Click here to watch Yada’h show on Elshadai TV Network interview with Adiamseged

Hello our viewers. This is the Yada’h show of Elshadai TV Network.
We have a guest today, a man whose books were launched in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia last week [January 2019]. Two books were previously published abroad by Global Healing in Love in Unity Ministries (GHLU). The books are commentaries in Amharic on Ephesians and the Gospel of John. The event held last week was intended to introduce the ministry in Ethiopia for the first time. What was the program? What is the purpose of the ministry? And what are these books like? We have invited Brother Adiamseged Weldemariam, founder of the ministry to share his thought with our viewers on these questions.
Yada’h: Welcome Adiamseged.
Adiamseged: Thank you.

I would like to say, God bless you and thank you for coming. I would also like to express my gratitude to Elshadai TV and Yada’h program. God bless you. We trust we will have a good time. As I said to our viewers, the GHLU ministry has published over ten books and e-books as well as e-magazines outside Ethiopia by which it has been serving the diaspora community. The ministry is active on social media with over 100,000 followers to its Facebook page. What is this ministry about? And who is Adiamseged, founder of the ministry?
Thank you. My name is Adiamseged Weldemariam. I am the father of two children. My wife’s name is Yodit Alemu. We have been in USA for about 28 years. God has blessed us through all those years. I went there as an immigrant and that journey was challenging and tiresome. I had lots of bitter experiences and cried a lot. God took me out of all that trouble and brought me into His kingdom. And there the Lord spoke to me clearly regarding how I should serve Him in His kingdom. Then I went to America.

Where were you when you met the Lord?
In Khartoum, Sudan.

So you passed through Sudan when you left Ethiopia.
That’s right. I had gone to school in Geja Kale Heywet, then Tikur Anbessa.

But you had not known the Lord in your school days.
No, I had not known the Lord yet. I only learned about morality. I was also exposed to the teachings of Ababa Kedamo.

Then you went to America.
Yes. First, I stayed in Washington DC for five years. Then I went to Atlanta where I stayed five years. Then I moved to Denver and stayed there for 19 years. That is where I engaged in the ministry.

We have your books here: studies in John, Ephesians, and Hebrews. Your first book was a study in Romans, which was distributed in America over ten years ago. Most of your books are big volumes, well over 400 or 500 pages. In Ethiopia where the taste for reading has not developed, do you think your books will find readers? And what motivated you to write these books considering you live in America where life is very busy?
When I was in Sudan, God helped to change my attitude toward His word. You may find more on that from my life testimony. The second reason has to do with what I encountered when I came back to Ethiopia 18 years ago. We had gone to Teppi in the south with churches from the north. Pastor Yared Maru, and Paniel the singer were with us. I was holding the New Amharic Standard translation of the bible. There were about 5,000 people in the church. And the pastor of that church said, “Please give me this book”. I said to him, “You have the former, Haileselassie translation. Why don’t you use that?” And he said, “But this book explains some topics when we are studying. We don’t’ have reference books to help us while we teach all these people”. I was touched and as soon as coming back to Addis Ababa, I said that I would not minister any longer there but I would go back to America. At that time, Yared Maru had given me a list of things to do. But I said I had work to do and went back to Denver. And there I devoted my time to writing books for the edification of the body of Christ. And the Lord gave me His grace to write the books.

You said that you intended your books to be helpful to the ministers as well as to other people not involved in fulltime ministry as well as to the uneducated. But people who commented on the books, for example, Dr. Ermias, vice secretary of Ethiopian Kale Heywet Church, said that these books were great heritage to the church, and that he too had benefited from them. Dr. Weyta Weza also said that the books were not by a man who did his PhD in theology but they are so excellent, especially the one on the Book of Hebrews. Other great theologians too have been impressed by your books. How did that make you feel considering you intended your books to be helpful to the unlearned?
I praised the Lord. The apostle Paul said in 2 Corinthians 4 that “we have a treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us”. I saw the grace of God. People will see the grace of God. As I said my intention for writing was so that those in rural areas may learn about discipleship. However, God’s word teaches people in various ways. I praise God for doing so. I was not worthy of all that but it is the grace of God and I praise God for that. The other thing that pleased me is seeing that the body of Christ is blessed by the books and, with their help, can grow into the likeness of Christ. All the glory belongs to God. The other thing I have seen is that for the future I am praying that God may stretch me and make me a vessel of blessing for my brothers. These three things have made great sense to me.
If I may share my feeling at this time, I was involved in the editing of the book on the Gospel of John and the organization of the book has well pleased me. First, it does not wander into controversial theological issues. The major interest of the book is in what the Gospel says to us. Although it mentions some Greek words now and then, it is not complicated. It is presented in a very simple Amharic and I trust young readers will find that very appealing. Moreover, the books share what scholars say on the topics and that is a great quality. The letter to the Ephesians is written in only six chapters, taking not more than four pages in the bible. But you have explained the contents of such a small letter in over 480 pages which is very pleasing and I believe readers will be blessed by it. I would like to say may God bless you for your efforts. Having said so much about the books, let us now turn to the GHLU ministry. Please tell us about the ministry. Is it limited to producing these books? What else have you been doing in the last twenty years?
We started the ministry as Grace Gospel Ministry and the Global Healing in Love in Unity (GHLU) ministry was born of that about seven or eight years ago. Our main interest was in bringing about the spiritual influence and rule of the kingdom of God over the earth. We felt in our hearts that love and unity would bring about healing. The Lord Jesus had spoken about living in His love. He said that He lived in the love of the Father and the Father in Him. His command for us is that we may be one in Him and in the Father. So there are love and unity. In Colossians, the apostle Paul says that he has great conflict for us that our “hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, and attaining to all riches of the full assurance understanding, to the knowledge of the mystery” of Christ. Therefore love and unity are gifts to the church along with the ministry of reconciliation. We hear such messages nowadays from political leaders and I praise God for that. But it is the church that should be the foremost to give message of love hope to the lost world. That is what our gospel teaches. The apostle Paul says that we preach Christ crucified both to Jews and Greeks. We have a gospel of peace potent enough to change generation, to change the country and the economy. That is the heart of our ministry. We produce e-books, e-magazines.

