Amanuel

Part of our time in Addis Ababa was to take part in a Pastors Conference. The pastor I am with in the photo is Amanuel and he gave me permission to share his story.

About ten years ago Amanuel was in a desperate state. He had an alcohol and a drug problem which had developed following tragedy in his family. His mother had become ill and this so upset his youngest brother, aged 11 that he shot and killed himself. His mother, broken hearted

did not live long afterwards. Hearing this another brother living in Russia, also committed suicide and then another brother did the same. Hoping to find some kind of escape from all that had happened Amanuel took his wife and young son and emigrated to Kenya (I think) This was disastrous and he found himself struggling to have enough to live on and they had to return to Ethiopia.
Amanuel believed in God, and started to cry out to him for help and having been brought up in the Orthordox tradition thought that fasting might move God into acting on his behalf and help him to care for his son. So he locked himself in his room every day and cried out to God. Nothing changed and he was nearly at the end of himself when his sister who had become a Christian invited him to a meeting at the Pentecostal Church. Whilst he was there, a visiting minisiter began giving words of prophecy for various people in the congregation. Amanuel got increasingly angry. He had been fasting for weeks, crying out to God and yet God had no word for him. And then suddenly he heard the minister say that there was someone in the church who had been locked in his room, crying out to God for his son. God had heard his cry. Amanuel was amazed and from that moment his life turned around. Today he is free from his addictions, healed of his pain, and a church leader. He travelled with us to some of the prisons and was an excellent translator for us and a gracious man of God. I also discovered that he had been reading Finney's revival lectures in the back of the van whilst we were travelling. I couldn't believe I had found a Finney fan!
He had also heard of the Salvation Army. Most Ethiopian Christians had never heard of us and were highly amused that I was a major. However I'm not sure he had quite got the historical context of the beginnings of the army as he asked me if William Booth was still alive!

If you read this Amanuel, God bless you and we are praying for you.

God bless

Carol