Passion for Ethiopia

Alphacrucis has some amazing students studying at our College in 2010.  Worku Tafete is one of these students.  Deborah Harrison-Flynn caught up with him recently to find out more about his life story and passion for Ethiopia.

Deborah: So tell me about yourself?

Worku: Well I was brought up in the Northern part of Ethiopia where I spent my childhood to the end of High School.  I left Ethiopia for Sudan and lived there as a refugee for 12 years.  It was in Sudan that I met Christ.

Deborah: Can you tell us about your “God moment” while in Sudan?

While I was in Sudan I had a dream – I dreamed I was back in my old village and everyone was searching for water.  I joined in and then saw a corrugated iron house – I recognised the door, opened it and found a well filled with pure water in which I could see the bottom.  I started to fetch the water up from the well and pass it around to everyone.

I shared this dream with the person who discipled me and he said “pray?”  He told me that water can represent the Word of God and that I may be called to minister it to others.

Deborah: How did you end up coming to New Zealand?

Worku: I arrived in New Zealand in 1996 as a refugee under the Refugee Quota system. I was an electrician and immediately found employment.  In New Zealand I found other Christians and started to fellowship with 4 of them.  I then became the leader and we grew to 70 members.

Deborah: Did your dream re-appear while you were in New Zealand?

Worku: Yes my dream came back while I was in New Zealand and I started to have a burden for the place of my childhood.  Northern Ethiopia had been blocked from Christianity and estimates were that only 0.1% of the population was Christian.  The more I thought about Northern Ethiopia, the greater my burden became for this place.

Deborah: So what steps did you then take?

Worku: I left my job as an electrician and undertook a Certificate course at Pathways College.  As one of the assignments at Pathways College, I had to do an assignment on my future vision for my life.  I felt that if God would give me an opportunity to go to Northern Ethiopia, then I would go and work with churches and help them send out missionaries to where there were no churches. This would fulfil my dream. I did my assignment on the basis of the above idea and handed it over to the teacher. He called me to his office and asked me to talk to him about this vision.

Three weeks later a lecturer from Global Connections in Missions (GCiM, a mission agency) shared their vision for global, cross cultural mission and my college lecturer made the connection between us.

This turned out to be a God-ordained moment.  GCiM met with me and said they would be happy to support me-what is my proposal?  At that stage, I didn’t have a proposal –just a heart to do it and my dream. After GCiM introduced me to Bright Hope World (BHW) and we started communicating (as they are based in Christchurch and I was in Auckland).  They started to contact people – since by this stage I had been away from Ethiopia for over 18 year (6 years in New Zealand and 12 years in the Sudan).

Deborah: That is really exciting and a true God-ordained moment.  What happened next?

Worku: After laying the ground work (in 2005), the BHW Africa Director and I went to see what was happening in Northern Ethiopia. 

From this trip, the first missionaries came.

BHW worked with me to sponsor and train 4 indigenous missionaries to work in the area.  These missionaries work across all Evangelical denominations.  Their work involves meeting with church leaders to plan church planning.  Each church is responsible to arrange their own missionary/church planter and my role is to train them and raise the finances to pay for them.

From 4 in the first year, we grew to 15 missionaries in the second year and 50 missionaries in the third year.  Each missionary received 3 months of training and spends that time with the other missionaries, to help develop a kingdom mindset.

We now have a fulltime pastor who oversees all the missionaries and helps with guidance & teaching.

Deborah: Wow – a total of 69 missionaries in 3 years is phenomenal!

Worku:  67 of these missionaries are now supported out of one church in Dallas, USA, through partnership with BHW and an additional 2 of the 69 are sponsored by individuals in New Zealand.

Deborah: But your amazing work and story doesn’t end there?

Worku: We started a feeding centre for widows in the city of Gondar.  This was purely a humanitarian effort to help those who are starving in the local community.  We now have 2 feeding centres with 100 vulnerable elderly and 25 elderly in another centre are financially sponsored.  Within Northern Ethiopia there are a lot of widows due to war and many are bringing up their grandchildren as HIV/AIDS has wiped out their children’s generation.

The effect of starting these centres has built strong bridges with the government and the local community.

We then started micro-enterprise/self funding businesses in Northern Ethiopia.  The idea behind these was to help fund a Medical Clinic and a school to help the community and raise money to ensure long-term sustainability.

We have started with a school.  We are teaching Christian values and through the children we are reaching their families.  We applied for land from the government for our school and until we received the land, we began a kindergarten in a rental property.  We started with 100 students and in 2010 -2011 we expect to have around 180 children.

Our education has been of a very high standard and we were rated one of the best schools in the region by the ministry of education supervisors. -

We have received 4.5 ha of land for us to build a school on and planned* to start building early 2010. Delays have shifted the start of the building to late 2010.  We will start with a kindergarten and primary and will grow the school into secondary as well as these children go through to higher levels.

Deborah: Given that Northern Ethiopia is such a poor area, how did the children’s families afford their schooling?

Worku: 44 children receive sponsorship from the church in Dallas. In the future it is expected that around 10% of the children will be sponsored because their families are very poor. We have worked hard to ensure that 44 sponsored kids are able to have lunch each day and a full school uniform. Each sponsored child brings their empty lunchbox to school each day and it is filled up for them.  This means that all the children can sit and eat together at lunchtime.

We have been able to afford to feed and provide a uniform for these children because 80 women created a small business. Most of the 80 women are the mothers of Tear Fund supported children. 40 of women make enjera (a local food) to sell at the local university and hotels.  They sell more than 3,000 per day.  The other 40 women in pack up the ingredients for the sauce and distribute it to customers.

Deborah: What are you plans from here?

We are looking into other areas of work and micro-enterprise for the churches to participate in.  One project I am investigating is a farm while another one is sesame export to the USA.  The long-term aim is to create a microenterprise interest-free or small interest lend*/ing system and generate resources for ministry within Ethiopia.

Thank you so much for taking time to talk to us about your amazing life and the work you are doing in Northern Ethiopia.  You are an inspiration and we pray God’s richest blessings on you as you continue to see your plans and dreams fulfilled.