Prayer Items:

• Ask the Lord to send me new ministry partners to join my team. Five monthly financial partners have stopped due to various reasons, and that is affecting my ongoing ministry. If you would like to join my financial partner team for the first time or increase your giving, please click here 

 

• Pray for my travel to Costa Rica, for a Content Strategy Workshop from Nov. 26-30. 20 leaders from Latin America and the Carribean will meet to develop digital sites that will draw people closer to Jesus.

Serving with you,

Miheret

Yes, God gives many gifts. The gift of healing for example. But do I need to travel to a specific place to experience those gifts? Do I need to know people who know certain “special” people so that Jesus would heal me? Do I have to give money so that I could get healed? Do I have to give money so that I will get back more? 

I observe all these things when I watch some satellite ‘Christian’ TV programs in Africa. I have struggled with this topic for a long time but decided I could not keep my thoughts to myself.

Television, like other media platforms can be used to share the gospel with many. But the effectiveness of the TV platform is limited as it is mainly one way communication. TV is very useful to broadly sow the gospel. You can add texting, phone calls and social media platforms to increase the effectiveness. But the problem is NOT using Christian TV, but it becomes a problem when you use Christian TV to replace the physical church. 

When you read a good book you get wisdom and information from the author. Even when the writer inspires you, in most cases it's impossible to consider the author your friend or your pastor. Because pastoral ministry is about shepherding the people known to the pastor. 

The satellite TV programs are often filling people’s minds with confused theology and spiritual practices. Often the Christian programs suggests that whatever you hear and see on TV, is what God is saying. But we should listen carefully. Sadly I see preachers on TV who have selfish desires to become idols themselves. They use the platform for selling almost everything. 

The first church in the book of Acts was known for:

1. Their love for one another
2. They were bold in sharing the Good news
3. They were devoted and fervent in their prayers  
4. They were filled with the Holy Spirit.

My prayer is that we too will be known for our love, care and sharing the Good news of Jesus Christ.

Some years ago my friend invited me to an early Sunday morning service at his church. We finished the service around 10am and it was too early to go for lunch so he took me to another church that started 10:30am. I must admit I didn't listen to a single statement as my mind was full from the first service. I needed time to soak it in and reflect on it. After the second service we had lunch and my good friend suggested we attend an afternoon service in another church. I could not believe it. I declined. 

I see that same principle when I see people switching channel after channel to hear from God. How do you grow and become a disciple like that? What type of fruit do you bear? 

For me when a sinner, like me, comes to know God and becomes a child of God, that is a huge miracle. I am a miracle! I am a child of God.
I don’t have to spend money to see a miracle. I don’t have to wait until my mobile number is mentioned. The greatest miracle was when God became Emmanuel, and showed His unfailing love through Jesus Christ. 

I love preaching the gospel to myself. If the gospel does not satisfy me, then nothing else would! 

Lee Strobel describes John 1:12 like this and I agree with him. 
Believe + Receive = Become a child of God John 1:12 

Three things you can do 

1. Embrace a healthy church community: “For where two or three gather in my name, there I am with them”. Matthew 18:20 NIV
2. Have your priorities in place: “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” Matthew 6:33 NIV
3. Use all media platforms for God’s glory and to help the body of Christ grow.

Are you a Miracle of God? Read my story of how God answered my mom's prayer here.
​
Share your story below.

We had significant Indigitous hackathon events in 42 cities worldwide. Thank you for your prayers! This year is the third time Indigitous hosted a global collaboration to create locally relevant digital tools and solutions to help fulfill the Great Commission.

Russ Martin and I had the privilege to join with a vibrant, smart Indigitous tribe at two of the events, in Lagos and Accra. Collectively, these two cities worked on eight locally relevant projects. We encouraged participants on casting the vision for Indigitous communities in West Africa, teamwork, and leadership skills as well as praying together for God to move.

We know that there is NO digital mission without the Power of the Holy Spirit, we need Him just like Bezalel and Oholiab were anointed by God to do some creative innovation in the Old Testament (Exodus 36:1-2).

These were some of the projects we worked on in those two locations.

