I know it’s been a while, but I am finally home and ready to catch you up on the rest of my time on the Race! I’ll be releasing a blog for each country, and first up is a place I absolutely fell in love with: Ethiopia!

In the town of Lege Tafo, a suburb of Addis Ababa, my team served at Testimony 2540, an orphanage that has about 29 children. The ministry is named after Matthew 25:40—"Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me"—and the incredible life of its founder, Gadisa Birhanu.

Gadisa’s own story is a miracle. Orphaned at age four after his mother was tragically electrocuted, he grew up begging on the streets and working odd labor jobs. Eventually, he met people who introduced him to the Lord and helped him through school. Today, he runs Testimony 2540 as a home for orphans and street kids who come from backgrounds just like his.

Many of these children are from a nearby refugee camp housing the Oromo tribe, who were displaced from near the Somali border. Most are Muslim, and because Gadisa is the only person the camp elders trust, he is the only outsider allowed in to help, and he is constantly overwhelmed with requests for help.

Ethiopia is one of the oldest nations in the world and the only African country never to have been colonized. It is also the birthplace of coffee! We experienced many traditional coffee ceremonies—a beautiful, social process of roasting and brewing while socializing that I grew to love.

We stayed at the Testimony 2540 guesthouse in Gadisa’s neighborhood. One evening, he invited us over for Ethiopian barbecue and spaghetti (a nod to the country's Italian influence). After dinner, Gadisa washed our feet to symbolize his desire to serve us during our stay there. This was deeply moving because, as a child, he was forced to wash the feet of those he worked for. To see him reclaim that act as a symbol of Christ-like service was a moment I’ll never forget.

While Testimony often hosts volunteers, they rarely receive Christian teams. Gadisa asked us to focus specifically on the Bible. We taught the kids about forgiveness, love, and taking thoughts captive, among many other topics. Their questions were profound, even though many came from Muslim or Eastern Orthodox backgrounds and were new to these concepts.

The afternoons were a lot of fun with the kids! We played strategy games like Saboteur, which incidentally was a game I bought in Malaysia, and finally had the chance to teach the time right before we discovered that the kids owned a copy but didn’t know it! We put together puzzles, and played disc golf. I spent most of my time on the soccer field. The boys were so talented that I mostly just stood there watching them play around me, but by the end of the month, I actually managed to score a few goals!

Our main ministry was teaching the kids at Testimony and spending time with them. We also went to the refugee camp to round up the kids and teach them some English. We also did a few family visits there as well. We also served at some local churches by preaching, teaching lessons, and running some kids’ programs.  

A lot of powerful things happened during our time in Ethiopia, but one experience with a girl named Burte stands out as a profound lesson in spiritual warfare. Before arriving, we had been briefed that spiritual oppression is often more overt in Africa than in the U.S. In the West, the enemy often uses "comfort and complacency" to keep people asleep, operating stealthily. However, in many African cultures where people are keenly aware of the spiritual realm, the enemy doesn’t need to be as stealthy.

As C.S. Lewis wrote in The Screwtape Letters:

“There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them.”

While the U.S. often falls into the first error, the prevalence of witchcraft in other regions can lead to the second. We were told not to be afraid because we are on the winning side—demons must flee in the name of Jesus—but we were also warned that we would encounter this reality head-on.

On our very first ministry day, our host, Gadisa, brought Burte into the guesthouse. She was passed out and slung over his shoulder. As soon as we laid hands on her to pray, she began screaming and writhing. It was immediately clear that this was not a physical ailment, but spiritual warfare. After a few minutes, the attack ended. Burte was exhausted and scared, and we did our best to calm her.

We later learned from Gadisa that Burte had been left at the Testimony 2540 orphanage because her guardians believed she was cursed. She came from a background where religious traditions of Eastern Orthodoxy, common in Ethiopia, were heavily mixed with witchcraft, providing a foothold for this oppression. While she had been having these fainting spells for months, some of the boys from the orphanage that had helped bring her over noted that the demon seemed "afraid of the Muzungus" (foreigners) because of how quickly it had left this time, compared to other times when they had to pray over her to bring about deliverance.

Despite the immediate relief, our team felt the deliverance was only temporary. That morning, three of my squad mates had separately read Mark 9, where Jesus explains that certain spirits can only be cast out through prayer and fasting. We took this as a clear directive from God to pray and fast. 

