Ethiopia
Lutheran Heritage Foundation:
THE WORD AT WORK
Volume 28 Number 3 ■ May/June 2021
UNITING THE ETHIOPIAN LUTHERAN DIASPORA diaspora /dahy-as-per-uh/ noun: any group that has been dispersed outside its traditional homeland Have you noticed African immigrants in your community? Do you know where they came from? And most importantly, do you know whether they know Jesus Christ? One large group of immigrants in America have traveled here from Ethiopia, a country of about 112 million people in northeast Africa. About a million Ethiopians - a popu-
Immigrants eagerly reach for LHF books at at the Mekane Yesus Lutheran Conference in Virginia (2018).
lation roughly the size of Austin, Texas - now call places like Washington D.C., Minnesota, California, Ohio and Nevada home. And while some might expect the Ethiopian immigrants to have a Muslim background, in fact most are Christian - and even Lutheran! “In Mekane Yesus (the largest Lutheran church body in
Ethiopia) alone, there are more than 10 million members,” said Rev. Dr. Dinku Bato, LHF’s coordinator of African translation projects. Yet when Ethiopian immigrants arrive in the United States, the cultural differences often make it difficult for them to find a Lutheran church home. “To cope with a new life in this country, Africans stick together, and therefore they may join Pentecostal churches because those are the only ones they can
find in their communities,” Rev. Bato explained. “Most do this against their conscience, as there is no other option. They need to be part of the community simply to build support
Ethiopia cont. on page 2
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TRANSLATING PUBLISHING INTRODUCING DISTRIBUTING REFORMATION BIBLE-BASED CHRIST-CENTERE BOOKS TRANSLATING PUBLISHING INTRODUCING DISTRIBUTING REFORMATION BIBLE-BASED CHRIS TERED BOOKS TRANSLATING PUBLISHING INTRODUCING TRANSLATING REFORMATION BIBLE-BASED CHRIST-CENTEREDPAGE BOOKS TRANSLATING PUBLISHING 2: PAGES 2-3: INTRODUCING DISTRIBUTING PAGE 4: REFORMATION B Guidelines for sharing the faith BOOKS Teaching the Augsburg Confession In Finland, LHF project BLE-BASED CHRIST-CENTERED TRANSLATING PUBLISHING INTRODUCING DISTRIBUTING REFO with your Muslim friend in Ghana - to 7th graders? coordinator, author face charges TION BIBLE-BASED CHRIST-CENTERED BOOKS TRANSLATING PUBLISHING INTRODUCING DISTRIBUTIN REFORMATION BIBLE-BASED CHRIST-CENTERED BOOKS TRANSLATING PUBLISHING INTRODUCING DI