Great Commission Prayer Project

State of the gospel in Northern Ghana

mDiscipleship APP

Event Management Platform

Bible Gaming Web App

Walking with Jesus App 

On top of that, we enjoyed new cultural experiences. We operated in “African time,” where time feels plenty (which of course is not new to me at all). I learned that the Ghanaian lifestyle is easy-going and friendly. In Accra, when you ask someone, “How are you,” you might get a response, “I am shining.” In Lagos, Nigeria, a normal greeting conversation begins with a phrase like “How far?” And you respond, “How far?” This is a casual greeting to say “how are you,” and does not have anything to do with distance.

During our strategic meetings with tech business leaders and church pastors in Lagos, all of us agreed that Lagos is a place with so much potential and challenges in breaking the iceberg of Digital Mission in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Let me first start from the past. God at work from satellite to apps. 
​
In 1985, Dr. Bill Bright, founder of our ministry, had the vision to bring 30,000 students from all over the world to one place for an intensive evangelism training week to help fulfill the Great Commission. It became Explo 85. Bailey Marks, pictured with me, was assigned to bring the 30,000 students to the US for this mega training. The logistics, visa process, and air transportation with a budget of $60 Million was an overwhelming task.

The late Dr. Bill Bright and Bailey Marks and their team took the challenge to the Lord in prayer. While praying, Bailey Marks heard the word ‘Satellite’ which he had no clue at that time what it meant. He investigated and it took him a while to get the right person who knew how satellites worked. There was no Internet to Google and get instant results at that time. ?

The voice Bailey Marks heard from the Lord changed the outcome of the Explo 85 campaign. God changed the plan of bringing 30,000 students to one place, into more than 300,000 participants in 98 locations world wide (with a $ 6 Million total budget) by using Satellite technology. God is Amazing!

Today God is still using technology and countless digital platforms and Internet services for His glory. Just in 2015, we saw a total of 35.5 million users interacting with our 7 different digital platforms we have in Cru.

As in Bailey Marks’ story from the past, God is also doing amazing things in our movement with apps and websites. Check out these five life changing mobile apps developed by our digital strategy team.
​
​1. GodTools: The God Tools app provides a clear, concise and easy way to present the gospel and offers the opportunity to receive Christ in over 58 languages. 

2. Voke: Voke is a video-sharing app that uses short videos to help you start spiritual conversations with your friends. Get Voke and share what matters.

3. Jesus Film: The Jesus Film Media app allows you to share a variety of films about Jesus, both in person and online, in over 1,500 languages.

​4. MissionHub: MissionHub is an app that is designed to help you organize, track and grow the relationships you have with others.

5. EveryStudent.com App: The Every Student app helps you answer real questions about life and faith from anyone God brings your way and shows them reasons to begin a relationship with God.
​
What are your favorite apps you use to share the gospel with others? I love to hear from you.

As I was entering the Uber car, I was welcomed with a question, “Are you Indian?”

​I replied, “No, I'm Ethiopian.”
He answered, “Ok, you look Indian.”

I had mixed emotions how to go further in the discussion. But the driver kept talking. “So what do you do?” he asked.

I said, “I work for a Christian organization, and I live in Orlando.”
“Oh, that's good. I used to have a Brazilian friend, and he is a pastor and travels around the world preaching the gospel.

Tell me what exactly you do?” he continued to question me. “I'm Indian.” He glanced back to me.

Then I opened my phone and started playing the Jesus Film in Hindi. He then pulled out an audio cable and handed it to me to connect it to the car. The video started playing loud and clear.
​
He started smiling and repeating the words in Hindi. I played three clips, including the video with an invitation to receive Jesus Christ. He said he liked it, Jesus is like one of the gods in India, and that he is a good person. He explained how Jesus helped poor people and I explained more to him about the gospel.
After a few minutes, I reached my destination, and he needed to pick up another passenger. He quickly gave me his phone and said, “Get me the app.” I helped him download the Jesus Film app on his iPhone, and I encouraged him to watch the clips again. All this happened in less than 30 minutes during my Uber trip!

Read Part 1 here

Recently, I used Uber quite a lot to navigate in the Boston area. I had some wonderful gospel conversations with Uber driver Hakim (not his real name*). Hakim is from Sudan.
Hakim* was my Uber driver in the morning as I was heading to the MIT graduation. We started talking about general stuff, and he asked me what I do for work. I told him about my job.

He got interested when I mentioned the words “good news” when talking about myself. So I shared with him how to know God personally. He then said, “Well, Jesus was just a prophet.” I let him tell me more about his Muslim background. He said he is fasting as it's now Ramadan.

