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July 30, 2024
Marcie Erickson's Inspiring Mission in Ethiopia
Marcie Erickson from the Grace Center in Bahir Dar, Ethiopia, joins us to share the incredible impact of faith-based charity work. From schooling and medical support to housing, clothing, and orphan prevention, the Grace Center's efforts have transformed countless lives. Marcie also discusses the innovative text message campaign that has prevented baby abandonment and saved thousands of lives. We celebrate the fruitful partnership between CityLight Church and the Grace Center, which has contributed over $100,000 since 2009, reflecting the power of collective effort and divine guidance.
In this deeply moving episode, we recount stories of answered prayers and miraculous encounters that led to the adoption of multiple children from Ethiopia. Marcie takes us through an inspiring journey of stepping out in faith, adapting to new cultural norms, and witnessing divine intervention in action. We highlight the cultural dynamics of Ethiopia and the effective ways to share Jesus' message through personal interactions, revealing miraculous conversions, healings, and supernatural provisions.
Tune in for a compelling episode that showcases the miracles of faith and the power of answered prayers.
For more information and resources, visit www.citylightnyc.com
(00:00) Impact of Faith-Based Charity Work
(10:56) Answered Prayers and Adoption Journey
(16:12) Stories of Impacting Communities in Ethiopia
(25:43) Water Wells and War Challenges
(32:36) Miracles and Partnerships
(44:27) Spiritual Warfare and Authority in Christ
(50:46) City Light Church Podcast Subscription
(10:56) Answered Prayers and Adoption Journey
(16:12) Stories of Impacting Communities in Ethiopia
(25:43) Water Wells and War Challenges
(32:36) Miracles and Partnerships
(44:27) Spiritual Warfare and Authority in Christ
(50:46) City Light Church Podcast Subscription
Chapters
00:00 - Impact of Faith-Based Charity Work
10:56:00 - Answered Prayers and Adoption Journey
16:12:00 - Stories of Impacting Communities in Ethiopia
25:43:00 - Water Wells and War Challenges
32:36:00 - Miracles and Partnerships
44:27:00 - Spiritual Warfare and Authority in Christ
50:46:00 - City Light Church Podcast Subscription
Transcript
00:00 - Speaker 1
I always say this if every person did what God called them to do in this world, this world would look very different. We wouldn't see the starvation that we see, which is still pretty regular in Ethiopia, and I don't think that there's any reason to ever say to someone no, you don't need. If they say I'm hungry, no, I can't feed you, I don't think Jesus would have ever done that when he was walking with us on earth, which he's with us now through us. Amen.
00:26 - Speaker 2
Welcome to the City Light Church podcast. Thanks for joining us today as we look into God's word and discover the hope and truth that he has for us. If you want to connect with City Light Church, feel free to visit us at citylightnyccom. That's citylightnyccom. Pastor Boyan Jancic and his team believe that the power of the Holy Spirit is already working in our hearts and minds. As you listen to today's teaching, remember that you are deeply loved by God, that you are surrounded by His grace and that he has a real hope and a future for you that he has a real hope and a future for you.
01:08 - Speaker 3
And so today we have Marcy Erickson from the Grace Center. Because of our Heart for Souls, we have various missionary endeavors, and missionaries and missionary groups that we support and sponsor have been doing that from 2009. We're in Guatemala. For the last 15 years now, helped build over 40 churches in the Mayan mountains of Nabar, guatemala. Then we were in Montenegro and Montenegro branched out over into Serbia. But since 2009, we have sponsored the Grace Center in Bahir Dar, ethiopia, and the founder of the Grace Center is here with us today.
01:42
Won't you give her a big clap and honor her? Marcy Erickson of the Grace Center Hallelujah, we're so glad to have her with us. And so, because some of you have been with us for many, many years, others are fairly new. Those of you who are new, you may have seen us show a clip here and there of the grace center, but really it's very hard to describe all that happens there in just a 30 second video clip. So, marcy, would you just share with us what really is the grace center, because I keep referring to it as an orphanage, but it's really so much more. It's kind of I feel like I've grown like this octopus of ministry with various arms and tentacles and legs. What is the Grace Center?
02:30 - Speaker 1
Of course. First of all, it's so wonderful to be with you. It's such an honor and a blessing and a privilege, and City Light has partnered with us for so many years. And I was just thinking back to the first time that I came to City Light to speak and I was about eight months pregnant with my daughter, netsanit, who's out that door right now. She's 15 now, so that's 15 years ago and it has been such a blessing. Over those 15 years you all have given over $100,000 that has gone to serving the poor in Ethiopia and helping the orphans.
03:03
So Grace Center is, yes, definitely more than an orphanage. What we seek to do at Grace Center is we receive each individual as an individual and we say what is God calling this person to do in their life and how can we help that person to live out God's call in his or her life? And so then the programs at Grace Center develop from that. So we have many different things that we do, but it all stems from that individual and what do they need to get off their feet or to get back on their feet and to receive all of the assistance and the love and to know Jesus as their savior. And so we have a school, we help people with housing, clothing, feeding.
03:48
We have the orphanage, the children's home as well, which is also quite unique for our area, because one of the first things we do when we receive these abandoned babies and we do often receive abandoned babies is we try to find relatives or family members of the child. We have people that are like detectives that go to where the child was found and ask lots of questions and try to figure it out. Because, you know, we can see that baby's soul saved and life saved by raising them. But we could also see all of the family brought together and the whole family saved in knowing that there is opportunities and there is hope and that Jesus loves them and cares about them. So we do everything that it takes to get to that point.
04:32 - Speaker 3
Are you all catching that? Because she listed a lot of things. So it's not just an orphanage. Help me here, Marcy. It's also a school. There's a medical arm of it. There's an orphan prevention arm of it.
04:46 - Speaker 1
Yes, actually I wanted to say something about that. About a few years ago I was in the US. I was driving south on the interstate and I saw this billboard sign that said don't abandon your baby, call this number. And immediately I thought why have we never done this in Ethiopia? So I started thinking we're going to put up billboard signs in Ethiopia saying don't abandon your baby, and God literally interrupted me in the middle of my thought and said no, you're going to send out text messages. And so we started a few years back by sending a text message out to 5 million phones in our area saying don't abandon your baby, please call this number. Within a few days we had over 500 phone calls. We've seen thousands of babies that have been saved through this, and moms as well, because the moms realize there's hope.
05:35 - Speaker 3
That is awesome.
05:37 - Speaker 1
Praise God.
05:37 - Speaker 3
The best way to run an orphanage is to ensure there isn't too many future clients Right Amen.
05:45 - Speaker 1
I know we would be happy if that didn't happen.
05:47 - Speaker 3
And then you feed. I have this distinct memory of waking up one morning I'd visited Marcy in Christmas of 2009. Excuse me, yeah, it was 2009 or 10. No, it was 10., 10., 2010. And just about to go into 11 because it was 2009 or 10. No, it was 10. 2010. And just about to go into 11, because it was then six months later that I met Emily, truly met Emily. But that's see, I'm just making everything about me and her.
06:17 - Speaker 1
Forgive me.
06:20 - Speaker 3
Let me bring it back to the Grace Center. I remember waking up and there was all these people. I was just under the impression that it was an orphanage. There were all these people coming early in the morning and these giant pots, almost giant cauldrons, cooking food. And then you had told me that the Grace Center feeds 700 people every day. How many does it feed now?
06:41 - Speaker 1
Thousands Every day, every day, yes, are you hearing that church?
06:45 - Speaker 3
yeah, you're a part of that.
06:48 - Speaker 1
Amen, yes you all have made this happen, you and god. You know, and that's the thing is we, we can't do it.
06:55
If every I always say this if every person did what god called them to do in this world, this world world would look very different yeah, we wouldn't see the amen, we wouldn't see the starvation that we see, which is still pretty regular in Ethiopia, and I don't think that there's any reason to ever say to someone no, you don't need. If they say I'm hungry, no, I can't feed you, I don't think Jesus would have ever done that when he was walking with us on earth, which he's with us now through us.
07:24 - Speaker 3
Amen amen walking with us on earth, which he's with us now through us, amen, amen. Well, you have a unique story. You received the call of God in your teen years. You'd shared in the first service. It was even earlier than what I thought, but by 18, you went out into the world to fulfill the call of God on your life.
07:41
And I believe we have many people really all Christians should be. If you don't know, your destiny in Christ should be seeking him to fulfill your purpose. I mean you all know your purpose isn't to wake up, go to work, come home, watch Netflix, fall asleep, then do it all over again. You have a higher purpose. God wants your life to make an eternal impact. You know Steve Jobs, his motto.
08:03
He said he wanted to put a dent in the universe. If some unsaved person could want to leave this earth and say I want, to quote, put a dent in the universe. In other words, he said I want my life to matter, I want it to count for something. I want to leave the world different than how I found it. How much more the born again child of God with the Holy Spirit inside of them, should want to make an impact that has an eternal value and so just share about that, because you come from all places Naples, florida, an affluent community in Florida, not the mean streets of anywhere, but just like the center of suburbia, of comfortable. I guess that's why I'm saying all that. I mean you came from the center of comfort. What did the Lord do in your life to cause you to fly over the Atlantic on the continent of Africa?
08:52 - Speaker 1
So I tell as much as I can try to encourage people to pray it what is God calling you to do in your life? And when I was about 15 years old, I was always raised in the church, but I actually opened the Bible on my own for the first time. I pointed to a verse and it said A religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this to care for the orphans and widows and their affliction. I said Okay, god, that's what you want me to do with my life. When I was a senior in high school, everyone was deciding which colleges they were going to go to. I said God, what do you want me to do? I heard God say I want you to be a missionary To me. In my mind, that meant Africa.
