Hello Friends across the World,
We are so excited to share all God is doing here in beautiful Ethiopia! We had so many things to share that we couldn’t fit them all into our attached update letter! This has been the busiest month or so we have ever had!
Between exiting out of our old church property and old church license (and all the legal things that included) as well as building out and preparing a brand-new 10,000 square feet church property in a short time, and going through the long and tedious process of a new church license on top of all the daily ministry of a growing church, it has been busy to say the least. 🙂 Please pray for God’s wisdom, strength, and provision all along this exciting journey!
God has been blessing in ways we can’t imagine! Only God! Before moving to the new church property, we had a special award and baptism Sunday with 8 more adults completing discipleship, and 3 more new believers being baptized. We also had a number of new individuals and families join the church! We have also seen a number of people trust Christ as their Savior!
After much preparation and long days, we had our GRAND OPENING of our new property on Sunday, March 5! God did what only God does! We smashed our previous record of 276 that we had on our 3rd anniversary with 414 in attendance for our 4th church anniversary which coincided with our GRAND OPENING!!! 3 ladies trusted Christ as their Savior that day, and 2 more adults (1 man and 1 woman) trusted Jesus to save them the following Sunday! We had a great time singing praises to God in English, Amharic (the national language), and Oromigna (the local language)!
We have over 100 people right now that are interested in going through membership classes to join the church! Please pray for God’s wisdom and help as we teach these dear people and see them grounded in the Word of God to understand what a Bible-believing Baptist Church is and what it means to be a church member.
The Sunday after GRAND OPENING was another exciting Sunday as we opened our new kids area and new nursery! We had 55 kids come to kids class and 26 little ones in nursery! Praise God! We also had a great group with Adult Bible class. We had around 250 total people return for a more “normal” Sunday!
We are excited to announce our new church name of BREAD OF LIFE BAPTIST CHURCH! Jesus is the BREAD OF LIFE! This is a huge answer to prayer! The government has recently changed the requirement for getting your own church license from around 1,000 adults to 100 adults. Please pray for us as we finish up this process!
Pray for many more people to come to know the eternal satisfaction and life found in Jesus and to grow in their walk with Jesus! There has been much Satanic opposition lately as is to be expected. Please pray for God’s protection as we move forward by faith for the Lord’s glory!
Thanks to many of you who have given, we are making tremendous progress with the construction of our new facilities! We have completed much of Phase 1 with the main auditorium, much of Phase 2 with the education/kid’s wing, and we will start Phase 3 next week with the beginning of the build out of the office area. We can still use more help if God so leads you to complete the construction of our new facilities. We are trusting the Lord to keep providing! Thank you to all who have sacrificed and given already to help us purchase chairs, build walls, install doors, build platforms, and purchase other needed items and furniture for God’s glory!
We could not do what we do here for God’s glory without your unending care, love, prayers, and support! THANK YOU!!! Please pray for us as we continue to do God’s will here and fulfill the Great Commission! God’s grace is sufficient! God is good! He is worthy!
For God’s Glory and Harvest in Ethiopia, The Lovegrove FamilyJoshua, Ruth, and the 3 Js- Jeremiah, Joel, and Jonan