I explained to him that Jesus was different because he claimed to be God, predicted his death and resurrection and rose from the dead three days later. I said, “If this is true, it must be a big deal. What do you think?” Hakim replied, “Well, I need to explore more. You know, but how could Jesus be God, though he is just a man?”
​
“I read in your Qur'an, ‘Jesus formed a bird out of the clay.’ What character can you draw from that?” I asked Hakim. “Well, he created a living creation,” Hakim said.

I told him, “Though the Qur'an says a lot of things about many things, some of the things which talk about Jesus really need more in-depth research.”I encouraged him to read the Bible and install the Jesus Film app before I left his car. 

I taught about 20 young leaders and church pastors how they could create a digital strategy for reaching out to the Ethiopian diaspora community in Atlanta and beyond. Based on their current need and realities, I almost changed my entire training process to help them tackle their particular challenges. Read testimony by one of the participants below

​​"May God take all the glory for this group and for choosing us as His ambassadors to do the work of God through Digital Strategy, not because we deserve to be chosen, but because He loves us indefinitely. Thank you for taking your time to share with us and educate us about Digital Strategy, and thank you Fithe for organizing our meeting and creating this group. 

I have actually learned a lot more than I have expected with only a single day that I have participated in the seminar. When we think about Digital Strategy before the seminar, the first thought that comes to our minds or at least to mine was more about the technology side and a computerized situation, but we have learned far more than just how to manipulate technology to our benefit (the work of the Kingdom). I have acquired the knowledge of how to actually preach the Gospel and as the Bible tells us that the Holy Spirit will teach us how, I believe this seminar was a means in which God used to speak to us on how we "really" should think about preaching the gospel and use every means possible including social media and other forms of technology that we utilize in our daily lives."
​
​Finally, summer is on. I finished my spring in May with a lot of ministry opportunities. Thank you for your prayers; our digital strategy summit in Vancouver, Canada went very well. I am excited where the Holy Spirit is leading us into this cutting edge technology era. We discussed making sure that we are joining our online audience and helping them move closer to Jesus on each digital experience they may have with us.

Thank you so much for your prayers which made it possible for me to be part of this exciting ministry.

Hello,​
​As I was passing by one of our digital product team areas, I ran into Matt and Howard, whom I have known for the last five years. Howard said, "Miheret, we are releasing dozens of languages of the film Falling Plates this Easter." And he asked me, "would be willing to read the Amharic translation to help complete the project?"

FallingPlates is a 4 minutes gospel presentation in a film which has 4.8 million views on YouTube, and I helped on the closed captioning and translation about two years ago.

Well, I have never done that before, and I am not sure it will be great with my voice for Jesus. :) (That was my response). But I said, "When do you want this to be done?". Howard said, "Now." 
 
So I went to the audio studio and read the narration in Amharic. Finally, we finished recording and editing the four minutes of audio, and posted it on www.FallingPlates.com/AM here is the result on Facebook. 

I was not aiming for perfection from what I did, but I know that people who speak my language will find the message fascinating and that God will use it to bring them to His kingdom. 
 
I am sharing this with you to ask you to join me in prayer this weekend as people watch this 4 minutes video, that God will use it to open their hearts to invite Jesus into their lives.

May you have a victorious and blessed Easter.  Thank you, Miheret

​Sarah*, a young middle-eastern woman, loved Facebook. She used it to communicate with friends the way all Facebook users do. But one night she entered Facebook and met a man who enabled her to escape one life and begin another.

​Experience had taught Sarah early in life that she was just someone’s wife. She was forced into a marriage with a man 40 years her elder. He was a member of a terrorist group. After he divorced her, another marriage soon followed to an older man who also discarded Sarah when he was done with her. Her father then forced her to marry again, to a man believed to be a senior member of another terrorist group. He wanted to use Sarah to recruit other young women from her country as wives for his comrades.

He told Sarah that she was his property, his to do whatever he wanted.

But then one night, searching through Facebook, she found a new friend called Milad. As they chatted via Messenger, Milad said, “Let me introduce you to another man who loves you and doesn’t want anything from you.” Sarah stared at her screen and gradually encountered Jesus.
Questions went back and forth. Sarah had never heard the Gospel message.

Before the conversation was over, she told Milad that she wanted to follow Jesus, she wanted to belong to Him. Her new Facebook friend led her through a prayer as she chose to begin a relationship with her savior.

