Girum Jiru and Tigist Jima August 2019

Warm greetings to you in the blessed name of our Savior, Jesus Christ!

We would like to take a moment and share with you how God is guiding our family into serving in Ethiopia. A good friend and fellow minister at our church in Los Angeles invited me (Girum) to learn about the Rafiki Foundation and their work focused on classical Christian education after his short-term mission trip to Ethiopia with Rafiki in the summer of 2018. As an educator and school administrator for the past 15 years, I was also interested in learning more about Rafiki’s work related to education in Ethiopia. For the past few years I was praying that God would open an opportunity to work in the area of preparing students and teachers in Ethiopia, and always believed that any generation could be shaped or lost depending on what happened at the schools.

Over the last 10 months, we were prayerfully exploring about Rafiki, and learned that they are in 10 African nations, including Ethiopia, bringing the true Gospel to Africa blended with a robust educational system through the classical Christian curriculum they designed and prepared. The ChildCare Program provides food, shelter, clothing, and services needed in areas of education and health for orphans. The Rafiki Bible Study Program has a profound approach to helping people know God. The Widows’ Program is designed to equip and sustain women and their families. The Rafiki Institute for Classical Education (RICE) is designed to raise a generation of teachers who love God and have a passion for classical Christian education.

Tigist and I continued to seek God’s guidance in our future involvement with Rafiki. In addition to the trove of information at their robust website https://rafikifoundation.org/, we had the opportunity to meet several Rafiki volunteers, missionaries, Home Office staff, Rafiki Missionaries in Ethiopia, and participated in two missionary trainings. Overall, we learned first hand that Rafiki has a sustainable systemic approach to the complex problem of bringing Africa closer to God by accomplishing its mission to train Africans to transform Africa for Christ.

It was with a humble and expectant heart that we prayerfully accepted the call to partner with Rafiki in shaping the next generation in Ethiopia, one child, teacher, and school at a time. Tigist will support the ChildCare Program and I will be involved in the RICE teacher-training program and the school providing classical Christian education programs for students. Rebecca (15) and Josh (12) will be volunteering in various after school programs whenever they have free time after their own education.

I am asking you to partner with me in equipping Ethiopian students to transform Ethiopia for Christ, and kindly consider supporting our family to serve in the mission field.

We are hoping to go to the mission field as early as January 2020. Please also pray that the Lord provides enough funds to send us to the mission field for two years.

“Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might” (Ecclesiastes 9:10a NKJV)

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