09:32
I actually started out in Guatemala. I was in Guatemala for the first year At 18, 19,. I went over to Ethiopia for the first year. It was in the middle of a five-year famine. It was a very, very difficult situation there. Every day there were people that were coming that were starving to death, and it was a very hard situation. And we also had many babies that were abandoned outside the doors. They didn't operate an orphanage. They had a school and I was teaching at the school and at night we'd go to lock up the doors of the school and there'd be a baby laying on the ground. And so at that point in my life, after some discernment, I felt like God was calling me to foster and adopt as many children as I could personally take on, and so that was where I ended up going to other countries. I was in Uganda and Rwanda and Congo, tanzania.
10:28 - Speaker 3
How old are you at this point? Is there going through Eastern Africa?
10:30 - Speaker 1
I was about 24 during that time. That was over about a year and a half, so I guess I wasn't 24 for a year and a half, but you know somewhere around there and, you know, god made it very clear that he wanted me in Ethiopia and I began by opening my home and saying, okay, lord.
10:49 - Speaker 3
Let me just ask what's the number one way that you felt God made it clear to you he wanted you in Ethiopia?
10:54 - Speaker 1
That's a good question. I pray very specific prayers.
10:57 - Speaker 3
Yeah, I don't. I had a whole sermon on the importance of specificity.
11:02 - Speaker 1
So when I was traveling different places, a few things would come to me like are the laws in line for me to be able to receive children? Are there children in need? You know, praise God if there's not children abandoned. That's wonderful, you know, but is that a need? And specifically, when I came back to Ethiopia, I had been gone for about five years from the first time I was there and I came back and I didn't know exactly where the Lord wanted me, but someone had suggested I go and visit this town called Bahadur. So I went to Bahadur and I said two prayers okay, one of them was Lord, if you want me to live here, then I wanna meet someone who is faithful, a nurse I said, preferably Americans, so that I can relate to them very easily and I want them to be able to specialize in treating malaria, because that was the first thing that I had seen the most deaths from in my first year in Ethiopia was malaria. I mean, the kids. The kids would go home and they wouldn't come back the next day. It was just the most tragic thing, and so that was my first prayer.
12:11
My second prayer was that I would meet someone who knows both cultures equally as well.
12:19
And so I said an Ethiopian born US citizen that's now back in Ethiopia. Okay, a little bit specific, but and I love how God just entertains me with this, because the very first day I'm in Bahadar, I'm wandering around this very rural area and I come across this couple that they're obviously foreigners, and I said, oh, what do you do here? And the wife said, well, I'm a nurse, my husband's an agriculturalist and we specialize in growing a plant that's used to treat malaria. And where are you from? We're from Florida. Okay, god, okay, okay. And then the next day I met Gush Asifa, who had lived in Ethiopia, went to the US to study, spent 26 years working as a social worker in the US, then moved back to Ethiopia just to be able to help his people and would take kids off the street, teach them how to farm and send them to school. So that was the second day in this location. I said, okay, god, and he actually was the one that introduced me to my husband some years later. He's my husband's uncle.
13:29
Oh, wow so that was how I knew.
13:31 - Speaker 3
That is awesome. You can clap at that. I just want to point out that that's the kind of level of guidance and answers to prayer I believe and I've witnessed you can only receive when you've already made the decision to go. If she was laying on her couch in Naples, florida, going God you know, I'll really believe it's you if you X, y, z, she would have heard nothing, but because she was already out there, she was in a place of desperation. She was yearning for the will of God. He provided this very, very specific answer to prayer.
14:07 - Speaker 1
That's very true. Go ahead. Yeah, I was just gonna say so. True, go ahead. Yeah, I was just going to say so. Then I ended up settling in Bahadur, ethiopia, and I received my first four children through adoption, praise God, my first child came to me when he was two years and nine months old. Three weeks later, my son James came to me at three weeks old Sorry, 13 days old. Three weeks later, my other son came to me at three months old, and then, a year later, I adopted my daughter, tiggest, when she was five. And a year later I was married and now we have 12 beautiful children. My oldest is 22. So all the way down to our youngest is five months. How about that?
14:50 - Speaker 3
And so that means like within the first year you had Insta family?
14:53 - Speaker 1
Yes, she had the Brady.
14:55 - Speaker 3
Bunch within one year.
14:56 - Speaker 1
Yes, and my husband married into Insta family not only just for kids, but all of Grace Center. You know hundreds of kids at Grace Center. So there are. There are babies too.
15:09 - Speaker 3
So awesome. I want to talk a little bit about culture, because every place and every country has its own unique culture. One distinct memory I have was that fellow outside the Grace Center who, as he was talking to me, he was just like stroking my arm back and forth over and over again. And he's just looking at me. So I'm looking back at him and he just won't stop just stroking my arm. And I wanted to be a good missionary so I let that go on for a few minutes and, uh, he didn't set off any, any alarms in me.
15:42
You know, I could just tell he was just innocently stroking my arm and then, you know, I'd come back to you and you had said, hey, that's not abnormal here. Like, like, like this is so hard maybe for people in nyc in 2024 to even get, like it's not uncomfortable for a man to like grab me and put his arm around me and just lead me somewhere. And yeah, no, totally straight, totally legit, totally legal, and just to show affection, just just showing, showing stroke, stroking my arm. See, see, there's some cynics here that are like no way, way, way.
16:19 - Speaker 1
Brotherly love, and that's it.
16:20 - Speaker 3
Yeah.
16:22 - Speaker 1
I have a great photo of two military guys just walking holding hands. Nothing there, just friends. It's like that's how you know and they can't believe what we're dealing with here.
16:34 - Speaker 3
Morally, you know, the people there have a pretty strong maybe, maybe if some dudes just held hands for a little bit, we'd have less of the other stuff in america, you know I don't know, this is. This is how pastor mo and I, how we keep our relationship strong. We just sometimes we'll just hold hands and tell each other we love each other. But here's the point Culture can be completely different from place to place. How does the Ethiopian culture influence the way that you share Jesus?
17:10 - Speaker 1
So Ethiopia is a very unique culture Out of all the countries I've been in in Africa. It's just very different. And so I realized, after having that moment of your arm being pet and he was standing in front of a group of people preaching, you know, it dawned on me that we have to deal with people one-on-one. That is the most effective way that we find in Ethiopia to share who Jesus is and I can say 99% of the time they're very happy to accept Christ. They're very happy to pray.
17:46
There's one time a woman came to me and said, no, I would prefer to be a Satanist. And I said, okay, can I tell you the story of Jesus still? And she said, sure, and by the end of it she still was happy to pray, and that was someone who was a committed Satanist. So you know this is.
18:10
We see people. They're so eager to know Jesus and it seems to be that one-on-one just really really touches them and culturally, being aware of the different backgrounds and where they're coming from and Ethiopia, they tend, where we're at, they tend to be more reserved, not as far as touching the arm, but more reserved in the way that they share emotion and very proud of their culture. It's a beautiful country, you know. Most people don't know much about Ethiopia, except that there's people that are hungry, you know, and so they like to show people their culture and it's beautiful and so we do. We minister through that and I spend probably when I'm there, I spend the majority of my time praying with people one-on-one and seeing many miraculous healing of the people there, physically, emotionally and spiritually, and it's really amazing and such an honor.
19:11 - Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah, a lot of people. All they know of Ethiopia is like the 1980s. Is it Sally Struthers? Was that her name? You know for the price of a cup of coffee and they show the one hut.
19:21
But while I was there I saw some of the most beautiful churches. I believe some of the oldest churches, definitely the oldest churches in Africa and some of the oldest churches in the world are in Ethiopia. We just quickly glossed over that part in Acts where it was the Ethiopian eunuch who got radically saved and then went on proclaiming the gospel. Well, you can see churches that are over a thousand years old in Ethiopia really beautiful.
19:47 - Speaker 1
Yeah, even in our area, our city has them. Yeah.
19:51 - Speaker 3
So can you talk about a time or two where God provided for you guys supernaturally or protected you supernaturally?
20:01 - Speaker 1
There's so many, there's so many. I always never know where to start. So for many years, I didn't ever ask for funding. I would just pray and God would provide what we needed. Years, I didn't ever ask for funding. I would just pray and God would provide what we needed.
20:18
And so there was about two years where the government of Ethiopia decided they were no longer going to import baby formula, and we have usually anywhere between 25 to 40 infants that are abandoned, that need to be fed and nourished. And one day in particular, every morning in our center, we always get together and we pray. We always start every morning with prayer, and one day in particular we were praying okay, lord, in about an hour or two we're going to run out of baby formula, and we know you want these children to be fed and well. And just after we finished praying, we got a knock on our gate and there was a woman that had been traveling from Spain and she was a friend of a friend's that had been told this organization needs baby formula, and so she provided our baby formula for the next two days, and we did that for two years, and so God just steps in in miraculous ways, and now I know that there is. It is possible to ask people to partner with us in funding as well, because it allows us to help many, many more people. But I saw those provisions and we still continue to see it. We've been gifted land to have Grace Center help more and more people, even in our area.
21:34
The city mayor said he wants to give us land in every neighborhood to start daycares. That's so awesome, because we started the first infant daycare in Ethiopia and most of these infants would have been abandoned on the street if we didn't have daycare for them. They just never thought about starting a daycare, so we started, and now they want to give us land in different places. We're actually almost finished acquiring land in three places. And then we went to another town because we always knew that Grace Center is about Jesus, it's about people, it's not about one location. So we went to another town with four of our leaders, my husband being one, and immediately upon arriving in this town they went into the main office. The city administrator came, the mayor came, everyone came and had a meeting and said what are you doing in Bahadur? We want this here. And within six months we were given land, which in Ethiopia usually takes years to get land, so they gave us land. We're building now to be able to expand this ministry and reach more people.
22:36 - Speaker 3
Come on when you're in God's will. There will be provision, there will be protection Part of the reason why I asked Marcy to come out here. She hasn't been with us since 2017. And there was only one other time she visited us before that Part of the reason why I had her come out. I want you to catch the spirit that's on her. There is a spirit of faith. A 15-year-old teenage girl in Naples, Florida, gets the call of God, says yes by the time she's 18,.
