Marcie Erickson's Inspiring Mission in Ethiopia

I always say this, if every person did what God called them to do in this world, this world

will 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.

Welcome to the CityLight 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 CityLight

Church, feel free to visit us at citylightnyc.com, that's citylightnyc.com.

Pastor Boyan Jansik 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.

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 mind-mounts of Nibbaga, Guatemala. Then we were in Montenegro,

and Montenegro branched out over into Serbia. But since 2009, we have sponsored the Grace Center

in Bahia, Dari Ethiopia, and the founder of the Grace Center is here with us today. 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

you've grown like this octopus of ministry with various arms and tentacles and legs. What is the

Grace Center? 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, you know, 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, and that's on it, who's out that door right now. She's

15 now. So, it'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.

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,

to, 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. 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, and 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.

Are you all catching that, because she listed a lot of things. So, it's not just an orphanage,

help me hear Marcy. It's also a school. There's a medical arm of it. There's an orphan prevention

arm of it. Yes, actually, I wanted to say something about that. About a few years ago,

I was in the U.S. 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 five 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.

That is awesome. So, praise God. The best way to run an orphanage is to ensure there isn't

too many future clients. Right. I know. We would be happy if that didn't happen. And then the,

you feed this, I have this distinct memory of waking up one morning, I visited Marcy in Christmas of

2009. Excuse me. Yeah, it was 2009 or 10. That 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, you see,

I'm just make everything about me and her. Forgive me. Let me bring it back to, 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? Thousands. Every day.

Every day. Yes. Are you hearing that church? Yeah. You're a part of that. 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 if every, I always

say this, if every person did what God called them to do in this world, this world, world will look

very different. Yeah. Absolutely. 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. Amen.

Amen. Well, you have a unique story. You received the call of God in your teen years. You 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. 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, he said he wanted to put a dent in the universe.

If some unsafe 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 wanted 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 it has an eternal value.

Amen. 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 and the continent

of Africa? So I tell as much as I can try to encourage people to pray, 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. And 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 in their affliction. And I said, okay, God, that's what you owe me to do with my life.

And when I was a senior in high school, everyone was deciding which colleges they were going to go to.

And I said, God, what do you want me to do? And I heard God say I want you to be a missionary.

And to me in my mind that meant Africa, I actually started out in Guatemala. I was in Guatemala

for the first year. And then so at 1890, I went over to Ethiopia for the first year. And

you know, 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 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. How old are you at this point?

You're going through a certain time. I was about 24. Okay.

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, let me just ask, what's the

number one way that you felt God made it clear to you? He wanted you in Ethiopia? That's a good

question. I pray very specific prayers. Yeah. I don't. And a whole sermon on the importance of

specificity. 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 is that a need? And

when 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

suggested I go and visit this town called Bajardar. So I went to Bajardar and I said two prayers.

Okay. One of them was, Lord, if you want me to live here, then I want to meet someone who is

a nurse. I said, preferably Americans 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. My second prayer was that I would meet someone who knows both cultures equally as well.

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 Bajardar,

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 it 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. Oh, wow. So that was how I knew. That is awesome. You could 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 if she

was laying on her couch in April's Florida going, God, you know, I'll really believe it's you

if you XYZ, 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. That's very true. Good. Yeah, I was just going to say so. So then I ended up settling in

Bardari, 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 adopt my daughter, Tigis, 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? And so that means like within the first year you had

Insta family. Yes. Yes. She had the Brady bunch within one year. Yes. And my husband married

into Insta family. Yeah. Not only just four kids, but all of Grace Center, you know, hundreds of

kids at Grace Center. So there are there are babies too. 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 fella 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 he didn't set off any any alarms in me. You know, I can 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 2020,

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, stroking, stroking my arm. See, there's some cynics here. They're like,

no way way brotherly brotherly love. That's it. Yeah. I have a great photo of two military guys just

walking holding hands. Nothing there. Just friends. Yeah. It's like that's how, you know, and that

they can't believe what we're dealing with here more. You know, the people there have a pretty

maybe maybe 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 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?

So Ethiopia has 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 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 an 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. 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, 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 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 in such an honor.

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.

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 gloss over that part in Acts where it was the Ethiopian

Unic who got radically saved and then went on proclaiming the gospel where you can see churches

that are over a thousand years old in Ethiopia. Really beautiful. Yeah, even in our area, our city has

them. Yeah. So can you talk about a time or two where God provided for you guys supernaturally

or protected you supernaturally? There's so many. There's so many. I 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. And so there was about two years where the government of Ethiopia decided they

were no longer going to import baby formula. And we had, we have usually between 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 a 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 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 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, 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 Bahrdar? 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.

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 it 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 this spirit. That's on her. There was 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, she's going through

Eastern Africa, still beating the bushes, trying to figure out God's perfect will for her, lands in

Bahrir 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? Yes. It's been really amazing to see how God

just takes 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.

They love working at Grace Center because we're not about seeing someone saying,

no, I'm sorry, I can't help you. We're full, which I can tell you from working in Africa,

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? 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% 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. We 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 for no, I'm kidding.

For the snitcher.

No clenches. He does it for all of us. I can say, I can attest to it.

Very little water. You know, the rest of Africa, they say that you open the tap and you hear this,

and 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 rocks 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.

This is amusement park. What in the world levels of water?

There's the kids like water. Look at that. You know what that's like in a place that's dry?

