The Ethiopian Church Journal Blog

By Vishal Mangalwadi  More intriguing was the discovery that the Bible told a story bigger than that of the Jews. It said that God had chosen Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob so that he could bless all nations on earth through their descendents: God had made a promise to bless India. I could know if the Bible was true by examining whether God had kept that promise. I started looking around. Places that I saw everyday suddenly started answering my question: Why did my university had a church, but not a temple or a mosque? I learned that the Bible had birthed the university, both globally as well as locally. Modern Hindi – my mother tongue and our national language – was the creation of Bible translators, as were most of the modern languages in Europe and the Asian sub-continent. I also learned that the Bible had driven the development of India from a colony under foreign domination to the world’s largest democracy. India’s adherence to the rule of law (although sporadic) came from

By Vishal Mangalwadi  My spiritual journey began in earnest at the university, where I went to study philosophy. Realizing that my university education could not account for the tremendous poverty of my Indian neighbors, I started living with the rural poor in order to understand the roots of India’s chronic poverty, corruption, oppression, and social evils. I also began to study history in order to understand how different worldviews have resulted either in poverty or development, oppression or freedom. Among other things, my actions and reflections have resulted in thirteen books, published around the world. I was born in Chhatarpur (Madhya Pradesh) India in 1949. My parents, Victor and Kusum, raised me along with three brothers and three sisters. Quaker missionaries from America had introduced my grandparents to the Christian faith. I grew up knowing the basics of the faith, but had no real personal experience of its reality. As a young boy I got into the habit of lying

``It's traumatic; the (adopted African children) never truly feel they belong. They always wonder where their siblings are,'' Kreviazuk said in an interview from Los Angeles. More .

[Or How Jesus Found Me]* One Sunday afternoon in Kabale I was coming home from a drinking party to which I had intentionally gone because one of these balokole ("saved ones") had witnessed that I was going to be converted that day. I wanted to drink exceptionally hard so that it would be impossible for me to be converted. As I was returning, I met a fellow schoolmaster who had found Jesus Christ during a church service just three hours before. Three hours, no more, he had been a Christian when he stopped me. He looked me full in the face and said, "When you left me in the church, I found Jesus and He is in my heart . I want to talk over the things I have said contrary to Christ." The Lord used that special testimony to turn me completely around. I arrived home in utter misery. I knelt by my bed for the first time, and this is what I remember saying to God: "God, if you are there, and if Christ actually died for sinners like me, and if He can change me as I hav

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid… “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. And you know the way to where I am going.” Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.” Philip said to him, “Lord, s

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to yo

World Vision is arguably one of the best organized and effective non-government agencies operating in the world of development aid today. According to the write-up linked here the agency has run a sponsorship program for more than 187,000 children in Ethiopia since 1971. The obvious and legitimate question, we believe, is where these children [now adults] are today. Please send us a note if you happen to be a beneficiary of the program.