23:07
She's going through Eastern Africa, still beating the bushes, trying to figure out God's perfect will for her lands in Bahir, Dar, Ethiopia, and I wish all of you could just go there. You've seen the footage. This giant complex Look right now, actually buildings upon buildings doing so much good. It's like a bunch of busy ants there, just in an ant colony, just constantly working and just churning out and doing good every single day. I wanted that to get on you because you may not even know yet what the Lord has up his sleeve for you, Every single one of you. You carry the power of God in you and you carry eternity in your heart, Hallelujah. Can you share some stories about how your work has impacted specifically the local communities there?
23:55 - Speaker 1
Yes, it's been really amazing to see how God just takes this, you know, these little mustard seeds of faith, and it just grows and expands. And our staff are just amazing and wonderful people. We have over 200 staff members in Ethiopia and wonderful people. We have over 200 staff members in Ethiopia and they just do. They love working at Grace Center, because we're not about seeing someone and saying, no, I'm sorry, I can't help you, we're full, which I can tell you from working in Africa.
24:24
That's 99% of the ministries say to people we're full, we can't feed anyone else, we can't house anyone else, we can't. Our job is to say, okay, god, you brought us this person for a reason. What are you calling us to do for this person? And our staff are able to go out into the community and help even more because they bring us people. They see people laying on the road and they say what about this person? And we say let's go to them, let's pick them up, and one of the things that we've been able to do in the community. I don't know if you, if you're aware of how bad the water situation is in ethiopia, but 99, 90 of the time the water in our city is shut off and there's some neighborhoods that haven't had running water in over a year if that's what you meant by the water situation, I was aware I took a shower in one little stream of water.
25:15 - Speaker 3
It would take about a couple of minutes to just collect in my hand. That was day one. And then I said you know what I'm going to believe God and not shower. No, I'm kidding, he'll cleanse you, he does. He does it for all of us. I can say, I can attest to it.
25:33 - Speaker 1
Very little water. You know the rest of Africa. They say that you open the tap and you hear this. In Ethiopia, you don't even hear that noise. That's the sound of the air coming in. That's long gone. I mean, there's just nothing, it's empty. So what we did was you know, we were told for years not to even bother digging a well on our land. You're not going to hit water, the rock's too hard. And we just stepped out in faith. We said there's no water and these people need water. And we're in the same position. We've got all these babies. We have to provide water for all these people that we're feeding. And we just stepped out in faith and said we're going to dig a well. And we dug a deep well, 300 feet deep, and the water was overflowing. Miraculously it was. Actually. We get 35 gallons of water per second out of this well.
26:18 - Speaker 3
This is amusement park. Wet and wild levels of water.
26:23 - Speaker 1
There's the kids playing in the water. Do you know what?
26:25 - Speaker 3
that's like in a place that's dry.
26:28 - Speaker 1
That's them playing in the water for the first time. I mean, imagine most of those kids have never even played in water their whole lives, and so we realized-.
26:37 - Speaker 3
Another memory I have in the morning there was this adorable kid and I heard this clanging outside of my room and every morning he would come. I have pictures of it. They were hanging up in our 7th Street location for years. He would get a cleaned out tomato can full of now water and he would wash every morning. He would just wash his whole face with the one can of water that that I don't know where he got from, but it's just. You know, we, we here in the states, we just like, oh, it's a cold day, let me first run the hot water for five minutes while I go and do something else over here to just heat up the room. And we don't, we take for granted what we have here Water on command. We live better than kings did for millennia.
27:19 - Speaker 1
That's true.
27:20
Yeah that's very true, and so we did. You know, we realized after our well was overflowing that we had enough water for the entire city, over 500,000 people, and so we did what we always do we opened it completely to the public, for free, and so we have over a thousand people that come every day to receive water at our ministry. And you know, it's amazing because we're able to minister, then, one-on-one with those people that come to the well. We see them coming back and you know, just like Jesus transformed the life of the Samaritan woman, we're transforming the lives of these women that are coming to our well. We bring them inside, we ask them their story and we're able to pray with them and see healing in their life so wonderful.
28:05 - Speaker 2
Hallelujah when was this.
28:08 - Speaker 3
Well, was it on your land?
28:10 - Speaker 1
Yes. It's right in the middle.
28:12 - Speaker 3
You know what I mean. There's a lot of testimonies coming out right now of God. God wants you to have land. God will bless your land and your land will produce Amen. It's just awesome how that was actually bought on your land.
28:28 - Speaker 1
Yeah, and you can see here in this video. You can see this is Bajadar and you'll see the gray center from the aerial view. And then down south is where we're starting our new location in Debra Marcos. It's about a four-hour drive south and we actually realized that there's no water in Debra Marcos either. So we said, well, this might be a wonderful opportunity because we see everything as an opportunity for the Lord that we'll dig the well first, and then people who are coming to the well, we can minister to them. This will bring all of our employees, all the people that need any assistance, and we're excited about that.
29:11 - Speaker 3
That's been very recent. There isn't water now, but there will be. What are the biggest challenges that you face?
29:22 - Speaker 1
Oh, so many, many challenges. You know right now, many of you might not be aware, but Ethiopia, our area specifically, is in a very bad war Last August.
29:36 - Speaker 3
Now, just so you know how many of you knew Ethiopia was in a bad war.
29:39 - Speaker 1
No, it's not.
29:41 - Speaker 3
I didn't know that. Well, marcy told me several months ago she had called me up and asked our whole staff to pray. They were going through something. But I didn't know until she told me that. And the reason we don't know is because nobody told us to care yet. There was not a need for us to be programmed with a particular kind of attitude towards that war. I don't know if all of you caught that, amen. How many people have died in that war so far.
30:08 - Speaker 1
We have no way of knowing.
30:09 - Speaker 3
There was a number you mentioned in the first service that blew my mind.
30:12 - Speaker 1
The first day they came into our area and within our surrounding neighborhood where Grace Center is. Over 2,000 people were killed on that first day.
30:22
And to put it in perspective, she said yeah, to put it in context, there were about 1,300 that were murdered in Gaza in October on that one day and September 11th, about 3,000, and 2,000 in Ethiopia, and no one even knows. And that was just the first couple days or the first 48 hours, I believe. It's been a very horrific situation for the people there on the ground. Our assistant director Worku, who's in that picture right there he you know. I asked him how he's, if he feels safe coming to work, and he said, you know, many times there's guns lined up ready to shoot him and he walks to work. Because he said he knows he's doing God's will and it's better to do God's will than to stay home. And you know, he's this amazing man that has just been called to lead at this time and we're so blessed by that and we're so blessed to have the staff, and so we've seen miracles in this time of just complete horror.
31:29
I mean, two weeks ago there was a grenade thrown at the back wall of Grace Center Not at Grace Center, but the building behind us and that was one thing I had mentioned to you before was there's a three-story building right behind Grace Center's area.
31:45
We have about two and a half acres where we're at, and it was taken over to be used as a place to shoot from. And Worku, our assistant director, was able to get a hold of someone in the building, like the top person in that building, and say please don't shoot down, because if you shoot directly down, you're killing women and children, because we have 30 infants there. We have all of our staff there, people coming and going all the time, and they said we'll honor that and we've never had a bullet come into our compound. And when we pray, we pray for protection over all of our staff, all of the people we serve, all their family and friends, all their loved ones, all the people that are innocent of this. We pray for a hedge of protection around them and we've seen amazing miracles, so I'd ask for your prayers for that as well.
32:30 - Speaker 3
Amen, we need to keep. You ask some other missionary. You know what are the greatest challenges, and they're like. Well, our air conditioning broke down. And here you ask what are the greatest challenges? Well, a grenade landed near the back wall and we're in the middle of. Is it a civil war?
32:51 - Speaker 1
Basically, it's more like a genocide. But yeah, so please pray, and every day I just pray. Today will be the day, because it can. Things there change just as quickly as it happened and this is what I think about the Lord how he heals. You know, just as quickly as this illness came on, just as quickly it can go. You know, just as quickly as you realized you had something wrong, god can heal just as quickly. And the same thing happens with these situations, with war, and I've really been amazed in the past seeing the fighting and then knowing how much God just turns it around like instantly. And these people are hugging each other I mean the people that killed their family members. They're hugging each other, they're embracing each other, they're forgiving each other. It's just like it's mind boggling and outside of Christ. You can't do it.
33:42 - Speaker 3
Amen, amen. Let me talk to you about some of the faith practices of the Ethiopians. How do Ethiopian Christians practice their faith differently from other cultures?
33:55 - Speaker 1
So one of the most common in Ethiopia. It's about half Muslim and half Ethiopian Orthodox Christian, which is an ancient Christian religion, and when I first went to Ethiopia it was about 15% Muslim. That was the year 2000,. And now it's over 50%. So we again go back to always working with people one-on-one. But these people tend to be the Orthodox Christians, tend to be very devout, and if we can just explain to them who Jesus is, how much he loves them, how much he wants a relationship with them, they're always very, very happy to just accept and have Christ in them completely.
34:37
We have one young woman that we found her. She was living with her elderly aunt and she had never gone to school. We started sending her to school. She was scoring higher than everyone. She skipped grades, skipped grades, skipped grades. Smartest person I call her the smartest girl in all of Ethiopia. When it came to her standardized test she scored above the top 1% of the country.
35:03
Now in Ethiopia you don't get to choose what you're going to study. The government tells you what you're going to study. But because she was so smart and on the top, she was able to choose. So she said I want to study, I want to become a doctor and she was able to go through medical school. And one of the things she said to me and she was able to go through medical school. And one of the things she said to me, or one of the things was she said I got one B. I said you're okay, it's okay, you know you're gonna live. You got one B, you're okay. But the other thing she said is she goes to the church every day and praises and thanks God for her life, for her opportunity, for her ability to study and for her. You know her intelligence, her brain. She said I never missed a day going to church.
35:44
That is so awesome, I mean how much can we learn from that right? And now she's a doctor Wonderful, she's a medical doctor, yep.
35:57 - Speaker 3
Let me just ask this what kind of support and resources do you need the most from partner churches?
