Mission in Ethiopia:
One Fund, Three Schools, and a Big Impact In Ethiopia, the Christian church is growing at an almost staggering rate. The Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus (EECMY), one of the country’s national evangelical churches, has grown from 20,000 to nearly 5 million members over the past 40 years. And in the midst of those big numbers, a small group of Presbyterians is making an impact within the EECMY’s Western Wollega Bethel Synod.
In 2003 this small group of Presbyterians, concerned about the quality and availability of Christian education in the Dembi Dollo area, came together to create the Ethiopia Education Endowment Fund (EEEF) through the Presbyterian Foundation. This fund provides a vehicle for individual contributions to support these educational efforts.
positive response was the seed that planted the Presbyterian educational connection in the Dembi Dollo region of western Ethiopia. Today BYES has approximately 600 students in first through eighth grades. In the late 1960s, the town elders asked the Presbyterian Church to fund a local secondary school to provide university-preparatory education. Bethel Evangelical Secondary School (BESS) was built and is now home to approximately 500 students in the ninth through 12th grades. Of the graduates of BESS over the years, 95 percent or more of the 12th grade students proceed to university studies. That is in contrast to the local government school in Dembi Dollo (6000 students), where only 30 percent of twelfth grade students continue on to university studies. Since its founding in 1968, BESS has been a premier source of highereducated Ethiopians. The Gidada Bible School, also in Dembi Dollo, prepares evangelists and pre-seminary students for service to the Western Wollega Bethel Synod. In the mid 1900s a blind Ethiopian Evangelist, Gidada Solon, for whom the school is named, traveled throughout western Ethiopia teaching, preaching, and planting churches. Gidada Bible School is a two-year adult school of 45 total students. A Partnership was Born
The EEEF has as its focus three schools: Berhane Yesus Elementary School (BYES), Bethel Evangelical Secondary School (BESS), and Gidada Bible School. In 1918, Dr. Thomas Lambie, a Presbyterian medical missionary, established the elementary school that has become Berhane Yesus Elementary School. Dr. Lambie, who had been working in Southern Sudan, was invited by the governor for the Wollega area to come into Ethiopia to treat military personnel who had been affected by the flu epidemic. He agreed if he could establish a hospital, and could educate and evangelize in the area. The governor’s 8
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Due to the radical political shifts within Ethiopia from the early 1970s to the 1990s, the funding and the future of these three schools became more and more challenging. “We have been in partnership with the three schools since that time,” explained David Reed, M.D. Dr. Reed, born in the Sudan of missionary parents, has shared the leadership of the EEEF with Dr. JoAnn Griffith, who was a faithful missionary teacher at BESS for over 30 years. “We don’t have any official responsibilities for the fund – our focus is to promote the endowment fund and to strengthen relationships in Christian fellowship.”
The fund supplies approximately $20,000 per year, divided among the three schools, as supplemental funding for their operating expenses. Reed says, “We also work to enlist volunteers, such as commissioning English speaking teachers for the elementary and secondary schools. The schools have occasionally proposed projects to our EEEF Development Committee for consideration, fundraising, and participation. These have included a women’s dormitory (2006), an institutional kitchen building (2008), and the refurbishing of the classrooms of the schools (2010). The EEEF Development Committee is a small group supplemented by project volunteers who undergo life-changing experiences by visiting and working in partnership with our Christian friends in Dembi Dollo. The Endowment Fund is supported primarily by individual contributions and a few congregations. As private schools where even the poorest students may apply, these schools rely heavily on low tuition, scholarship donations and the endowment fund proceeds. It is this fund that has supplied a vehicle for those who have a heart for Christian education to support the ongoing work and ministry of the three schools. While the fund furnishes only supplemental income for the schools, without it they would not have sufficient resources to continue providing excellent quality Christian education for southwestern Ethiopia.
“Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world.” – Nelson Mandella
2011 Presbyterian Foundation Annual Report
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