Report on the Amharic PBS

Written by Joel Purcell Tuesday, 11 August 2009

Praise the Lord that there has been such a good response for the Amharic PBS in Ethiopia.  The conferences have been well attended.  We received the following report in a recent letter and want to pass it along to you to encourage you in your prayer support of these literature projects.

"When I think of the northern Ethiopian state of Tigray, images of stones and camels come to mind.  Houses are made of stone, as are roads and walls.  Even the fields, where crops struggle to survive are littered with stones.  Having read the recent Ethiopia census reports indicating that less than 0.1% of those living in Tigray are protestant Christians, I believe that camels outnumber them.  That is why I had not scheduled a PBS conference that far north.  But, recently, when an Ethiopian colleague returned from a meeting with 20 Tigray church leaders, he requested we not forget them.  So, last month our team headed north.  Instead of the usual 100-200 participants, 35 came for 3 days of training and a book set.  An advantage of the smaller group is the chance to get to know some of the men and women better.  Most evenings we were invited to someone's home for dinner.  Now, when I think of Tigray I see the faces of these pastors, not just rocks and camels."