36:05 - Speaker 1
I think definitely prayer. You know I'm someone that believes very strongly in prayer. That prayer works. We're not just throwing words into the atmosphere and they're bouncing off a ceiling. God is hearing, god is listening, god is changing things and he answers our prayers. So please, please, pray for protection, pray for peace, healing for the people there that are suffering, and also consider partnering with us financially as well. You know, last year we were able to raise, before COVID, let me just say this it's just so funny.
36:43 - Speaker 3
Still, even to this day, when you ask for people to consider partnering with you, I can tell you just don't like it, oh, stop, you're not comfortable with it. Oh, come on, I'm used to it now, are you better?
36:56 - Speaker 1
Okay, I pray through it.
36:59 - Speaker 3
Because, you know, in the beginning Marcy was in the miracle, like the miracle miracle zone, because she just didn't ask for money. I mean, she didn't ask us for money. I actually was told she found us. Yeah, we found you, and that was a whole other story. Just a bizarre way, we found you. We're like, hey, we like what you're doing, can we partner with you?
37:21
But I was blown away by what all is happening at the Grace Center and what God has done through Marcy back when I visited in Christmas time of 2010. And that's when it hit me. I thought but she doesn't even have like marketing videos. She's not even on social media like showing off what she's doing. I've met the guys that have all that and they're not doing one, one hundredth of what she's doing, because 95% of their labor and their time is going into producing videos and trying to get money from people. And I'm just teasing you, you have gotten better, but you have. But I can just tell that's just like not your primary thing. I would say some people you give a microphone, tell them to ask for money and they will squeeze every wallet out until George Washington is crying on the dollar bill.
38:10
But number one, just to reiterate number one, prayer, and I want to just say this when you pray there's different ways you can pray. Sometimes the Holy Spirit will lead you to pray for 15, 20 minutes for somebody. Many of you can't do that every day, but Paul said this, he said of some people. He said I make mention of you in my prayers. Don't knock that. You can just mention, you can just be.
38:35
And, lord Jesus, thank you for grace, enter your hand, it is upon them that you'll be with them. You may mention of them, but you do that daily. It compounds and the root of that word mention is actually to build a memorial. Some of you look, I pray for you guys all the time, but I have to confess I'm not going through like the church Rolodex and spending 20 minutes on every single one of you. I'm mentioning you, I'm mentioning you, I'm mentioning you, I'm bringing you up before the Lord and that compounds and you build a memorial over time. So number one was pray. I want to put right alongside number one partner with Grace Center. Amen, amen.
39:12 - Speaker 1
I appreciate that. You know, before COVID and before this war, we were helping about 3,000 people annually and now we're serving over 50,000 individuals and we've now this last year we raised $1.2 million to help these people, and the thing about Ethiopia is that when you give, it goes very far. This is what we were discussing before was how much does it cost for a family to go out to eat in New York City? Right, I think you were saying about $200.
39:48 - Speaker 3
That was what my wife said, because she likes the lobster, but I would put it out more at $120, $130.
39:55 - Speaker 1
But you know, for that I mean you can cover the cost of two families eating for a month, you know. So it just goes so much further. You just have to imagine. You know the water, for example. Now that the water is built, it's free, it's there for the people you know, and so it's just amazing to have these relationships with you.
40:16
You know people that stepped in even before I would even ask you know how God's just going before us, but every amount is valuable, every amount matters. You know some people give 500 a month, Some people give 50 a month, some people give one time an amount. You know so it's different for every person, but know how valuable it is and how grateful we are and how it's just making a world of difference, life and death difference for these people, not just for now but for eternity. And I truly believe that when we get to heaven you know you all sitting here who might not have met all those people there are going to see each other and you're going to know each other. They're going to say my life was because you chose to step out and do what God called you to do.
41:02 - Speaker 3
Yeah, this isn't like a fairy tale theology that you tell your kids to inspire them to do well. This is scripture. Paul said when you give to his ministry, it is fruit to your account. When you give to his ministry, it is fruit to your account. And then we have this precedent. David said it. It actually says it's an ordinance forever in Israel.
41:30
When the soldiers went out to fight in the battle of Ziklag, there were some soldiers that they didn't go out to fight. They just, the Bible says, stayed by the stuff. They stayed by it, guarding the stuff. They didn't have to get their hands dirty, didn't sweat, didn't fight. Their lives weren't in danger. When they came back with the spoils of war, the ones who did all the fighting said, hey, we're not sharing with them. And David said no, no, that is not right and the economy of God is different. He said everything will be divvied up equally and this will be an ordinance forever in Israel. What David was doing was reflecting the heart of God.
42:01
Every time we support a missionary, every time we give it's fruit to our account, and it goes on our account and it goes on your record and you can reap a harvest from that. And this is why, when I give, I give everywhere because I want to reap a harvest from all these other people. That's why City Light is partnered. I give, I give everywhere because I want. I want to reap a harvest from all these other people. That's why City Light is partnered. I really believe. You know, I'll never forget when we went through the Great Recession in in, oh eight, oh nine and went into ten. Part of the reason why we partnered with you quickly was we wanted to make ourselves invaluable to the Lord and to the kingdom. I said, said Lord, we're going to partner with people who need more help than us, and this way we'll never be taken down. In Corinthians it says God is not willing to abandon or do without a prompt to do it. Joyous giver whose heart is in his giving. Amen, hallelujah.
43:02 - Speaker 1
And it's amazing to bring up that point is that in the US I would often speak at different youth groups and Naples, as you mentioned, is not a poor area. It's quite affluent as far as the percentage goes down there. But right next to that is a city called Immokalee, which is the migrant farm workers, which is probably one of the poorest places in the US. And I would go speak at the youth group in Immokalee and they would respond more than the people in Naples and I think because they could relate to it and they said, wow, these people are worse than we are. You know, we're living in these really small houses with a lot of family members. These people don't even have a house, they don't even have food, you know. So it was just really amazing to see people step out and I encourage every person has the ability to give and you can't out give God. I know you've said that you really can't and I've done it myself. It's like it's amazing.
44:02 - Speaker 3
Amen, yeah, what are some I want them to catch from your experience in your history. What are some valuable lessons that you've learned from your experiences? Either about God or the provision of God, the character and nature of God.
44:18 - Speaker 1
Yeah, there's so many amazing, amazing lessons. It's just been a lifetime of just truly an honor and a joy. I think that well, I know that spiritual warfare is real, that there's an enemy that seeks to kill, steal and destroy. And if you're not a threat to the enemy, he won't seek to kill, steal and destroy you. And if you're not a threat to the enemy, he won't seek to kill, steal and destroy you. But the minute you become a threat which means you're after getting souls to Christ, you will have to pray through that, you'll have to pray protection, you'll have to command things to go in Jesus' name. So I've come to realize that the power is, that the power is that the enemy is there, that God is stronger and through that we've seen just miraculous, amazing healing.
45:10
In Ethiopia there are a lot of witch doctors and maybe people think, oh, that's not a big deal, it's a very big deal.
45:18
There's people that have, you know, died at the hands of these witch doctors and during my last time in Ethiopia I was praying and fasting that these witch doctors would no longer be able to practice and they would turn to the Lord.
45:33
They make a lot of money from what they do. So the first thing I did was I announced to all of our moms and everyone we knew there's no reason for you guys to go to the witch doctors. God has everything. You need to pray, you need to turn to him, and we were able to break that culturally Well within a week. You better believe. I was feeling the curses from the witch doctors over me and my family, my kids vomiting everywhere, just sickness, cursing it, commanding it to go in Jesus' name. When I came back to the United States some months later, the Holy Spirit woke me up really early one morning and said the witch doctors have been thwarted in your neighborhood. There were three of them and so basically those three had stopped practicing from what the Holy Spirit told me. So this is what our job is in prayer.
46:19 - Speaker 3
Of all that this is fine. Yeah, give her a hand and the Lord. I know you asked somebody who's given their lives to the Lord in ministry for a few decades what are some lessons you've learned? And you could write a book, but it's just interesting to me that you mentioned that one. And this is why it's so important to know who you are in Christ and to understand the believer's authority.
46:46
There's a lot of believers who are getting their butts kicked by the enemy unnecessarily, all because they don't know who they are in Christ and they don't know the authority that Jesus has given them, that they now, because of Jesus's victory on the cross, have authority. Jesus said behold, I give unto you power, authority to tread on serpents and on scorpions and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means harm you. And so you know you may not be able to relate to this, to the three witch doctors gathering around you and your children vomiting, but have you ever noticed how, when you start coming up against the next level and it's time for you to get promoted or move jobs or into a new relationship, all of a sudden the confusion comes, the self-doubt comes, the anxiety comes. It's like a swarm of bees buzzing around your head. What do you think that is? That's the enemy trying to thwart you and keep you from going into the next place that God has for you, and so it's a wonderful lesson that you've learned. There has to be not where you mumble or you say a prayer on the inside, where you out loud declare devil, I break your power, I cancel your plans over my life. In Jesus' name, you cannot come near me. The blood of Jesus is against you. This far and no further. In Jesus' name, amen, hallelujah, hallelujah, name, amen, hallelujah, hallelujah. You are Marcy, you have a even my wife was saying, yeah, very unique. Your whole family. It's on your whole family. Unique spirit. You can see the fingerprints of God on them.
48:42
Marcy is Catholic, and so everything she's learned from the Lord. I didn't even tell you that she's Catholic Because you notice she sounds just like one of us have you noticed that I am and she is? See? And because, well, she went through the school of the Holy Spirit and I was shocked. You know, I knew she was Catholic. I had my own prejudices, even though my kids now go to Catholic school, I had my own prejudices when I met her in 2010,. Then I realized, oh my gosh, she's like we're completely on the same page about everything. There was not one theological point or one doctrinal point that I ever disagreed with her on, because she went through the school of the Lord.
