In January 1982 the Meserete Kristos Church in Ethiopia was forced underground, and it was only able to resurface nine years later, in 1991. The story of its survival has many facets. It is a chronicle which needs to be shared because it can enrich the whole church body.

Many who are alive today played a part in this story. It had its settings in the various locations in Ethiopia where the church had its roots. In Nazareth, Addis Ababa and elsewhere God raised men and women to give guidance and leadership to the church when such involvement could have cost them their freedom and even their lives. God instructed them one by one. He gave them wisdom and protected them. As one leader described their circumstances, "There were no complications for us such as needing to buy land, to put up buildings, to buy suitable sound systems, to choose choir uniforms, or to set up offices for administrators, accountants and cashiers."

The underground years were for undeterred ministry. When freedom came, so did power struggles. While it was underground the church had two main thrusts. It reached out to the unsaved and it nurtured its members.

Kassa Agafari is one of the people who lived through the underground period. Here is his story as told to Doris Dube on June 10, 1999. Ms. Dube, who is a teacher in Zimbabwe, serves as the Africa editor on the MWC Communications team.

PROFILE OF AN ETHIOPIAN CHURCH LEADER:
KASSA AGAFARI'S STORY

My parents lived in the southern part of Ethiopia. This region was evangelized by Sudan Interior Mission (SIM), and my parents were among their converts. When I was six years old they took me up to the north and left me with relatives who brought me up. We lived in a place called Nazareth. At Nazareth there was a Mennonite Mission Hospital, and so I grew up in a mission compound. From when I was young to the time when I was a teenager I observed the Mennonites, and I liked what I saw.

There are many memories of those days. Missionary Chester Wenger took a number of us with him when he went to preach at the sugar plantations. Sometimes we went to camp there. We also preached with him. When I was ready for further studies, I moved to Bahir Dar, a town in the north, where I enrolled at a polytechnic institute. There I met Milion Belete. The year was 1965. For some unexplainable reason, I went through a spiritual desert. I felt spiritually dry, empty and lonely. I battled within myself and said, "Shall I try God by being Orthodox? If I fail, I will try to be a Moslem or a Catholic." I had a hunger for peace.

It was customary after studies that a number of us boys used to go behind the dormitory to share scriptures and to pray. We did as it says in James 5:16: "Therefore confess your sins to each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective." One day we prayed and confessed our sins for three solid hours, and even then none of us wanted to stop. We could have gone on and on. We had no exposure to a Pentecostal type of worship, but we each prayed aloud at the same time. I believe God visited us in a special way that day. The next day all those who had taken part in that prayer of confession woke up changed. Our faces shone. We saw it in each other's faces, and others saw it too.

We attended Youth for Christ meetings. Many of us started reading the Bible in earnest. We devoured it individually and in groups. We could not get enough of it. We continued to confess any sin which came to our remembrance, and we were drawn closer to God, who opened heaven for us. This went on for a period of seven months. Because I realized the importance of this, I now desired to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Much as I prayed, I was not filled with the Holy Spirit. I continued to pray. Other people prayed for me and laid hands on me, but nothing happened. Luke 11:1-13 gave me some encouragement. Verse 13 says, "If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!" I knew then that I needed to keep on asking, and not give up.

I moved down to the south again. I continued my prayers to be filled with the Holy Spirit. I knew that God is loyal and keeps his promises. One day I prayed with a fellow believer. He laid his hands on me and prayed. Nothing happened. Three other brothers came. They asked me to kneel down, and they prayed. They praised God. As they were praising, the Holy Spirit came down and filled me. It is not easy to describe how I felt. I experienced a bubbling love and joy. It was immense, and so real. It was wonderful. Tears flowed down my face. It was an experience that really changed my whole life. I developed real love. The truth of God revealed to me that I should not pray only for other Christians, but also for non-Christians. My prayer life changed. Instead of praying for five minutes I prayed for two hours, and yet it felt as though I had been praying for only two minutes.

