My name is Paulos Assefa, and I am married to Tadelech Assefa and God has blessed us with three daughters. At the Urbana Missions Conference in 1994, God spoke to me to serve Him as a missionary. After I knew my calling, I wanted to learn where God needed me to serve Him, so I participated in short term missions in Bonaire and Kenya. I then moved to the Kansas City area in 1995 and was involved with Ethiopian Christian Fellowship until 2009. I heard the voice of God that my job was done with the Ethiopian Fellowship Church and it took a year of prayer to find out where He wanted me to serve Him next. 

One Sunday, I attended a service at Journey Bible Church, which was at that time called Olathe Bible Church. After the service, a gentleman approached me and told me that I was their answer to prayer. I asked him if he knew me and he said that he didn’t, but he knew that God had answered their prayer. I asked him what they were praying for and he answered by saying they were praying for engagement opportunities in Africa and it was a divine moment for me to hear that at that same time that I was waiting for God to give me a direction of where to serve Him.

Since then, I have been involved with the Journey Bible Church mission team to pray and to strategically position how I can glorify God in Ethiopia and where He needs our church to engage. To name a few, we have been involved in leadership training in Nekemte, Mekele, Hawassa, Hosanna, and Addis Ababa. We are implementing a holistic approach to our ministry in Nekemte and Hosanna specifically. I am encouraged by the Journey Bible Church leaders and their mission to take the Gospel to the ends of the world. Their advice and empowerment has made a tremendous impact in my life. They stood with me without any reservation to advance the Kingdom of God and to see God’s fingerprint in our ministry.

The first five years of our ministry we focused on routine training. However, I felt it was not what God wanted and I asked the mission leadership team to pray for clarity in regards to our purpose. I started to learn about unreached people groups in Ethiopia and prayerfully began considering what my involvement could be. In 2015, I learned that there are about 35 unreached people groups in Ethiopia and God brought the Southern Omo People, Afar, and Gumuz to my attention. I began reaching out to find the person of peace who we could partner with to plant churches and make disciples, who could in turn disciple others. It was very difficult to get information to learn who was doing what and which churches had positioned themselves to commit to the great commission.

After a lot of waiting, praying, and looking, it was finally suggested by a retired missionary from SIM, who did a lot of work in Alduba, to talk to a man named Muga Bezabih. I made a call to Muga Bezabih and he gave me a lot of information about the people and the churches in the Southern Omo Region. Furthermore, he asked me if we could work together to advance the Kingdom of God in this region. I was encouraged by all the discussion and a plan was made for us to visit the region and see and learn what God had in store for us. Four of us from Journey Bible Church flew from Hawassa to Turmi by helicopter and the brothers in Turmi welcomed us with open hearts. We stayed for two days and learned of their church planters training program and the challenges they faced due to illiteracy. Not having the Bible translated in their languages and the extreme poverty that the people endure are two struggles they encounter. We have partnered with them in prayer and have begun working with them with our God given resources.

The past four years, we have helped develop training programs and sustainability projects in this region. In addition to this, with God’s help we can build another training center at Key Afer. In this journey I have witnessed the faithfulness of God day to day and have seen the flourishing of the Church of Christ in the Southern Region beyond our expectation. It is our prayer to continue to see 760 churches progress in a few years. 

One of the biggest challenges we face is to ensure that we don’t create dependency. We have seen a lot of good works started in developing countries which do not exist today or are not functioning at their full capacity due to a lack of a sustainable approach.

I believe BLFP could become one of the leading sustainable organizations in a few years because it will be a business run with a mission strategy to help the Omo Valley Region by transforming the life of the people through partnering with the churches in the region.

“Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever, Amen.” Ephesians 3:20-21