Tabor Will Serve Ethiopia’s Youth    

    Missionaries Karin and Odd Rannestad look back on an enlightening additional year in Ethiopia.  They have worked to get the institution of Tabor back to the church.  A school for the country's youth will now be started.

 

    This period for us became very short.  We could not promise more than a year.  We were going to help get Tabor Seminary back 18 years after that the communist authorities seized the school center in Awasa in South Ethiopia. 

 

    The church has for several years tried to prove their right, and in April 2001 the formal letter finally came from the authorities.  Tabor was to be returned.  But it was by no means to just go ahead with the work.  People, for the most part house occupants, occupied each room in the building.

 

    I shall not elaborate.  But there have been endless visits to various offices and innumerable conversations both formal and informal.  There has also been interrogation s after alleged break-ins and other little special matters.  This has resulted in a pile of documents signed by authorities.

 

    The police threw out the house occupants the end of January.  Now we are in the progress of cleaning up.  A school is to be started for Ethiopia’s youth.  Our vision is that once again Tabor will be a center that serves both the church and the community.

 

    I have learned a lot this year and a little of that I will now share with you.

 

    When the problems piled up this winter, and we were close to giving up, I stood in town one evening having a discussion with some friends.  A woman took me in the arm and said pleadingly:  “Don’t let them win.”   From that day on I was sure that the struggle would lead to victory.  It revolves around a spiritual struggle against those who wish that God’s kingdom should not go forth.  Together with the Ethiopian Christians we will fight and win.

 

    Now after the schools area is released, we get a lot of visitors.  Older evangelists come.  They stand in the area, lift their hands towards heaven and give thanks.  Ladies round about in the country name the school in their prayers.  Daily, people in town who express their joy over what has happened stop me.  I have learned that Tabor was almost like a holy place for the Christians in the south, and they have gotten back what was taken from them. 

 

    On my first visit to official offices in town it impressed me that there hung so many Bible verses on the walls.  Little by little I got to know that many of the leaders in town are Christians.  They were people who wished the same as us, and who tried to help even though the bureaucrats and many other things hindered. 

 

    Many places where the chief in the office didn’t profess the Christian faith, there still hung Bible verses on the wall.  Maybe the secretary in the waiting room was a Christian.  She could also help us a lot, amongst other things give us tips on how we should conduct ourselves in different relationships.

 

    Ethiopia has never been a colony and it can’t be blamed to that.  And the big hunger catastrophes that have been can’t be blamed first and foremost on the lack of rain.  There is as a rule other and deeper causes that lead to hunger.  The country has been more or less been ravaged by border wars for a generation.  Confidence in the authorities is not particularly high after generations of injustice.  Ethnic conflicts are some of the most destructive that can be found, because they break down the view of a person’s worth.

 

    What does it matter when all is delayed and one just bangs his head against the wall?  It matters not only that the bureaucracy is so oversized.  It is not often articulated, but when one has to buy his right, then all becomes wrong.  When they with money have the right on their side, and they with power stand above the law, then it is not easy to build a society.  Many who wish to fight for the truth do not see any possibility.  They give up.

 

    Schools not only give out knowledge, but also graduate degrees.  The communist authorities go for education for everyone.  That is both well and good, but it is at the expense of quality schools and teachers.  What do we see today?  Over flowing classrooms, very few textbooks, and scarcely enough teachers.  The results are all too clear and the authorities are crying for help to build up what has fallen apart.

 

    The top political leader in the South said a while ago:  “Most of us have had our eyes opened through the school work of the mission”.  He asked the mission to not only pursue educating, but also to help create a generation with positive attitudes to all that is right and true.  These were wise words.

 

    The communists really desecrated the youth.  Many who were Christians were sacrificed for the propaganda.  Even though communism with all its substance is only history here now, the youth carry many wounds from that time.

 

    In an informal conversation, a higher up in society told that he had been along in the youth choir in his home church when he was young.  He told a lot but he concluded by saying: “I maybe cannot become a Christian again after the way I have lived.”  At another occasion in his home he asked me to conclude with devotions.  That was well done of a backslidden leader. There are many like him who yearn to come back to their God and Savior.

 

By Odd Rannestad

 Translated from “Utsyn”  (Used in part)