49:27
She knows how to eat the hay, spit out the sticks. She reads her Bible. That's always a positive. She clings to the Bible, and thank you for being with us, because there is this amazing touch of heaven that's on you and on your family. Let's stretch our hands towards Marcy and we're going to pray for her, for her family in the Grace Center. Father, that you would protect Marcy, that you would surround the whole family with your love, with your presence, that they be protected, that all of the children would be on fire and serve the Lord. That all of the children devil, you can't have them, not a single one. In Jesus' name. All the children I just see, like all these little birds, all the children in the nest, if not physically, then with their hearts in the nest, along with mama and papa. Hallelujah and father, we pray for the grace center that it would continue to multiply as it has for the last two decades, that it would multiply and multiply and that you provide the funds from all over the world In Jesus' name, amen.
50:46 - Speaker 2
This is the City Light Church podcast. If you've missed any part of today's message or if you would like to find out more about Pastor Boyan Jancic and City Light Church, visit us at citylightnyccom. That's citylightnyccom. Feel free to visit us online or in person anytime. We would love to connect with you. We pray that you have been encouraged today, that you have been reminded how much God loves you and that you are surrounded by grace. Thank you for listening. Make sure that you subscribe to City Light Church Podcast wherever you find your favorite podcasts worldwide.
I always say this if every person did what God called them to do in this world, this world would look very different. We wouldn't see the starvation that we see, which is still pretty regular in Ethiopia, and I don't think that there's any reason to ever say to someone no, you don't need. If they say I'm hungry, no, I can't feed you, I don't think Jesus would have ever done that when he was walking with us on earth, which he's with us now through us. Amen.
00:26 - Speaker 2
Welcome to the City Light Church podcast. Thanks for joining us today as we look into God's word and discover the hope and truth that he has for us. If you want to connect with City Light Church, feel free to visit us at citylightnyccom. That's citylightnyccom. Pastor Boyan Jancic and his team believe that the power of the Holy Spirit is already working in our hearts and minds. As you listen to today's teaching, remember that you are deeply loved by God, that you are surrounded by His grace and that he has a real hope and a future for you that he has a real hope and a future for you.
01:08 - Speaker 3
And so today we have Marcy Erickson from the Grace Center. Because of our Heart for Souls, we have various missionary endeavors, and missionaries and missionary groups that we support and sponsor have been doing that from 2009. We're in Guatemala. For the last 15 years now, helped build over 40 churches in the Mayan mountains of Nabar, guatemala. Then we were in Montenegro and Montenegro branched out over into Serbia. But since 2009, we have sponsored the Grace Center in Bahir Dar, ethiopia, and the founder of the Grace Center is here with us today.
01:42
Won't you give her a big clap and honor her? Marcy Erickson of the Grace Center Hallelujah, we're so glad to have her with us. And so, because some of you have been with us for many, many years, others are fairly new. Those of you who are new, you may have seen us show a clip here and there of the grace center, but really it's very hard to describe all that happens there in just a 30 second video clip. So, marcy, would you just share with us what really is the grace center, because I keep referring to it as an orphanage, but it's really so much more. It's kind of I feel like I've grown like this octopus of ministry with various arms and tentacles and legs. What is the Grace Center?
02:30 - Speaker 1
Of course. First of all, it's so wonderful to be with you. It's such an honor and a blessing and a privilege, and City Light has partnered with us for so many years. And I was just thinking back to the first time that I came to City Light to speak and I was about eight months pregnant with my daughter, netsanit, who's out that door right now. She's 15 now, so that's 15 years ago and it has been such a blessing. Over those 15 years you all have given over $100,000 that has gone to serving the poor in Ethiopia and helping the orphans.
03:03
So Grace Center is, yes, definitely more than an orphanage. What we seek to do at Grace Center is we receive each individual as an individual and we say what is God calling this person to do in their life and how can we help that person to live out God's call in his or her life? And so then the programs at Grace Center develop from that. So we have many different things that we do, but it all stems from that individual and what do they need to get off their feet or to get back on their feet and to receive all of the assistance and the love and to know Jesus as their savior. And so we have a school, we help people with housing, clothing, feeding.
03:48
We have the orphanage, the children's home as well, which is also quite unique for our area, because one of the first things we do when we receive these abandoned babies and we do often receive abandoned babies is we try to find relatives or family members of the child. We have people that are like detectives that go to where the child was found and ask lots of questions and try to figure it out. Because, you know, we can see that baby's soul saved and life saved by raising them. But we could also see all of the family brought together and the whole family saved in knowing that there is opportunities and there is hope and that Jesus loves them and cares about them. So we do everything that it takes to get to that point.
04:32 - Speaker 3
Are you all catching that? Because she listed a lot of things. So it's not just an orphanage. Help me here, Marcy. It's also a school. There's a medical arm of it. There's an orphan prevention arm of it.
04:46 - Speaker 1
Yes, actually I wanted to say something about that. About a few years ago I was in the US. I was driving south on the interstate and I saw this billboard sign that said don't abandon your baby, call this number. And immediately I thought why have we never done this in Ethiopia? So I started thinking we're going to put up billboard signs in Ethiopia saying don't abandon your baby, and God literally interrupted me in the middle of my thought and said no, you're going to send out text messages. And so we started a few years back by sending a text message out to 5 million phones in our area saying don't abandon your baby, please call this number. Within a few days we had over 500 phone calls. We've seen thousands of babies that have been saved through this, and moms as well, because the moms realize there's hope.
05:35 - Speaker 3
That is awesome.
05:37 - Speaker 1
Praise God.
05:37 - Speaker 3
The best way to run an orphanage is to ensure there isn't too many future clients Right Amen.
05:45 - Speaker 1
I know we would be happy if that didn't happen.
05:47 - Speaker 3
And then you feed. I have this distinct memory of waking up one morning I'd visited Marcy in Christmas of 2009. Excuse me, yeah, it was 2009 or 10. No, it was 10., 10., 2010. And just about to go into 11 because it was 2009 or 10. No, it was 10. 2010. And just about to go into 11, because it was then six months later that I met Emily, truly met Emily. But that's see, I'm just making everything about me and her.
06:17 - Speaker 1
Forgive me.
06:20 - Speaker 3
Let me bring it back to the Grace Center. I remember waking up and there was all these people. I was just under the impression that it was an orphanage. There were all these people coming early in the morning and these giant pots, almost giant cauldrons, cooking food. And then you had told me that the Grace Center feeds 700 people every day. How many does it feed now?
06:41 - Speaker 1
Thousands Every day, every day, yes, are you hearing that church?
06:45 - Speaker 3
yeah, you're a part of that.
06:48 - Speaker 1
Amen, yes you all have made this happen, you and god. You know, and that's the thing is we, we can't do it.
06:55
If every I always say this if every person did what god called them to do in this world, this world world would look very different yeah, we wouldn't see the amen, we wouldn't see the starvation that we see, which is still pretty regular in Ethiopia, and I don't think that there's any reason to ever say to someone no, you don't need. If they say I'm hungry, no, I can't feed you, I don't think Jesus would have ever done that when he was walking with us on earth, which he's with us now through us.
07:24 - Speaker 3
Amen amen walking with us on earth, which he's with us now through us, amen, amen. Well, you have a unique story. You received the call of God in your teen years. You'd shared in the first service. It was even earlier than what I thought, but by 18, you went out into the world to fulfill the call of God on your life.
07:41
And I believe we have many people really all Christians should be. If you don't know, your destiny in Christ should be seeking him to fulfill your purpose. I mean you all know your purpose isn't to wake up, go to work, come home, watch Netflix, fall asleep, then do it all over again. You have a higher purpose. God wants your life to make an eternal impact. You know Steve Jobs, his motto.
08:03
He said he wanted to put a dent in the universe. If some unsaved person could want to leave this earth and say I want, to quote, put a dent in the universe. In other words, he said I want my life to matter, I want it to count for something. I want to leave the world different than how I found it. How much more the born again child of God with the Holy Spirit inside of them, should want to make an impact that has an eternal value and so just share about that, because you come from all places Naples, florida, an affluent community in Florida, not the mean streets of anywhere, but just like the center of suburbia, of comfortable. I guess that's why I'm saying all that. I mean you came from the center of comfort. What did the Lord do in your life to cause you to fly over the Atlantic on the continent of Africa?
08:52 - Speaker 1
So I tell as much as I can try to encourage people to pray it what is God calling you to do in your life? And when I was about 15 years old, I was always raised in the church, but I actually opened the Bible on my own for the first time. I pointed to a verse and it said A religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this to care for the orphans and widows and their affliction. I said Okay, god, that's what you want me to do with my life. When I was a senior in high school, everyone was deciding which colleges they were going to go to. I said God, what do you want me to do? I heard God say I want you to be a missionary To me. In my mind, that meant Africa.
09:32
I actually started out in Guatemala. I was in Guatemala for the first year At 18, 19,. I went over to Ethiopia for the first year. It was in the middle of a five-year famine. It was a very, very difficult situation there. Every day there were people that were coming that were starving to death, and it was a very hard situation. And we also had many babies that were abandoned outside the doors. They didn't operate an orphanage. They had a school and I was teaching at the school and at night we'd go to lock up the doors of the school and there'd be a baby laying on the ground. And so at that point in my life, after some discernment, I felt like God was calling me to foster and adopt as many children as I could personally take on, and so that was where I ended up going to other countries. I was in Uganda and Rwanda and Congo, tanzania.
10:28 - Speaker 3
How old are you at this point? Is there going through Eastern Africa?
10:30 - Speaker 1
I was about 24 during that time. That was over about a year and a half, so I guess I wasn't 24 for a year and a half, but you know somewhere around there and, you know, god made it very clear that he wanted me in Ethiopia and I began by opening my home and saying, okay, lord.
10:49 - Speaker 3
Let me just ask what's the number one way that you felt God made it clear to you he wanted you in Ethiopia?
10:54 - Speaker 1
That's a good question. I pray very specific prayers.
10:57 - Speaker 3
Yeah, I don't. I had a whole sermon on the importance of specificity.
