You cannot escape Lent when you are living in Ethiopia. Lent is the penitential preparation of the believer—through prayer, penance, repentance, almsgiving, and self-denial (Wikipedia). Easter is the biggest holiday for the Ethiopian Orthodox church. Many of their beliefs are centered on works. They believe they can earn God's favor by doing things like praying, singing, giving to the poor, etc.
So, during Lent they sing every night until midnight and then start again around 5am the next day. It is usually really loud and can be quite annoying in the middle of a sound sleep, but today God reminded me to pray for His truth of grace to prevail. There is a small movement of Christian Orthodox that have decided to stay in the Orthodox church and share Biblical truth. Praise God for this movement and pray for His Gospel to be heard and received by many.
Ethiopia is described as 63% "Christian" and 34% muslim. "Christian" here only means non-Muslim. 44% of the total population is Ethiopian Orthodox. It is hard to determine the exact percentage of evangelical Christians here but it is low, so we pray and hope that many more of these precious people will hear and believe the true Gospel of grace.
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