June 2007

Friends,

There is an ever-present factor in the culture and the church here in Ethiopia—the acknowledgement that there are Satanic forces at work and the need for deliverance in Jesus’ name.

The sign on our office door reads “HIV and AIDS PCP Program.” Today a sad looking man came in. I have never seen a more drawn, drained, completely empty face. Dr. Habtamu, the young physician with whom I work, listened to his story, prayed for him, and gave him some money before sending him on his way. This is a common occurrence. One Monday morning Dr. Habtamu described how an instructor in the medical school in Gondar, in northern Ethiopia, had become very ill and was addicted to the local stimulant known as khat. When he was asked, “Would you like Dr. Habtamu and his friend, Israel (an evangelist), to pray for you, to pray for deliverance?” he agreed.

He came to this very office on Sunday and, after many prayers and repeatedly falling on the floor in what appeared to be epileptic seizures, the demons were finally exorcised. There was complete deliverance, in Jesus’ name! Right here in our office!

In conversation with my office mate, Dereje, a nurse and health educator, I naively commented that we had no such situations in America. “But you do,” he said. “You must read the book you just brought to me.” (Every time I travel to the United States, I accept book orders from my co-workers, bringing them back with me when I return.)  He was referring to He Came to Set the Captives Free! by Rebecca Brown, a physician. On reading this book, I was shocked, yet what I read rang true—Satan is present in the United States.

Pondering how Ethiopia, a beautiful, poverty-stricken though resource-rich country, could have succumbed to the rising rates of HIV, I observe that the young people here in Addis Ababa, yearn for Western ways. They listen to our music, watch our romantic videos as well as our dramas and mystery stories. The high school and college girls dress in skin-tight jeans and form-fitting tops and often have skin showing between them. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church advocates that a woman not only wear a long skirt, but cover her shoulders, waist, hips, and thighs with a shawl. If this mode of dressing is the prevailing culture, it’s easy to see the Western influence. How could this happen? I have flippantly said, “Music videos and pornography are of the Devil.” Now I believe it.

Satan has systematically brought something that young people want—sex—into a culture that did not have the norms to stop the onslaught. What would Jesus do? To further put two and two together, Rebecca Brown devotes a chapter to “Doorways.” “Sexual intercourse,” she writes, “is another big doorway. Demons are passed from one person to another through sexual intercourse. This is because the two people involved become “one flesh.”  See I Corinthians 6:16 and 18: What? Know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? For two, saith he, shall be one flesh . . . flee fornication.  Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that commiteth fornication sinneth against his own body.

What can the church do? Many evangelical Christian girls dress in tight jeans and form-fitting tops that leave their skin showing. Does anyone speak out against this? There are churches where young women are denied entry if inappropriately dressed. Is this what Jesus would do? Following talking with high-schoolers in Bethel Evangelical Secondary School in Dembi Dollo and in a private high school here in Addis Ababa, I can only conclude that these young people are either sexually active or would like to be. Is the church filling the gap between the secrecy surrounding intimacy and the pressures brought by our Western values? I fear it is not. I challenge the pastors in charge of evangelism in the Synods with which I work to provide programs for youth to prevent HIV transmission. Please join me in prayer for this situation.

My heart is heavy as I write this letter, but God seemed to direct me to share this with you. Please pray with me:

• Pray that youth leaders will receive God’s direction to provide the youth with tools to show friendship without intimacy and to abstain from sex until after marriage.
• Pray that the youth will be selective in their activities, including their choices of videos.
• Pray that the women of Ethiopia will learn how to refuse excess work, abuse, violence, and unwanted sexual advances.

There are numerous needs here. If you’d like to help, contributions from individuals may be sent to Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Individual Remittance Processing, PO Box 643700, Pittsburgh, PA 15264-3700. Contributions from churches should be sent to the normal receiving site or: Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Church Remittance Processing, PO Box 643678, Pittsburgh, PA 15264-3678. Write the title (Consultant for AIDS - Ethiopia) and the ECO number (E051770) on the subject line of the check. Give to the AIDS consultant ECO:

Prayerfully,
Dorothy Hanson

The 2007 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 329