We committed to a three-day fast, consuming only water and coffee. We faced an immediate spiritual hurdle when a teammate’s injury required antibiotics that had to be taken with food. We saw this as an attempt by the enemy to thwart our progress, so we spent those intervening days in worship and preparation. When we finally began the fast, it served as a powerful reminder of how much we must depend on spiritual food over physical sustenance.

Once the fast was complete, we sat down with Burte. We wanted to ensure she understood the Gospel and that her soul was sealed by Christ, as we knew that "closing the doors" to the enemy—such as unforgiveness or unconfessed sin—is vital for permanent freedom.

With her permission, we laid hands on her again. Immediately, she fainted and began to convulse. This time, as the struggle peaked, words came out of her mouth in Amharic, the local language, spoken by the demonic spirit. Our translator later told us that the words that came out of her mouth meant “I’m burning! I’m being burned! I’m leaving!” The atmosphere shifted instantly. We all felt a sense of peace, believing this deliverance was final. Since returning home, I’ve checked in with Gadisa, and he confirmed that as of December, Burte hasn't had a single fainting spell since that day in June. Praise the Lord! It was an incredible testament to the fact that the power of prayer and fasting wasn’t just for Bible times—it is a living reality today.

While in Ethiopia, a squadmate named Brice joined us from the other team to seek medical help for a mysterious illness, as his team was quite remote. He was weak, short of breath, and his body temperature dropped below 93°F. Despite multiple hospital visits and tests, the doctors remained stumped.

During this time, Brice shared a powerful message with us about "open doors"—areas like trauma or fear that allow the enemy a foothold. He identified his own "open door" as a lifelong fear of water stemming from childhood trauma. We prayed over him, and while his physical illness remained, he felt a breakthrough in his fear—a healing he would later "test" in Kenya.

What inspired us most wasn't just his search for healing, but his attitude. Even while he could barely walk, Brice turned his hospital visits into a ministry, praying for and encouraging a struggling nurse. His unwavering joy and trust that God would heal him in His timing was a profound testament to our entire team.

Towards the end of our stay, I visited the refugee camp to distribute food. The poverty there is suffocating. Many families survive by scavenging the dump for recyclables, earning about 60 cents a day. The stress is so high that many fathers suffer from psychosis, leaving the women to provide alone.

We delivered food parcels to four families. Each $50 parcel was enough to feed a family of eight for an entire month. Seeing the impact of that $50 made me look at my own spending habits with conviction. One mother told me that a single piece of food would have been a blessing, but a month of food was beyond words and she didn’t know how to express her gratitude.

During our visits, we visited a family where the husband was driven to psychosis and had attacked another man in the refugee camp. He was going to be taken to jail later that day. The victim of this attack was the husband and father of one of the other families we visited, and he was all bandaged up. When we left the refugee camp, we witnessed the man who had attacked the other man be taken away to jail. Gadisa asked me what I thought after the visits, and I immediately broke down into tears. The need there is so great, and watching these families fight for survival and living in their tin houses was heartbreaking. The need is so great, and there’s only so much you can do. I had a better understanding for the sense of overwhelm that Gadisa must face constantly. It feels like bailing out a flooding boat with a teacup, which is quite disheartening. Gadisa reminded me that even though you can’t help everyone, you can make a true difference in people’s lives. Helping even one person has a profound impact. It was a beautiful and encouraging reminder. 

Gadisa has a servant’s heart—so much so that he often feels "selfish" asking for support for his own orphanage, preferring to direct donors to the refugee camp. I assured him that his kids need support too! He runs six businesses in order to support Testimony 2540 and to allow him to help out the refugee camp, which keeps him quite busy. Any support he receives in these missions is such a blessing!

Testimony 2540 has just been approved to buy land to build a larger home! This will allow them to take in even more children and provide them with a stable, Christ-centered future.

If you want to hear more of Gadisa’s story, learn more about Testimony 2540, or support the new building project, please visit their website: https://www.testimony2540.org/

What to pray for: 

The kids at Testimony 2540, that they would all come to know Jesus as their personal Lord and savior!

The mission to expand Testimony 2540, and that the resources needed would come in! 

The refugee camp,  for a breakthrough in the cycle of poverty and that the people there would encounter Jesus, specifically through dreams (A common way Muslims are encountering Jesus lately!) and open hearts.