May 2007

Dear Friends,

It is a bright and sunny morning in Addis Ababa. It rained heavily yesterday and actually should be raining a lot these days. While changing weather patterns make planting of crops more difficult, for city life this year the delayed beginning of krempt, the rainy season, is welcome.

In preparation for Ethiopia’s millennium celebrations this September, there are major road works going on all around the city. Our Mekannisa Road, which runs between the Ring Road and “Saar Bet” and which connects our home at the seminary with our work place at the Ethiopian Graduate School of Theology, is one of those roads currently “under destruction,” as we say. Every day is an adventure as we set off on our four-kilometer drive. Will it take the usual 15 minutes or will it take an hour? Will we get all the way through or will we need to detour another 10 miles to get to EGST? What part of the “road” or remaining track will we get to use? Will we see another car or truck that got a little too close to the edge and fell over into the 2-meter deep ditch that has been dug? (Fortunately, this has happened less often than we might have thought.)

We thought driving in the countryside was an adventure! We are so happy to have four-wheel drive in the city these days!

EGST developments

Not only is the road outside of EGST’s entrance being widened and rebuilt, but EGST is this month beginning its own widening and rebuilding. Plans have been drawn and approved—and the building permit is in process—for developing our site into a more adequate graduate school facility.  The first building will be a five-story affair built right on the road.  It will at first house offices and classrooms for EGST but will eventually be rented out to commercial businesses for office space as an income-generating opportunity for EGST. Two additional buildings will be built further back on our property that will be the classrooms, lecture halls, offices, library, chapel, meeting rooms, student rooms, dining and student common area and apartments for visiting professors. With over half of the 2.4 million dollars raised for construction, we are moving forward quickly. We could see the completion of the first building early next year and the whole building project completed in 24-30 months. 

EGST celebrations

Visiting Professor D. Paul Pierson from Fuller Seminary (center) with Dereje Gutema (left) and current student Leulseged.

Graduation in June this year promises to be a grand celebration. We anticipate graduating 30 students in our M.Th., M.Div., M.A., and PGD (Post-graduate diploma) in HIV/AIDS programs.  Among them will be our first M.Div. graduate who has majored in missiology.  Dereje Gutema started at EGST in August 2004 and from the beginning was pushing EGST and us to get the missiology program up and running.  So we have been running to help Dereje meet his goal and calling.

We also will be celebrating EGST’s tenth anniversary. EGST began in 1997, offering the M.Th. in church history. Year by year other discipline majors were added and with the accreditation process, our programs have changed. As we begin this new decade, we anticipate additional offerings of an M.A. in leadership and management and a (special) M.A. on the Church’s response to HIV and AIDS. 

Dereje Gutema leading discussions in a class on missional congregations at EGST.

As we are developing buildings and programs, EGST is continuing to seek to serve the churches in Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa. We look forward as well to EGST’s contributions to the wider church as guest lecturers come from various institutions in United Kingdom, the United States, and Southeast Asia to teach and to learn in this special context of Ethiopia.

If you would like to be a part of what God is doing in this part of the world and this part of his Church, there is now an Extra Commitment Opportunity account for the Ethiopian Graduate School of Theology. That account is ECO 051846. (To give online, use the button at the bottom of this page.)

On a personal note, we are grateful that PC(USA) has further extended our term here through June 2008. This gives us another year to continue in the development of courses in the missiology program and to work and pray with EGST for Ethiopian faculty to join the missiology department. There are some promising prospects in 2008. Pray with us for God’s direction and calling of the right people at the right time.

These days in Addis Ababa the words of the prophet have special meaning and offer needed hope, “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight; and the rough ways made smooth and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” It doesn’t happen quickly, but it will happen. May you too know that God is at work in your sphere and your place for God’s good purposes.

Blessings,

Anne & John Wheeler-Waddell
Ethiopian Graduate School of Theology
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

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