, so the team requests your prayers for Margret’s complete healing so she and her husband can continue their ministry.

Seven families from the Barabaig, Iraqu, Nyaturu, Nyanwezi and Sandawe tribes are attending a new training cycle that began Aug. 17. The Sandawe tribe members are complete newcomers to CMF church-planting practices. They are a tribe of 200,000 people with only an estimated 30 Christians among them.

The training centers provide instruction in Bible, Community Health Evangelism (CHE), agriculture and literacy to help prepare families for the task of church planting and are run by the members of CMF’s Tanzania team. To date, 27 national families have received the training.