Missionary Profile - Belaynesh

Belaynesh was born in 1972 in a rural agricultural region of Ethiopia known as Eastern Gojame Mota.
While in the eighth grade, she made a profession of faith in Jesus after hearing the gospel from her older sister, who had become a believer after moving to the south of Ethiopia. Some years later, Belaynesh was baptized by a visiting evangelist who helped to start a church in her region.
Her conversion and membership in the evangelical church caused her to receive persecution from family members. Her uncle is an Orthodox priest and he threatened her to change her mind concerning faith in Christ or he would kill her.
While having many Christ-exalting traditions, some rural Orthodox priests remain ignorant of the gospel and oppose the preaching of salvation by faith in the evangelical sense. For many of the Orthodox, the church and its traditions are the means of salvation and the way that faith is received. Belaynesh was unable to remain in the Orthodox church and was forced to leave home.
She moved to Bahir Dar and the adjustment to city life was difficult. She gained employment as a teacher and joined a fellowship of believers.
“God spoke to my heart during that time in Bahir Dar,” she said, “that someday I would become a bible lady.” Two years later she moved to Addis Abeba to pursue the calling of ministry.
The first years in Addis were financially difficult. “I struggled with life,” she said. “My physical and spiritual well-being was under attack”
During this time of loneliness and desperation, she often thought of how she could have remained home and married a wealthy man. “For sure I would not have the peace that I have today,” she said. “Jesus saved me because He loves me. This I know.”
Belaynesh served several years in Addis in ladies ministry and evangelical outreach. She said during this time, “God brought me out of the darkness by using my sister as a witness. In the same way I need to be a witness to my people.”
In 2005 Belaynesh was married after years of praying for a godly husband. God sent her a husband that not only is a fellow believer but also a minister. They are now able to minister alongside each other. Belaynesh meets often with women in their home for prayer and bible study while her husband is working on a new church plant in Badessa, where they moved just over a year ago.
Belaynesh and Teferi (her husband) now have two little boys and praise God for His provision and faithfulness. Belaynesh shared that Badessa is a strongly Islamic area and is a place of great persecution and sectarian violence. Belaynesh asks for prayer that God’s Spirit would move, bring men to faith and repentance in Badessa, and also for the “ongoing fellowship, unity and love for all attached to this ministry until the end of time.”