 Have you ever encountered God changing your worst day into a beautiful message or event? I have seen that many times. One day in 2014, I was in the Nairobi airport transiting from a trip was processing a difficult personal rejection experience. I was having the loneliest moment of my life despite the crowd around me. Two godly men came and introduced themselves to me. In my pain, I was not the mood for talking but answered some of their friendly questions about my life and what I do. Right before their departure, one of them left me his business card. Later I added them to my newsletter list and learned that they are from Kansas State. Three years later, as I visited my family in the Kansas City area, I got a chance to meet the two guys and their church missions leaders in Wichita Kansas. I discovered that the Eastminster church in Wichita has been praying for East Africa for a number of years and they send a missions team there. Over time they accepted me as an answer to their prayers for East Africa and started supporting and praying for my ministry. On top of that, on my first trip to see them, I had an amazing experience that led to it being featured on www.cru.org. Since then, every year I spent a weekend sharing God's stories and His goodness with the Eastminster family in Wichita. The following pictures were taken from speaking to different groups there this past weekend. God is awesome! He changed my pain and rejection into a memorable and loving experience. I am very thankful for you. I am thankful for the last ten years of ministry with Cru with you on my side. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving season! Prayer Items:
Miheret
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 Today is Thanksgiving.
I appreciate Thanksgiving public holiday here in America. Being thankful to the Lord in all circumstances is a wonderful discipline and blessing. Here are four things I am most thankful for this year:
I returned from Cru 17 staff conference in Fort Collins Colorado where I had the opportunity of reading the Lord's Prayer in Amharic. Click the picture above to watch the video. 3:45sec is where my reading starts. The conference theme was WITH — focusing on the power of being with God and with others in unity. There was a significant emphasis on partnership. I felt equipped by different seminars and sessions I attended especially in answering questions like how to be relevant in sharing the unchanging gospel in current realities we face daily. The conference theme was WITH — focusing on the power of being with God and with others in unity. There was a significant emphasis on partnership. I felt equipped by different seminars and sessions I attended especially in answering questions like how to be relevant in sharing the unchanging gospel in current realities we face daily. I thank you for your prayers and support, Miheret  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.  Today it is one year since I moved to the US. Here are some highlights and lowlights of my time in the USA
Highlights
Serving with you, Miheret T.  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  Ethiopian Athlete Almaz Ayana said three things:
Number one, I did my training, Number two, I praise the Lord, he is giving me everything, everything, everything,” Ayana responded through an interpreter.“ And my doping is my training, my doping is Jesus. Otherwise, nothing. I am crystal clear.” Almaz Ayana Source : Telegraph I have enjoyed the opening weekend and all the sports activities of the #Rio2016 Olympics. Athletes are representing their countries and striving to be the best they can be. Many are also representing Jesus as they compete. Athletes in Action is a ministry of Cru. They have developed a website and video documenting several stories. I’ve found another interesting one on YouTube. These athletes share their stories of how they follow Jesus through struggle and triumph. They talk about their faith journeys and how following Jesus gives ultimate meaning in life. Telegraph featured Almaz Ayana today with the head title ‘my doping is my training, my doping is Jesus’ after smashing world record at Rio 2016. I am very happy for her and my country Ethiopia as we get the first Gold Medal in #Rio2016. Many other athletes are speaking about Jesus too. Here are some
 I was in Dallas, Texas connecting with ministry partners sharing about my ministry and as I prepared to head back to Orlando, my friend Cheryl in Dallas asked me “Miheret are you ready to get back home?” I instantly replied “where is my home?” Orlando!
Well it has been exactly 90 days since I moved to America. God is giving me success one step at a time. I bought a car and got my driving license, I opened bank accounts and all my paper work is now finished. I partially started commuting to the office because I am still raising my monthly support need. And currently I live temporarily with friends and co-workers Keith and Kay Seabourn. They generously shared their place with me. Let me share with you one of the unique opportunities God has given to our ministry Cru. Can you imagine sharing the gospel with 1 Million Youth in two weeks? The following story was shared by Erin D.on Cru.org Last week in Krakow, Poland, 150 Cru staff members and students (from Poland, Hungary, Croatia, Russia, Slovenia, Moldova, Ukraine, Australia, the United States, and more areas) traveled to World Youth Day, a Catholic youth rally, to share the gospel. They were invited by Bishop Grzegorz Ryś of Poland to serve with World Youth Day’s International Center for Evangelization. This connection with World Youth Day developed as the result of a bold student named Joe Losiak who traveled to Poland to share Christ as an exchange student in the 1970s. Joe built a friendship with a priest who invited him to share Cru’s materials, including the Four Spiritual Laws booklet and the “JESUS” film, in summer Catholic youth camps all over Poland. That connection has continued to today, as Polish Catholic leaders who were influenced by those summer camps remembered the ministry of Cru and invited them to serve at World Youth Day. As official World Youth Day evangelists, the Cru volunteers had full license to preach the gospel to the 1 million attendees. In less than two weeks, 2,905 people heard the gospel and 326 people indicated decisions to trust Christ. Continue reading full story at our main Cru website www.cru.org Source for Featured Image from: Google  I have been reflecting about what God did in Africa through Indigitous. That’s another blogpost for some other time. The expansion of Indigitous movement keeps on and on as student like Roger joins the movement. Celebrate this story of Roger with me. It was late in the evening as I left the office, only to discover Roger was still working hard on an Android application. When he saw me leaving, he asked if I would drop him off. While on the road, Roger asked me If I remembered the first time we met? I said “I don’t”. “We met 7 years ago at Life4All student conference in Bahir Dar. I was a final year high school student at that time” said Roger. And he continued to tell me how he was challenged during that conference by my session about using digital tools to share the gospel with others. That inspired him to do an internship in our office as a software engineer. He also said that my session during the conference influenced him to study software engineering. Praise God. Roger is graduating next year from Addis Ababa, University and actively involved in Indigitous movement since Indigitous Addis conference in 2014.  |
AuthorMiheret T. Eshete 
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