11:02 - Speaker 1
So when I was traveling different places, a few things would come to me like are the laws in line for me to be able to receive children? Are there children in need? You know, praise God if there's not children abandoned. That's wonderful, you know, but is that a need? And specifically, when I came back to Ethiopia, I had been gone for about five years from the first time I was there and I came back and I didn't know exactly where the Lord wanted me, but someone had suggested I go and visit this town called Bahadur. So I went to Bahadur and I said two prayers okay, one of them was Lord, if you want me to live here, then I wanna meet someone who is faithful, a nurse I said, preferably Americans, so that I can relate to them very easily and I want them to be able to specialize in treating malaria, because that was the first thing that I had seen the most deaths from in my first year in Ethiopia was malaria. I mean, the kids. The kids would go home and they wouldn't come back the next day. It was just the most tragic thing, and so that was my first prayer.
12:11
My second prayer was that I would meet someone who knows both cultures equally as well.
12:19
And so I said an Ethiopian born US citizen that's now back in Ethiopia. Okay, a little bit specific, but and I love how God just entertains me with this, because the very first day I'm in Bahadar, I'm wandering around this very rural area and I come across this couple that they're obviously foreigners, and I said, oh, what do you do here? And the wife said, well, I'm a nurse, my husband's an agriculturalist and we specialize in growing a plant that's used to treat malaria. And where are you from? We're from Florida. Okay, god, okay, okay. And then the next day I met Gush Asifa, who had lived in Ethiopia, went to the US to study, spent 26 years working as a social worker in the US, then moved back to Ethiopia just to be able to help his people and would take kids off the street, teach them how to farm and send them to school. So that was the second day in this location. I said, okay, god, and he actually was the one that introduced me to my husband some years later. He's my husband's uncle.
13:29
Oh, wow so that was how I knew.
13:31 - Speaker 3
That is awesome. You can clap at that. I just want to point out that that's the kind of level of guidance and answers to prayer I believe and I've witnessed you can only receive when you've already made the decision to go. If she was laying on her couch in Naples, florida, going God you know, I'll really believe it's you if you X, y, z, she would have heard nothing, but because she was already out there, she was in a place of desperation. She was yearning for the will of God. He provided this very, very specific answer to prayer.
14:07 - Speaker 1
That's very true. Go ahead. Yeah, I was just gonna say so. True, go ahead. Yeah, I was just going to say so. Then I ended up settling in Bahadur, ethiopia, and I received my first four children through adoption, praise God, my first child came to me when he was two years and nine months old. Three weeks later, my son James came to me at three weeks old Sorry, 13 days old. Three weeks later, my other son came to me at three months old, and then, a year later, I adopted my daughter, tiggest, when she was five. And a year later I was married and now we have 12 beautiful children. My oldest is 22. So all the way down to our youngest is five months. How about that?
14:50 - Speaker 3
And so that means like within the first year you had Insta family?
14:53 - Speaker 1
Yes, she had the Brady.
14:55 - Speaker 3
Bunch within one year.
14:56 - Speaker 1
Yes, and my husband married into Insta family not only just for kids, but all of Grace Center. You know hundreds of kids at Grace Center. So there are. There are babies too.
15:09 - Speaker 3
So awesome. I want to talk a little bit about culture, because every place and every country has its own unique culture. One distinct memory I have was that fellow outside the Grace Center who, as he was talking to me, he was just like stroking my arm back and forth over and over again. And he's just looking at me. So I'm looking back at him and he just won't stop just stroking my arm. And I wanted to be a good missionary so I let that go on for a few minutes and, uh, he didn't set off any, any alarms in me.
15:42
You know, I could just tell he was just innocently stroking my arm and then, you know, I'd come back to you and you had said, hey, that's not abnormal here. Like, like, like this is so hard maybe for people in nyc in 2024 to even get, like it's not uncomfortable for a man to like grab me and put his arm around me and just lead me somewhere. And yeah, no, totally straight, totally legit, totally legal, and just to show affection, just just showing, showing stroke, stroking my arm. See, see, there's some cynics here that are like no way, way, way.
16:19 - Speaker 1
Brotherly love, and that's it.
16:20 - Speaker 3
Yeah.
16:22 - Speaker 1
I have a great photo of two military guys just walking holding hands. Nothing there, just friends. It's like that's how you know and they can't believe what we're dealing with here.
16:34 - Speaker 3
Morally, you know, the people there have a pretty strong maybe, maybe if some dudes just held hands for a little bit, we'd have less of the other stuff in america, you know I don't know, this is. This is how pastor mo and I, how we keep our relationship strong. We just sometimes we'll just hold hands and tell each other we love each other. But here's the point Culture can be completely different from place to place. How does the Ethiopian culture influence the way that you share Jesus?
17:10 - Speaker 1
So Ethiopia is a very unique culture Out of all the countries I've been in in Africa. It's just very different. And so I realized, after having that moment of your arm being pet and he was standing in front of a group of people preaching, you know, it dawned on me that we have to deal with people one-on-one. That is the most effective way that we find in Ethiopia to share who Jesus is and I can say 99% of the time they're very happy to accept Christ. They're very happy to pray.
17:46
There's one time a woman came to me and said, no, I would prefer to be a Satanist. And I said, okay, can I tell you the story of Jesus still? And she said, sure, and by the end of it she still was happy to pray, and that was someone who was a committed Satanist. So you know this is.
18:10
We see people. They're so eager to know Jesus and it seems to be that one-on-one just really really touches them and culturally, being aware of the different backgrounds and where they're coming from and Ethiopia, they tend, where we're at, they tend to be more reserved, not as far as touching the arm, but more reserved in the way that they share emotion and very proud of their culture. It's a beautiful country, you know. Most people don't know much about Ethiopia, except that there's people that are hungry, you know, and so they like to show people their culture and it's beautiful and so we do. We minister through that and I spend probably when I'm there, I spend the majority of my time praying with people one-on-one and seeing many miraculous healing of the people there, physically, emotionally and spiritually, and it's really amazing and such an honor.
19:11 - Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah, a lot of people. All they know of Ethiopia is like the 1980s. Is it Sally Struthers? Was that her name? You know for the price of a cup of coffee and they show the one hut.
19:21
But while I was there I saw some of the most beautiful churches. I believe some of the oldest churches, definitely the oldest churches in Africa and some of the oldest churches in the world are in Ethiopia. We just quickly glossed over that part in Acts where it was the Ethiopian eunuch who got radically saved and then went on proclaiming the gospel. Well, you can see churches that are over a thousand years old in Ethiopia really beautiful.
19:47 - Speaker 1
Yeah, even in our area, our city has them. Yeah.
19:51 - Speaker 3
So can you talk about a time or two where God provided for you guys supernaturally or protected you supernaturally?
20:01 - Speaker 1
There's so many, there's so many. I always never know where to start. So for many years, I didn't ever ask for funding. I would just pray and God would provide what we needed. Years, I didn't ever ask for funding. I would just pray and God would provide what we needed.
20:18
And so there was about two years where the government of Ethiopia decided they were no longer going to import baby formula, and we have usually anywhere between 25 to 40 infants that are abandoned, that need to be fed and nourished. And one day in particular, every morning in our center, we always get together and we pray. We always start every morning with prayer, and one day in particular we were praying okay, lord, in about an hour or two we're going to run out of baby formula, and we know you want these children to be fed and well. And just after we finished praying, we got a knock on our gate and there was a woman that had been traveling from Spain and she was a friend of a friend's that had been told this organization needs baby formula, and so she provided our baby formula for the next two days, and we did that for two years, and so God just steps in in miraculous ways, and now I know that there is. It is possible to ask people to partner with us in funding as well, because it allows us to help many, many more people. But I saw those provisions and we still continue to see it. We've been gifted land to have Grace Center help more and more people, even in our area.
21:34
The city mayor said he wants to give us land in every neighborhood to start daycares. That's so awesome, because we started the first infant daycare in Ethiopia and most of these infants would have been abandoned on the street if we didn't have daycare for them. They just never thought about starting a daycare, so we started, and now they want to give us land in different places. We're actually almost finished acquiring land in three places. And then we went to another town because we always knew that Grace Center is about Jesus, it's about people, it's not about one location. So we went to another town with four of our leaders, my husband being one, and immediately upon arriving in this town they went into the main office. The city administrator came, the mayor came, everyone came and had a meeting and said what are you doing in Bahadur? We want this here. And within six months we were given land, which in Ethiopia usually takes years to get land, so they gave us land. We're building now to be able to expand this ministry and reach more people.
22:36 - Speaker 3
Come on when you're in God's will. There will be provision, there will be protection Part of the reason why I asked Marcy to come out here. She hasn't been with us since 2017. And there was only one other time she visited us before that Part of the reason why I had her come out. I want you to catch the spirit that's on her. There is a spirit of faith. A 15-year-old teenage girl in Naples, Florida, gets the call of God, says yes by the time she's 18,.
23:07
She's going through Eastern Africa, still beating the bushes, trying to figure out God's perfect will for her lands in Bahir, Dar, Ethiopia, and I wish all of you could just go there. You've seen the footage. This giant complex Look right now, actually buildings upon buildings doing so much good. It's like a bunch of busy ants there, just in an ant colony, just constantly working and just churning out and doing good every single day. I wanted that to get on you because you may not even know yet what the Lord has up his sleeve for you, Every single one of you. You carry the power of God in you and you carry eternity in your heart, Hallelujah. Can you share some stories about how your work has impacted specifically the local communities there?
23:55 - Speaker 1
Yes, it's been really amazing to see how God just takes this, you know, these little mustard seeds of faith, and it just grows and expands. And our staff are just amazing and wonderful people. We have over 200 staff members in Ethiopia and wonderful people. We have over 200 staff members in Ethiopia and they just do. They love working at Grace Center, because we're not about seeing someone and saying, no, I'm sorry, I can't help you, we're full, which I can tell you from working in Africa.
