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Acts of God in Ethiopia $9.99 USD |
Acts of God in Ethiopia This beautiful book reads like the book of Acts while it chronicles the many miracles that God has performed in Bishop Teklemariam's life and in Ethiopia. You will be inspired as you read testimony after testimony that witnesses the God of the Biblical Apostles living, working miracles, and calling us to salvation today. Excerpt from Teklemariam's testimony Baptism of the Holy Spirit In 1963, the Finnish Pentecostals brought the message of Baptism in the Holy Ghost to Ethiopia. An excited young man came to me and said: “God is literally pouring out the Holy Ghost as stated in the second chapter of Acts. Many have received the Holy Ghost in Addis Ababa, even as Peter quoted it from Joel the prophet: ‘And it shall come to pass in the last days saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh.’ You may have this gift if you are hungry.” “How can the Holy Ghost enter the heart of men?” I argued. “He is the third person of the Trinity who possesses a distinct personality in the form of man. Haven’t you read in Genesis 18 that the Trinity appeared to Abraham? They ate and drank with him and had their feet washed. How on earth can you say that one of the Trinity can be ‘poured out’ on men?” I asked. The young man insisted: “Let us forget the teachings of men. Believe with me that without a doubt the Holy Ghost was poured out on men. I have seen with my own eyes how the Spirit changed the lives of men after they received the promised gift of God; I cannot doubt,” he said, with emotion and excitement. “Is this in my Bible?” I demanded, “Can you show me this in my own Bible, or do you have another Bible? If the Bible tells of the Holy Ghost being poured out, surely my Bible school teachers would have taught me about it.” “Leave those so-called teachers to their trade in the name of the Bible. I can show this wonderful thing to you in your own Bible,” the young man answered. After he showed me three passages of the scripture, I said to him, “I want to study my Bible by myself; leave me alone.” He left. While on my knees, I read the four Gospels and the Book of Acts. I underlined the verses that referred to the Holy Ghost or the Spirit. When I found forty-two references to the Spirit in Acts alone, I saw the absurdity of my ritualistic faith and realized my need to be filled with the Holy Spirit. I went to the young man who had witnessed to me. “Now tell me how you received the Holy Ghost and how I may also,” I requested. “I have not yet been filled with the Holy Ghost,” the young man admitted. “Then how can you testify about it without having the experience?” ”Because I saw my friends at the University and at the Teachers’ Training College filled with the Holy Ghost, speaking in other tongues and prophesying. Their wicked lives have changed completely, and now they worship God with tears and humility.” Because of college entrance examinations, I could not take the two-day bus ride to Addis to see the Holy Spirit-filled brothers for myself until September 1964. After arriving, I saw numbers of young people rejoicing in the liberty of the Holy Ghost at the Finnish Pentecostal Mission at Markato. My desire to receive the Pentecostal experience increased. I took the hands of those who had been filled, pressed them down firmly on my head, and cried with a loud voice, “Holy Spirit, come upon me! Holy Spirit, come!” I thought it would be like an electric shock transmitted by their hands. After seven futile attempts, I thought, “Oh, the hands of the laymen will not work. Let me go to a missionary. It will come through her.” I asked an elderly missionary, Mrs. Helvy, to lay her hands on my head while I pressed down her hands against my head as hard as I could, but nothing happened. Running from the church in anguish, I counted myself the chief of sinners and feared that God would strike me dead with a thunderbolt for daring to enter the presence of holy people. After I took off a long distance from the church, I stood up and took a firm decision not to eat or drink until God gave me His Spirit. I bought a hundred-page notebook and recorded all of the sins from Genesis to Revelation. I proposed to go naked and barefoot from church to church, to all monasteries, to mosques and city squares to confess all the sins that I had written, even those I had not committed. Lutheran Missionary Stocks saw me writing and asked me what I was writing. When I told him what I planned to do, he took the notebook out of my hands and read it, for he understood Amharic. “Come home with me, Tekle,” he said. At his residence, Mr. Stocks took a match and burned the notebook. “The blood of our Lord Jesus Christ has burned your sins on His cross as I am burning this book,” he explained. Though very upset, I did not want to add the sin of insulting a missionary to my other wrong deeds. I left Missionary Stocks’ home immediately; however, when I tried to list the sins again, I found it impossible to do so. My intense desire to have the Holy Ghost compelled me to think of something else that might help. “I’ll go to the village of Debre-Zeit, fifty kilometers away,” I thought. “I’ll go into the woods and lie on the dew-wet grass all night and pray. Surely then, God will have mercy and pour His Spirit on me.” Just as I situated myself face down on the swampy grass in the night illumined by a pale moon, I heard a house owner load his gun. (The man had seen me slipping into the woods and thought that I must be a thief.) At that very moment, the glint of a moonbeam revealed an enormous python. I though to myself, if the python swallows me, there’ll be nothing for my relatives to bury, but if the man shoots me, they can claim my dead body. Having chosen my course of action, I jumped up and ran. Trying to get away, I fell into a huge pit that had been dug for a latrine. I had eluded my pursuer, but I now faced the difficult task of getting out of the straight-sided hole. After several futile efforts—bruised, but without broken bones—I managed to scale the walls. Covered with mud and stinking filth, I found a hill of refuge and water to wash my soiled clothing and myself. During early morning hours, I waited under the trees until my clothing drip-dried. I returned to Addis Ababa by bus on September 10, 1964. I had fasted three days by this time. While standing near the university gate in the afternoon, I heard a commanding voice say, “Run!” I hesitated, looked around, but saw no one. “Run!” the imperative voice came the second time. “Run to the Finnish Pentecostal Church.” A strong desire to run overwhelmed me. As I ran I thought, if I meet an acquaintance and he asks, “Why are you running? Why are you weeping?” I would not know how to answer. I thought to myself, “Perhaps I should stop running and walk,” but my feet would not follow my brain. More than five kilometers from where the word came for me to run, I entered the church with a desire to kneel down. I threw my first knee to the floor and before my second knee touched the floor, the Holy Ghost fell on me as a mighty waterfall of glory. I thought I must have knelt on an electric wire; in an ecstasy of joy I felt the power of God lift me into heavenly places. With uplifted arms, I spoke in other tongues for five hours. When the irrepressible flow of the Spirit abated, I still could speak only in tongues. I spent the next twenty-four hours trying to communicate by sign language. My relatives considered taking me to a mental hospital. I could not make them understand that I felt weak and desperately hungry. When my native tongue (Tigrigna) returned, I talked constantly, hoping this would assure me of not losing the ability to speak it again. |
