“Greetings in the name of our lord Jesus Christ. I returned from the training in Dilla for the mentoring training for three days. God is always good for me. I arrived by bus in Dilla 360KM from Addis on Wednesday and I preached on the opening program in the night.”
The next day on Thursday morning I started to teach the participants. There were 35 participants which all is men because in Gedio it is hard to have women in the leadership. I told them the importance of mixing from leadership. All participants come from all reigns of Gedio top leaders but all are young except one person.
In Gedion church for the past 35 years the leadership was under one person and his vice. All leaders will be changed every 3 years but these two people stayed in power for too long a time. They never allow any person to come to their area to give training. That is why I trained for the past 6 years no door. But now after I gave the training for the Yergchafee church leaders, I was asked to go to Dilla and to give mentoring training. The power leaders always want to fight with visiting teachers. The chairman did not attend, but the vice chairman was at our training for three days without missing any point.
When I teach about shifting from Dictatorship to Servant leadership everyone started to evaluate themselves and their church. When finish the three day and conclude by breaking the pot (2 Cor 4:1-7), everyone, including the vice chairman, was crying. This big man was like king in the church area. When I finished my teaching I washed their feet everyone was full of tear in their eye. When I finished the young boy asked me to wash my feet but the big vice chairman took the water and washed my feet.
Finally on our conclusion the big leader commented, “Since I become Christian I have taken many trainings but this is different which touched my heart and showed me what I am doing in my ministry. So I need to ask this training need to be given to all local church leaders. THIS WAS THE COMMENT ON EVERY ONE THEY NEED TO CALL ALL LEADERS OF GEDIO FOR THIS TRAINING FOR NEXT YEAR
PRAISE God with me who gave me power and strength and who opened the closed door in Dilla.
Then Sunday I returned to Addis by bus.
Alemayehu Goshu
Addis, Ethiopia