24:24
That's 99% of the ministries say to people we're full, we can't feed anyone else, we can't house anyone else, we can't. Our job is to say, okay, god, you brought us this person for a reason. What are you calling us to do for this person? And our staff are able to go out into the community and help even more because they bring us people. They see people laying on the road and they say what about this person? And we say let's go to them, let's pick them up, and one of the things that we've been able to do in the community. I don't know if you, if you're aware of how bad the water situation is in ethiopia, but 99, 90 of the time the water in our city is shut off and there's some neighborhoods that haven't had running water in over a year if that's what you meant by the water situation, I was aware I took a shower in one little stream of water.
25:15 - Speaker 3
It would take about a couple of minutes to just collect in my hand. That was day one. And then I said you know what I'm going to believe God and not shower. No, I'm kidding, he'll cleanse you, he does. He does it for all of us. I can say, I can attest to it.
25:33 - Speaker 1
Very little water. You know the rest of Africa. They say that you open the tap and you hear this. In Ethiopia, you don't even hear that noise. That's the sound of the air coming in. That's long gone. I mean, there's just nothing, it's empty. So what we did was you know, we were told for years not to even bother digging a well on our land. You're not going to hit water, the rock's too hard. And we just stepped out in faith. We said there's no water and these people need water. And we're in the same position. We've got all these babies. We have to provide water for all these people that we're feeding. And we just stepped out in faith and said we're going to dig a well. And we dug a deep well, 300 feet deep, and the water was overflowing. Miraculously it was. Actually. We get 35 gallons of water per second out of this well.
26:18 - Speaker 3
This is amusement park. Wet and wild levels of water.
26:23 - Speaker 1
There's the kids playing in the water. Do you know what?
26:25 - Speaker 3
that's like in a place that's dry.
26:28 - Speaker 1
That's them playing in the water for the first time. I mean, imagine most of those kids have never even played in water their whole lives, and so we realized-.
26:37 - Speaker 3
Another memory I have in the morning there was this adorable kid and I heard this clanging outside of my room and every morning he would come. I have pictures of it. They were hanging up in our 7th Street location for years. He would get a cleaned out tomato can full of now water and he would wash every morning. He would just wash his whole face with the one can of water that that I don't know where he got from, but it's just. You know, we, we here in the states, we just like, oh, it's a cold day, let me first run the hot water for five minutes while I go and do something else over here to just heat up the room. And we don't, we take for granted what we have here Water on command. We live better than kings did for millennia.
27:19 - Speaker 1
That's true.
27:20
Yeah that's very true, and so we did. You know, we realized after our well was overflowing that we had enough water for the entire city, over 500,000 people, and so we did what we always do we opened it completely to the public, for free, and so we have over a thousand people that come every day to receive water at our ministry. And you know, it's amazing because we're able to minister, then, one-on-one with those people that come to the well. We see them coming back and you know, just like Jesus transformed the life of the Samaritan woman, we're transforming the lives of these women that are coming to our well. We bring them inside, we ask them their story and we're able to pray with them and see healing in their life so wonderful.
28:05 - Speaker 2
Hallelujah when was this.
28:08 - Speaker 3
Well, was it on your land?
28:10 - Speaker 1
Yes. It's right in the middle.
28:12 - Speaker 3
You know what I mean. There's a lot of testimonies coming out right now of God. God wants you to have land. God will bless your land and your land will produce Amen. It's just awesome how that was actually bought on your land.
28:28 - Speaker 1
Yeah, and you can see here in this video. You can see this is Bajadar and you'll see the gray center from the aerial view. And then down south is where we're starting our new location in Debra Marcos. It's about a four-hour drive south and we actually realized that there's no water in Debra Marcos either. So we said, well, this might be a wonderful opportunity because we see everything as an opportunity for the Lord that we'll dig the well first, and then people who are coming to the well, we can minister to them. This will bring all of our employees, all the people that need any assistance, and we're excited about that.
29:11 - Speaker 3
That's been very recent. There isn't water now, but there will be. What are the biggest challenges that you face?
29:22 - Speaker 1
Oh, so many, many challenges. You know right now, many of you might not be aware, but Ethiopia, our area specifically, is in a very bad war Last August.
29:36 - Speaker 3
Now, just so you know how many of you knew Ethiopia was in a bad war.
29:39 - Speaker 1
No, it's not.
29:41 - Speaker 3
I didn't know that. Well, marcy told me several months ago she had called me up and asked our whole staff to pray. They were going through something. But I didn't know until she told me that. And the reason we don't know is because nobody told us to care yet. There was not a need for us to be programmed with a particular kind of attitude towards that war. I don't know if all of you caught that, amen. How many people have died in that war so far.
30:08 - Speaker 1
We have no way of knowing.
30:09 - Speaker 3
There was a number you mentioned in the first service that blew my mind.
30:12 - Speaker 1
The first day they came into our area and within our surrounding neighborhood where Grace Center is. Over 2,000 people were killed on that first day.
30:22
And to put it in perspective, she said yeah, to put it in context, there were about 1,300 that were murdered in Gaza in October on that one day and September 11th, about 3,000, and 2,000 in Ethiopia, and no one even knows. And that was just the first couple days or the first 48 hours, I believe. It's been a very horrific situation for the people there on the ground. Our assistant director Worku, who's in that picture right there he you know. I asked him how he's, if he feels safe coming to work, and he said, you know, many times there's guns lined up ready to shoot him and he walks to work. Because he said he knows he's doing God's will and it's better to do God's will than to stay home. And you know, he's this amazing man that has just been called to lead at this time and we're so blessed by that and we're so blessed to have the staff, and so we've seen miracles in this time of just complete horror.
31:29
I mean, two weeks ago there was a grenade thrown at the back wall of Grace Center Not at Grace Center, but the building behind us and that was one thing I had mentioned to you before was there's a three-story building right behind Grace Center's area.
31:45
We have about two and a half acres where we're at, and it was taken over to be used as a place to shoot from. And Worku, our assistant director, was able to get a hold of someone in the building, like the top person in that building, and say please don't shoot down, because if you shoot directly down, you're killing women and children, because we have 30 infants there. We have all of our staff there, people coming and going all the time, and they said we'll honor that and we've never had a bullet come into our compound. And when we pray, we pray for protection over all of our staff, all of the people we serve, all their family and friends, all their loved ones, all the people that are innocent of this. We pray for a hedge of protection around them and we've seen amazing miracles, so I'd ask for your prayers for that as well.
32:30 - Speaker 3
Amen, we need to keep. You ask some other missionary. You know what are the greatest challenges, and they're like. Well, our air conditioning broke down. And here you ask what are the greatest challenges? Well, a grenade landed near the back wall and we're in the middle of. Is it a civil war?
32:51 - Speaker 1
Basically, it's more like a genocide. But yeah, so please pray, and every day I just pray. Today will be the day, because it can. Things there change just as quickly as it happened and this is what I think about the Lord how he heals. You know, just as quickly as this illness came on, just as quickly it can go. You know, just as quickly as you realized you had something wrong, god can heal just as quickly. And the same thing happens with these situations, with war, and I've really been amazed in the past seeing the fighting and then knowing how much God just turns it around like instantly. And these people are hugging each other I mean the people that killed their family members. They're hugging each other, they're embracing each other, they're forgiving each other. It's just like it's mind boggling and outside of Christ. You can't do it.
33:42 - Speaker 3
Amen, amen. Let me talk to you about some of the faith practices of the Ethiopians. How do Ethiopian Christians practice their faith differently from other cultures?
33:55 - Speaker 1
So one of the most common in Ethiopia. It's about half Muslim and half Ethiopian Orthodox Christian, which is an ancient Christian religion, and when I first went to Ethiopia it was about 15% Muslim. That was the year 2000,. And now it's over 50%. So we again go back to always working with people one-on-one. But these people tend to be the Orthodox Christians, tend to be very devout, and if we can just explain to them who Jesus is, how much he loves them, how much he wants a relationship with them, they're always very, very happy to just accept and have Christ in them completely.
34:37
We have one young woman that we found her. She was living with her elderly aunt and she had never gone to school. We started sending her to school. She was scoring higher than everyone. She skipped grades, skipped grades, skipped grades. Smartest person I call her the smartest girl in all of Ethiopia. When it came to her standardized test she scored above the top 1% of the country.
35:03
Now in Ethiopia you don't get to choose what you're going to study. The government tells you what you're going to study. But because she was so smart and on the top, she was able to choose. So she said I want to study, I want to become a doctor and she was able to go through medical school. And one of the things she said to me and she was able to go through medical school. And one of the things she said to me, or one of the things was she said I got one B. I said you're okay, it's okay, you know you're gonna live. You got one B, you're okay. But the other thing she said is she goes to the church every day and praises and thanks God for her life, for her opportunity, for her ability to study and for her. You know her intelligence, her brain. She said I never missed a day going to church.
35:44
That is so awesome, I mean how much can we learn from that right? And now she's a doctor Wonderful, she's a medical doctor, yep.
35:57 - Speaker 3
Let me just ask this what kind of support and resources do you need the most from partner churches?
36:05 - Speaker 1
I think definitely prayer. You know I'm someone that believes very strongly in prayer. That prayer works. We're not just throwing words into the atmosphere and they're bouncing off a ceiling. God is hearing, god is listening, god is changing things and he answers our prayers. So please, please, pray for protection, pray for peace, healing for the people there that are suffering, and also consider partnering with us financially as well. You know, last year we were able to raise, before COVID, let me just say this it's just so funny.
36:43 - Speaker 3
Still, even to this day, when you ask for people to consider partnering with you, I can tell you just don't like it, oh, stop, you're not comfortable with it. Oh, come on, I'm used to it now, are you better?
36:56 - Speaker 1
Okay, I pray through it.
36:59 - Speaker 3
Because, you know, in the beginning Marcy was in the miracle, like the miracle miracle zone, because she just didn't ask for money. I mean, she didn't ask us for money. I actually was told she found us. Yeah, we found you, and that was a whole other story. Just a bizarre way, we found you. We're like, hey, we like what you're doing, can we partner with you?