That's them playing in the water for the first time. And I mean, imagine most of those kids have never

even played in water their whole lives. And so we realized that another memory I have in the

morning, there was this adorable kid. And I heard this clanging outside my room. And every morning,

he would come. I have pictures of it. They were hanging up in our seventh 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 I don't know where he got from.

Yeah, probably. We hear 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 know we take for granted what we have here. Water on command. We live better than kings

did for millennia. That's true. 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. Hallelujah. Where was this well? Was it on your land? Yes, it's right

in the middle. You know, I mean, there's a lot of testimonies coming out right now. 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.

Yeah. And you can see here in this video, you can see this is Bahradar. And you'll see the

Grace Center from the aerial view. And then down south is where we're starting our new location

in Debra Marcos. It's about four-hour drive south. And we actually realized that there's

no water in Debra Marcos either. So we said, well, this is might be a wonderful opportunity because

we see everything as an opportunity for the Lord that will 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. That's been very recent.

There isn't water now, but there will be. What are the biggest challenges that you face?

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, you know, how many of you knew Ethiopia

was in a bad war? No, it's not. I didn't know that. Well, Marcy told me several months ago, she'd

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. Hey, man, how many people have died in that war so far?

We have no way of knowing. You mentioned in the first service, 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. 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 11, about 3,000.

And 2,000 in Ethiopia, no one even knows. And that was just the first couple days or the first

48 hours, I believe. It's been very, very horrific situation for the people there on the ground.

Our assistant director, Woku, 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. 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. 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, um, work who 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 head to protection around them. And we've seen amazing miracles. So I'd ask for

your prayers for that as well. Amen. We need to keep Grace Center in our prayers.

You ask some other missionary, you know, what are the greatest challenges? And they're like, well,

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?

Basically, basically, it's, um, more like a genocide. But, yeah, so please pray and, um,

every day I just pray today, I'll be the day because it can, it, 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. 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?

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 a 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.

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.

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, one of the things was she said, I got 1B. I said, you're okay. It's okay.

You're going to live. You got 1B. 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 intelligence, her brain. She said, I never missed a day going to church.

That is so awesome. I mean, how much can we learn from that, right? And now she's a doctor.

She's a medical doctor. Yep.

Let me just ask this, what kind of support and resources do you need the most from partner churches?

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 that 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

let me just let me just say this. It's just so funny still even to this day when you when you ask

for people to consider partnering with you, I can tell you just don't like it. And you're not

you're not comfortable with it. Are you better? Okay. I pray through it. 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. Yeah, we found you.

That was a whole other story. Just a bizarre way. We found you were like, hey, we like what you're

doing. Can we partner with you? But I was blown away by what all is happening at the gray 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 wall

out until George Washington is crying on the dollar bill. But number one, just to reiterate

because enter number one prayer. And I want to 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

that I make mention of you in my prayers. Don't knock that. You can just mention. You can just be

and Lord Jesus thank you for grace enter your hand is upon them that you'll be with them. You

may mention of them, but you do that daily at 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 roll index and spending 20 minutes on every single one of you.

I'm mentioning you. I'm mentioning you. I'm bringing you up before the Lord and that 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. Appreciate that. You know, before 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 dollars

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. Those were what my wife said.

Because she likes the lobster. But I would put it out for at 120, 130.

But you know, for that, I mean, you can cover the cost of two families eating for a month.

So it just goes so much further. You just have to imagine the water, for example. Now that the

water is built, it's free. It's there for the people. And so it's just amazing to have these

relationships with you. 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. 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. And then we have this precedent, David said it. It actually

says it's an ordinance forever in Israel. 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're stayed by 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, 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. 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 CityLight has partnered. I really believe, you know, I'll never forget when

we went through the Great Recession in 08, 09 and went into 10. 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,

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

with joyous giver whose heart is in his giving. Amen. Hallelujah. It's amazing to bring up that point

is that, you know, in the US, I would often speak at different youth groups and Naples, as you

mentioned, is not a poor area. It's quite, you know, quite affluent as far as the percentage goes

down there. But right next to that is a city called a mockley, 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

a mockley and they would respond more than the people and 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. Yeah. I know you said that. You really

can't. And I've done it myself. It's like it's amazing. 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?

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

steel and destroy. And if you're not a threat to the enemy, he won't seek to kill steel and destroy

you. But the minute you become a threat, which means you're after getting souls to Christ, you will be

have to pray through that. You'll have to pray protection. You'll have to command things to

go and use names. So I've come to realize that the power is, is that the enemy is there, that God

is stronger. And through that, we've seen just miraculous, amazing healing. 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. There's people that have 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 than they would turn to the Lord. They make a lot of money from what

they do. So the first thing I did was I announced to our, 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 at 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. Of all that, this is fair. 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 know, 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 believers' authority. 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'

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 which to 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

and 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. You are, Mercy, you have a, even my wife was saying,

a very unique, your whole family, it's on your whole family, unique spirit.

You can see the fingerprints of God on them and Mercy 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? And she is. And because, well, she went through the school of

the Holy Spirit and I was shocked. I knew she was Catholic. I had my own prejudices, even though

my kids now go to Catholic, my own prejudices, when I met her in 2010 and I realized, oh my gosh,

she's like, we were completely on the same page about everything. There was not one theological

point or one doctrinal point that I ever disagreed with her on it because she went through the school

of the Lord. 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 Mercy and we're

going to pray for her for her family in the Grace Center. Father, that you would protect

Mercy, 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. 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

Boy on Jansk and City Light Church, visit us at citylightnyc.com, that's citylightnyc.com.

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

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