Published on Operation World (http://www.operationworld.org)
May 20: Ethiopia
Ethiopia
Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia
Africa
See Prayer Information
Geography
Area: 1,106,000 sq kmFertile, mountain plateau surrounded by the drought-prone lowlands and deserts of the Red Sea coast; borders on Eritrea, Somalia, Kenya and Sudan. Landlocked since the secession of Eritrea.
Population: 84,975,606 Annual Growth: 2.62%
Capital: Addis Ababa
Urbanites: 17.6%
HDI Rank: 171 of 182 (UN Human Development Reports 2009)
Peoples
Peoples: 116 (17% unreached) All peoplesUnreached Peoples Prayer Card
Official language: Amharic; majority of the population are able to speak it; English widely taught. Regional languages are very important Languages: 88 All languages
Religion
Largest Religion: ChristianReligion | Pop % | Ann Gr | |
---|---|---|---|
Christians | 51,563,198 | 60.68 | 2.7 |
Evangelicals | 16,657,376 | 19.6 | 4.3 |
Answer to Prayer
There has been increased political stability, economic growth and job opportunities in the past few years on a scale not seen for decades.For an additional 3 Answers to Prayer see Operation World book, CD-ROM, or DVD-ROM.
Challenge for Prayer
Massive growth in Protestant and Independent churches creates a great expectation for further harvest. Pray for:a) Revival and growth to be sustained and for divisions and carnality to be avoided.
b) Effective means for generating income to support Kingdom workers, to develop the needed structures and facilities and to fund social programmes that are essential in the prevailing conditions of deep poverty. The Church must minister as the poor to the poor; pray for creative solutions to the challenges this brings.
c) Continued unity and cooperation among leaders, qualities forged through past suffering. Relationships among denominations seem stronger than the divisions that occur within denominations; pray against the dividing influences of the enemy and human pride. Pray especially for the Evangelical Churches Fellowship (ECFE), which represents the majority of evangelicals in the country.
d) Missions vision was birthed out of suffering during the Marxist regime and the withdrawal of Western agencies during that time. Through ECFE, a long-term strategy for evangelizing Ethiopia has emerged, one that includes intercession, focus on unevangelized peoples and church mobilization – only 3% of evangelical churches are regarded as being “mission-mobilized”. The vision entails planting, cross-culturally, thousands more churches in all regions of Ethiopia and even sending to the Horn of Africa and South Asia.
For an additional 11 Challenges for Prayer see Operation World book, CD-ROM, or DVD-ROM.