37:21
But I was blown away by what all is happening at the Grace Center and what God has done through Marcy back when I visited in Christmas time of 2010. And that's when it hit me. I thought but she doesn't even have like marketing videos. She's not even on social media like showing off what she's doing. I've met the guys that have all that and they're not doing one, one hundredth of what she's doing, because 95% of their labor and their time is going into producing videos and trying to get money from people. And I'm just teasing you, you have gotten better, but you have. But I can just tell that's just like not your primary thing. I would say some people you give a microphone, tell them to ask for money and they will squeeze every wallet out until George Washington is crying on the dollar bill.
38:10
But number one, just to reiterate number one, prayer, and I want to just say this when you pray there's different ways you can pray. Sometimes the Holy Spirit will lead you to pray for 15, 20 minutes for somebody. Many of you can't do that every day, but Paul said this, he said of some people. He said I make mention of you in my prayers. Don't knock that. You can just mention, you can just be.
38:35
And, lord Jesus, thank you for grace, enter your hand, it is upon them that you'll be with them. You may mention of them, but you do that daily. It compounds and the root of that word mention is actually to build a memorial. Some of you look, I pray for you guys all the time, but I have to confess I'm not going through like the church Rolodex and spending 20 minutes on every single one of you. I'm mentioning you, I'm mentioning you, I'm mentioning you, I'm bringing you up before the Lord and that compounds and you build a memorial over time. So number one was pray. I want to put right alongside number one partner with Grace Center. Amen, amen.
39:12 - Speaker 1
I appreciate that. You know, before COVID and before this war, we were helping about 3,000 people annually and now we're serving over 50,000 individuals and we've now this last year we raised $1.2 million to help these people, and the thing about Ethiopia is that when you give, it goes very far. This is what we were discussing before was how much does it cost for a family to go out to eat in New York City? Right, I think you were saying about $200.
39:48 - Speaker 3
That was what my wife said, because she likes the lobster, but I would put it out more at $120, $130.
39:55 - Speaker 1
But you know, for that I mean you can cover the cost of two families eating for a month, you know. So it just goes so much further. You just have to imagine. You know the water, for example. Now that the water is built, it's free, it's there for the people you know, and so it's just amazing to have these relationships with you.
40:16
You know people that stepped in even before I would even ask you know how God's just going before us, but every amount is valuable, every amount matters. You know some people give 500 a month, Some people give 50 a month, some people give one time an amount. You know so it's different for every person, but know how valuable it is and how grateful we are and how it's just making a world of difference, life and death difference for these people, not just for now but for eternity. And I truly believe that when we get to heaven you know you all sitting here who might not have met all those people there are going to see each other and you're going to know each other. They're going to say my life was because you chose to step out and do what God called you to do.
41:02 - Speaker 3
Yeah, this isn't like a fairy tale theology that you tell your kids to inspire them to do well. This is scripture. Paul said when you give to his ministry, it is fruit to your account. When you give to his ministry, it is fruit to your account. And then we have this precedent. David said it. It actually says it's an ordinance forever in Israel.
41:30
When the soldiers went out to fight in the battle of Ziklag, there were some soldiers that they didn't go out to fight. They just, the Bible says, stayed by the stuff. They stayed by it, guarding the stuff. They didn't have to get their hands dirty, didn't sweat, didn't fight. Their lives weren't in danger. When they came back with the spoils of war, the ones who did all the fighting said, hey, we're not sharing with them. And David said no, no, that is not right and the economy of God is different. He said everything will be divvied up equally and this will be an ordinance forever in Israel. What David was doing was reflecting the heart of God.
42:01
Every time we support a missionary, every time we give it's fruit to our account, and it goes on our account and it goes on your record and you can reap a harvest from that. And this is why, when I give, I give everywhere because I want to reap a harvest from all these other people. That's why City Light is partnered. I give, I give everywhere because I want. I want to reap a harvest from all these other people. That's why City Light is partnered. I really believe. You know, I'll never forget when we went through the Great Recession in in, oh eight, oh nine and went into ten. Part of the reason why we partnered with you quickly was we wanted to make ourselves invaluable to the Lord and to the kingdom. I said, said Lord, we're going to partner with people who need more help than us, and this way we'll never be taken down. In Corinthians it says God is not willing to abandon or do without a prompt to do it. Joyous giver whose heart is in his giving. Amen, hallelujah.
43:02 - Speaker 1
And it's amazing to bring up that point is that in the US I would often speak at different youth groups and Naples, as you mentioned, is not a poor area. It's quite affluent as far as the percentage goes down there. But right next to that is a city called Immokalee, which is the migrant farm workers, which is probably one of the poorest places in the US. And I would go speak at the youth group in Immokalee and they would respond more than the people in Naples and I think because they could relate to it and they said, wow, these people are worse than we are. You know, we're living in these really small houses with a lot of family members. These people don't even have a house, they don't even have food, you know. So it was just really amazing to see people step out and I encourage every person has the ability to give and you can't out give God. I know you've said that you really can't and I've done it myself. It's like it's amazing.
44:02 - Speaker 3
Amen, yeah, what are some I want them to catch from your experience in your history. What are some valuable lessons that you've learned from your experiences? Either about God or the provision of God, the character and nature of God.
44:18 - Speaker 1
Yeah, there's so many amazing, amazing lessons. It's just been a lifetime of just truly an honor and a joy. I think that well, I know that spiritual warfare is real, that there's an enemy that seeks to kill, steal and destroy. And if you're not a threat to the enemy, he won't seek to kill, steal and destroy you. And if you're not a threat to the enemy, he won't seek to kill, steal and destroy you. But the minute you become a threat which means you're after getting souls to Christ, you will have to pray through that, you'll have to pray protection, you'll have to command things to go in Jesus' name. So I've come to realize that the power is, that the power is that the enemy is there, that God is stronger and through that we've seen just miraculous, amazing healing.
45:10
In Ethiopia there are a lot of witch doctors and maybe people think, oh, that's not a big deal, it's a very big deal.
45:18
There's people that have, you know, died at the hands of these witch doctors and during my last time in Ethiopia I was praying and fasting that these witch doctors would no longer be able to practice and they would turn to the Lord.
45:33
They make a lot of money from what they do. So the first thing I did was I announced to all of our moms and everyone we knew there's no reason for you guys to go to the witch doctors. God has everything. You need to pray, you need to turn to him, and we were able to break that culturally Well within a week. You better believe. I was feeling the curses from the witch doctors over me and my family, my kids vomiting everywhere, just sickness, cursing it, commanding it to go in Jesus' name. When I came back to the United States some months later, the Holy Spirit woke me up really early one morning and said the witch doctors have been thwarted in your neighborhood. There were three of them and so basically those three had stopped practicing from what the Holy Spirit told me. So this is what our job is in prayer.
46:19 - Speaker 3
Of all that this is fine. Yeah, give her a hand and the Lord. I know you asked somebody who's given their lives to the Lord in ministry for a few decades what are some lessons you've learned? And you could write a book, but it's just interesting to me that you mentioned that one. And this is why it's so important to know who you are in Christ and to understand the believer's authority.
46:46
There's a lot of believers who are getting their butts kicked by the enemy unnecessarily, all because they don't know who they are in Christ and they don't know the authority that Jesus has given them, that they now, because of Jesus's victory on the cross, have authority. Jesus said behold, I give unto you power, authority to tread on serpents and on scorpions and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means harm you. And so you know you may not be able to relate to this, to the three witch doctors gathering around you and your children vomiting, but have you ever noticed how, when you start coming up against the next level and it's time for you to get promoted or move jobs or into a new relationship, all of a sudden the confusion comes, the self-doubt comes, the anxiety comes. It's like a swarm of bees buzzing around your head. What do you think that is? That's the enemy trying to thwart you and keep you from going into the next place that God has for you, and so it's a wonderful lesson that you've learned. There has to be not where you mumble or you say a prayer on the inside, where you out loud declare devil, I break your power, I cancel your plans over my life. In Jesus' name, you cannot come near me. The blood of Jesus is against you. This far and no further. In Jesus' name, amen, hallelujah, hallelujah, name, amen, hallelujah, hallelujah. You are Marcy, you have a even my wife was saying, yeah, very unique. Your whole family. It's on your whole family. Unique spirit. You can see the fingerprints of God on them.
48:42
Marcy is Catholic, and so everything she's learned from the Lord. I didn't even tell you that she's Catholic Because you notice she sounds just like one of us have you noticed that I am and she is? See? And because, well, she went through the school of the Holy Spirit and I was shocked. You know, I knew she was Catholic. I had my own prejudices, even though my kids now go to Catholic school, I had my own prejudices when I met her in 2010,. Then I realized, oh my gosh, she's like we're completely on the same page about everything. There was not one theological point or one doctrinal point that I ever disagreed with her on, because she went through the school of the Lord.
49:27
She knows how to eat the hay, spit out the sticks. She reads her Bible. That's always a positive. She clings to the Bible, and thank you for being with us, because there is this amazing touch of heaven that's on you and on your family. Let's stretch our hands towards Marcy and we're going to pray for her, for her family in the Grace Center. Father, that you would protect Marcy, that you would surround the whole family with your love, with your presence, that they be protected, that all of the children would be on fire and serve the Lord. That all of the children devil, you can't have them, not a single one. In Jesus' name. All the children I just see, like all these little birds, all the children in the nest, if not physically, then with their hearts in the nest, along with mama and papa. Hallelujah and father, we pray for the grace center that it would continue to multiply as it has for the last two decades, that it would multiply and multiply and that you provide the funds from all over the world In Jesus' name, amen.
50:46 - Speaker 2
This is the City Light Church podcast. If you've missed any part of today's message or if you would like to find out more about Pastor Boyan Jancic and City Light Church, visit us at citylightnyccom. That's citylightnyccom. Feel free to visit us online or in person anytime. We would love to connect with you. We pray that you have been encouraged today, that you have been reminded how much God loves you and that you are surrounded by grace. Thank you for listening. Make sure that you subscribe to City Light Church Podcast wherever you find your favorite podcasts worldwide.
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