Brief Report on Borana

This is a brief report from the Borana Region in Ethiopia. It was written by Dr. Samuel Kebreab an amazing man of the Lord with a passion to serve our Lord.

Introduction
The Borana evangelistic outreach has started on September 1998 by receiving 20 school children in the Didhara hostel. The ministry that has started with 20 children and one student’s hostel has now grown into a ministry that administers five students’ hostels accommodating 110 students. The Lord has blessed the ministry that now through the ongoing evangelistic and discipling ministry to the hostel students, their friends and parents for the last ten years, five hundred believers have come to know the Lord and had been discipled. These believers, led by the Borana students, meet in about twenty villages for worship and instruction from God’s Word. The other new thing that has happened in these last six months is that we have ordained and mobilized our first Boranan church planter. Berhane Wongel believing that the Borana are best reached by their own people was trying to raise up Borana ministers who could establish and lead Borana churches. This came into effect through deploying a young dedicated young man who had been discipled by our church planters and who had undergone a Bible School training. The other event which is going to take place after a month is the second and last phase of training of the 22 hostel students who are attending our Borana Bible Training Center , which runs during rainy season when school is closed. These third batch of students together with the first two batches make the number of those who undertook training for serving and leading the church to be 56. We are now realizing the importance of this training as we see that many of the trainees have become instrumental in the planting of many churches. A remarkable thing that has began to happen in these last 2 years is that from among the hostel students nine have joined colleges and universities studying such fields as law, engineering and education. We praise the Lord for this outcome as we see Him blessing our students with knowledge and wisdom and success in their schooling. Let alone joining universities, for many students it is a miracle to be finishing high school. For Jatene who has joined the Kotebe University in Addis it was becoming a history maker; for he was the first person ever to attend college from his district which has thirty large villages.

One of the hostel students, Jarso who is currently attending university
With this brief introduction, we continue the report on the activities that has taken place in each hostel center in the last six months is highlighted.
Didhara
At Didhara, on May 2, 2009 we celebrated a baptismal ceremony for fifty new believers. The thing that was exciting about the event was many of the believers came to the Lord through the witness of their children, the hostel students.

Hostel students Doyo and Konso baptizing new believers
For instance, the mother of Jatene, who is now attending college in Addis Ababa , came to the Lord when one of her daughters was delivered from a demonic bondage through the prayers of the students. Tura and Jarso were instrumental in bringing their close relatives to the Lord. These believers were baptized by the students who brought them to the Lord.

Tura’s and Jatene’s mother, newly baptized
The other important thing that is happening in the hostel of Didhara is that we were able to put a fence for the 90,000 square meters of land that has been granted to us by the local government with the intention to develop it so as to make the hostel work self-sustainable. We have now begun cattle fattening schemes and growing grains. To these new schemes will be added bee keeping and poultry farming.

Cattle fattening scheme
Dubluck and Higo
In Dubluck-Higo area are found three of our hostels: two for boys and one for girls. In this area we have more than ten village congregations that meet together. In a town by the name of Weib, which is twenty kilometers away from Higo, our evangelists were instrumental in bringing fifteen people to the Lord. This is a small but important for the Borana and the majority of people that live in this town are followers of Islam religion. Our evangelists are following the believers and we are in the process of discipling one of them believers so that he may lead the church that we have began to establish in this area.
Yabello
The Yabello hostel is now accommodating fifty boy students, attending high school, while seven girls are living in a rented house. The students meet daily for prayer and to study the Word of God. They also hold Sunday morning worship in the hostel in a more relevant way with organs and synthesizers to attract the town people and youngsters (just like Eagle Brook relevance seems to be important for them!). Many people from the town have come to Christ through their witnessing. They are planning to build a church building in a piece of land which a brother gave them as a gift. We are realizing the need of building another hostel for girls in Yabello as we expect the number to increase to be 12 in the coming school year as those in Dubluck pass to join high school grades.
Items of praises
1. Praise the Lord for the bountiful harvest as we see a steady growth in the spiritual life of the Borana believers and a steady and bountiful growth in the number that are coming to know Christ.
2. Praise the Lord for our students who have grown to become dedicated ministers, church planters and excellent Christian leaders for their people. And praise the Lord also for allowing them to grow strong in body and wise in spirit and for the grace of God to be among them (Luke 2:40).
3. Praise the Lord for giving us our national missionaries and their families who have dedicated their lives to coach and mentor the Borana hostel students. Despite many discouraging illnesses and other forms of obstacles the Lord help them to endure and prevail.
4. Praise the Lord for partners such as Eagle Brook Church who came alongside us since the beginning of the Borana evangelistic outreach ten years ago. In addition to their ever-growing involvement by coming to the field to minister alongside us, and their support in prayer and generous giving, we cannot forget that it is through their ministry in Didhara that a spiritual breakthrough happened in 2001, in which we saw the coming to Christ of more than 290 students from a student body of close to 300. The Lord is pleased to bless this partnership that our church has with EBC and to use it for the expansion of his kingdom.
Items of prayer
1. Pray that the Lord will help us to build girls’ hostel in Didhara which we feel is urgently needed.
2. Pray that the Lord will help us with funding. Because of the increase of food prices we were not able to use the hostel to fully accommodate to its maximum capacity of 170 students.
3. Pray that the Lord may help us to be self-sustainable so that the projects that we are have started would yield good outcomes.
In conclusion we would like to extend our appreciation for EBC leadership and Ethiopian missions committee for their unfailing support and love.
May God bless you
Pastor Fekadu Tadesse and Dr. Samuel Kebreab