What is the magazine called?
The magazine is called Brooh. Many people are reached by the magazine including those in the Middle East, some have received Jesus Christ, and we have received thousands of surprising testimonies in response to the magazine. The magazine is providing teaching of God’s word to many who cannot go to church. As the use of technology grows in our country, many more people will have the opportunity to read these books. The book of Romans is being. The one that is already published is smaller than the other books. But it is about 350 pages, not too small. Yes, and now we are working on a revised edition of Romans which will be published in two volumes. But our main interest is not in producing big volumes. Rather, we want to produce books that are suitable to those who have been to theological schools as well as those who have not been to theological schools. We also want to make the books suitable for those who do personal bible study at home. We are working on Ephesians, and Hebrews for this purpose. The other is basic teaching. The basic teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ is “Love your neighbor as yourself”. Today, everyone is living for themselves. But we should learn to live for others. That is what love is all about and that is what the gospel teaches. My prosperity must bring a blessing to my brother. This is the focus of the book. The other is the book written on the theme: where is the church? You are aware of postmodernism and globalization. The book explores the impact of these on the church. How should the church handle these influences? How should the church, for example, make use of information communication technology? You can use Facebook for righteous ends if you handle it wisely. You can use it for ministering the gospel. Everything we handle must be used for the glory of Christ. The book therefore explores those issues. There is also a book on tithes and gifts. Do we practice these out of fear or out of the sense of legal obligation, or out of love for Christ and giving ourselves to Him? Keeping in mind the teaching “Love the Lord with all your heart, with all your mind, and with all your strength,” how does a Christian practice giving while living by grace? The ministry of giving is in many ways abused by people and many have been hurt by it. Therefore we have in-depth teaching on this topic. There are also different other books. For example, we are writing a book on the letter to the Corinthians. We are writing another book on single moms. This book does not encourage married mothers to divorce and become single mothers, but it shows unmarried mothers how to make impact in the community while raising their children. It teaches them that they are complete in Christ, and teaches them to work and be effective members of the community.
I think that is a very big topic. Especially in our country when women stay single, the community tends to consider them incomplete. But as you said, we hope when the book is out, many people will learn from it. How do you feel when you see what you started long ago grow and now bear fruit?
The issue of love and unity has always been since ancient times. As you know, when sin entered this world, there were only Cain and Abel. And these two men had no problem of land, ethnicity, language, and they had nothing that could divide them and set them against each other. If Cain went to the right and Abel went to the left, staking their banners wherever they went and claiming all the land they treaded on, there would still be no problem at all. However, God said to Cain that sin would lie at his door, and then the word said that Cain rose up against Abel and killed him. So, because of sin, brotherly love could not be maintained, not even between just two people. The secular legal system would call Cain a murderer, but God said to Cain that sin would lie at the door. Therefore according to the bible, the cause of division among us is sin. In the secular world, improper use of public finances is called corruption. But in Christianity, we have seen that God loved the world so much that He gave His own Son. That means, the Christian has not only learned that it is wrong to steal from others, but also it is expected of the believer to sacrificially give to others. We understand that being stingy is sin. Christians should demonstrate such characters in their work places and wherever they are. That is the essence of the gospel. We are very pleased to hear love and unity spoken of on various platforms.

Therefore our labor has borne fruit, or our prayers have been answered. In addition to what we have covered so far, I would like to mention that so much work takes a lot of effort and calls for the participation of many people. I would therefore like to give you the opportunity to thank those who have supported you in this important work.
First of all, I would like to thank my wife Yodit. I love her and may God bless her. If she did not stand by men and support me, none of these works would have seen the light of day. My children also have supported me in various ways. My firstborn son contributed money for the editing and I have accepted money from him on a lot of occasions. Many other people, including you, have helped me with editing. You have helped me a lot, and I praise God for you. Dereje Abebe, Eshete Belete, my brother Yelibenwork, brother Yonatan, Ato Mesfin, brother Daniel, Etabeba, Askal; these have helped me with editing, and with references. I sent these books to this country about eight or nine years ago, and it has taken us so long while correcting some and improving others. I praise God. In the future, God willing, we will have the other volumes published.

I trust our viewers would want to get these books. This one is a study in the Gospel of John with a cover design depicting Jesus Christ as the true shepherd of the sheep. When I was asked to help with these books, I chose to edit the Gospel of John because I hoped that while editing it I would also be studying it and being blessed by its message. It has made me take the time to consider the teachings in every chapter. So I praise God for this privilege. The habit of reading big books and bible commentaries should be encouraged in our country. I would like to say God bless you to our brother for presenting this book which shall be a blessing to churches in our country. We would like to ask you, on behalf of the Yada’h show, to buy the books for yourselves as well as for those who cannot afford to buy them. Thank you for being with us, and may God bless you.