After telling her family about her decision, Sarah’s five-year-old son was taken from her and she knew that her life was in danger. She needed to leave her country but had no money. She prayed to God. Within hours an old friend called her offering an apology. “I’m so sorry it’s taken me this long to return the money I borrowed from you but I have your $1000 now,” her friend said. The next day Sarah was on a plane to a safer environment where she could find other believers.
Milad had helped her find Jesus and now introduced her to a new community. She joined a group of people from similar backgrounds who would gather for meals at Easter and Christmas, people often bereft of family to celebrate these festivals with.

One Christian leader in that country estimates that as many as 95 percent of Muslim background believers he sees come to know Jesus begin that journey by meeting another Christian online. Virtual friendships grow into face to face relationships. Stories are shared and their effect is being multiplied in a region where asking questions about Jesus means taking a risk.

Sarah’s story has been shared with over 60,000 unique Arab readers so far on an evangelistic website. 300 people have indicated a decision to follow Christ after encountering her in the digital world. Sarah longs to see her son and hopes one day to share the Gospel in her home country.

*For security reasons, all names have been changed.

We celebrated God's wonderful work in the middle east by sharing Sarah's story. I hope you find this encouraging. This story was written and shared by ROSS MCCALL on www.indigitous.org and used with permission. ​

How do you get more likes for your Facebook page? More importantly, how do you get people involved in your cause through a Facebook page? The number of likes on your Facebook page is as important as wanting people to join your cause in a physical offline ministry.  In both cases, the higher the number, the higher the momentum will be. 

Keep these key principles in mind

• Your Facebook page should have a clear focus and clear objectives.
• Identify your target audience.

Now, you have two ways to get more likes.
The Free Way: The following tips increase your circle for free, which will eventually bring you more likes. It may seem slow at first, but I assure you if you keep doing these you will get an amazing result.

1. Post positive messages that people will care enough to share.
2. Invite people to like your page manually from your Facebook page.
3. Ask for responses to your posts. Ask a question or ask members to like and share your message.
4. Publish visuals (photos, posters, videos…) more often than text-only messages.
5. Add a Like box on your blog /site: If you are using a WordPress.com blog use this help link, or for a GCX-based wordpress blog, click the following help link here.
6. Be thankful:  give them a “Like” for positive comments and say thank you. This is a big deal for your members.
7. Be funny: Post fun content related to your objectives, and also user-generated content. A few weeks back I shared a video of my older brother and his family singing a gospel song with their two little kids. The kids were so funny in singing the song, which made the video go viral instantly.
8. Add your Facebook page QR code to your business card and/or nametags.  In 2012 in one of our leadership meetings, I printed nametags with Facebook  QR codes, which was unique for everybody. During that meeting, when I was teaching about Facebook, it was easy for me to explain and share about Facebook as they were scanning different Facebook URLs on their mobiles.

The paid method to get more Likes 

1. Test many and use only the best: Create several campaigns and ads with a smaller budget to see which one gets more likes and which ones don’t.
2. Choose small and specific audience: Your ad is more likely to perform better if it’s displayed to the people who are most likely to be interested in your product or service. When you target each ad to smaller, specific groups of people at one time you’ll be able to customize your ad so it’s more personalized and appealing to the audience you’re trying to reach. [Source from Facebook]
3. Pause or delete ads that are not bringing more likes.
4. Use appropriate pictures based on your budget. Now when you create new Facebook ads you can upload up to 6 pictures and Facebook delivers the best performing pictures with the same budget.
5. Adjust your budget. Sometimes the number of people you might reach may differ from time to time so keep changing your budget up and down.  This is due to other competitors who are targeting the same Facebook audience and changing their budgets as well.
6. Timing is key in doing Facebook promotion. You don’t want to spend a lot of money with a small return just because you’re promoting at the wrong time. If you are reaching specific country or city the morning time and early evening works fine. I encourage you to test it it might be different from place to place.

And finally celebrate milestone numbers with your fans when you reach 5K , 10 K or 15K. You can just share a thank you picture to your members to do that.
Read my previous post : Keep your Facebook Engagement High
More Help?

• Here’s a simple guideline from Facebook to set up ads to get more likes.
• Learn about pausing and restarting ads or campaigns here.
• Here’s an example of an evangelistic even Facebook page where I applied these tips