As a greater understanding of God came to me, I started interceding for others. The Word of God continued to feed my hunger. It became like honey. I wanted to eat it all the time. If I had been asked to choose between going to visit a palace or eating God's word, I would have chosen the latter. I wanted to spend all my time feeding from God's word and sharing with other Christians. I prayed and let God teach me and speak to me. After 22 years I answered his call and came into full-time service for Him. We can go to a theological college to learn the Bible, but this can be useless learning if God has not taught and changed us. The change has to be inside, not in the head but in the heart.

Building the Church:

I can remember every detail of that day. It started very early on a Monday morning when I got a telephone call from Tilahun Beyene, who was then the chairperson of the Bole Church. I was the vice-chairperson. He informed me that some of our church members had been arrested. This did not surprise us. We had seen it coming. Our church had been experiencing a great revival. The sick were being healed. Demons and evil spirits were being cast out. Many preferred to come to church rather than go and listen to speeches on Marxism, which were scheduled at the same time as our services. The closing down of the church and the arrest of the leaders was no great surprise.

In our telephone conversation with Tilahun Beyene, we decided to meet at a stationery shop owned by Kiros Bihone, one of our elders. Before going to this meeting I decided to check on another church elder, Abebe Gorfe, who worked in the bank. When I arrived at the bank he told me that he had been summoned to the bank manager's office. He feared that he might be arrested and sent to prison. Back at the stationery shop, we had a meeting. We wondered what would happen next, and what we should do. There were four of us: Tilahun Beyene, Kiros Bihone, Veshitila Mengistu and myself.

Before we could come to any decision, a car pulled up outside the shop. The people in the car came into the shop and demanded to talk to Kiros Bihone. He resisted going out with them and demanded that they should talk to him right there in the shop, in our presence. They refused and took him away. The rest of us did not even say good-bye to each other. Without discussion we each disappeared. I phoned my work place where I was manager of Hope Enterprises, which dealt with street kids. I asked my secretary if anyone had looked for me, and she said no. I went back to the bank and asked about Abebe Gorfe. He had not come back from the interview with his manager. By then I had learned that the general secretary of the church had also been arrested. I decided not to go home. I needed to tie up all my affairs in case I too got arrested. For 15 days I did not go to work or to my house. I stayed with relatives.

At the end of those 15 days God gave me a verse. It was Matthew 16:18, "You are Peter a stone, and upon this rock I will build my church and all the powers of hell shall not prevail against it." I felt strengthened. God was at work. He was building his church. Nothing could prevail against it. I decided to go back home. I was ready to face whatever came my way. By that time it had come to my knowledge that three of us elders and three evangelists had survived the arrests. We went into a deep period of prayer to seek God's guidance. We prayed day and night until we got some instruction from God. We felt led to go out and visit the people in their homes to encourage them.

Some wanted to give us their tithes, and at that time we said no. What was more important was to nurture the people. We divided the city into six areas. Each of us was responsible for one area. We identified possible leaders in each of our region. We trained them and called them watchmen (Gubenga). There were both male and female leaders. The training had to be on a one-to-one basis. The watchmen conducted the secret services in the home chapels, they visited people in their homes, and they continued the outreach program. All who became Christians were instructed in soul winning, and they then reached out to others.

It should be noted that while this was going on in the city of Addis Ababa the same was happening elsewhere in the church. Faithful people were meeting in private homes. To avoid detection, they met in groups of 6-10 people. When the group was too big, it was time to split and form other cell groups. The people came in ones or twos but never in a group or at the same time. They also left at different intervals. When they came in they knelt and prayed. When the leader felt that enough people had come he started the service. The singing had to be very soft (room level). Most of the time was spent on studying the Scriptures, sharing, encouraging each other and praying.

When the groups became better organized and established, the church started collecting tithes to help with the administration. All information was kept in the head. There were no written documents. Messages were sent out by special language. A telephone message might go like this, "So and so is getting married at such and such a place." This meant there was going to be a service at that location. Sometimes the message would state, "There is a burial service." This meant there was to be a baptism.

God's plans are perfect. We can never fully understand why certain things happen the way they do, but he has a purpose. I do not know why some people were sent to prison and why others were spared. All I know is that it is important to be obedient to him. In 1987 I joined the church as a full-time worker, and I started organizing and conducting a training program throughout the country.