Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
As we get ready to celebrate the first anniversary of the birth of our church, our congregation has now adopted a new name: Rehoboth Ethiopian Evangelical Church, Tulsa. With the good Lord in our midst, we are embarking on a new dawn of hope and resplendent future in which our church has gracefully overcome turbulent times of existential threat.
Despite the peril, we have come out all the more resilient and vibrant by the grace of God throughout the period of tribulation of which every member has been at the receiving end. Therefore as a Church, we joined hands and continued to seek God for breakthrough and justice through fasting and prayer. And this truly has been a blessing in disguise in the sense that we see it as though it were a training period in which we all have undergone a season of restoration.
Consequently, our church has now transitioned into becoming a full-fledged independent entity. We have come a long way and it is our firm belief that God will protect his house in such a way that things will never revert back to the status quo. We give glory to God Almighty, who has been with us through thick and thin. Most importantly God has removed all obstacles and barriers out of the way and our Church has now been restored and transformed into a healthy and functioning organ in the body of Christ.
Let it be known that the owner and initiator (FOUNDER) of this church is none other than the King of Kings our Lord JESUS CHRIST.
At this juncture, we would like to express our heartfelt appreciation to our host Liberty Church, who accepted us with love and open arms. We also like to thank Pastor Paul Taylor, Sr. Pastor of Liberty Church, who bestowed upon us his sustained support through prayer and by encouraging us to remain steadfast also without whom things would have otherwise proved difficult. Thank you Pastor Paul for positioning yourself as the voice of reason and for showing us the love of Christ; may God bless you richly for staying true to your own conscience and for demonstrating authentic moral excellence in dealing with the challenges we had faced.
We want to thank Pastor Rob McNamara for working with us closely and for affording us with spiritual and logistical support all along. We would like to thank Brother David Graves. Also we want to thank Pastor Paula McDaniel for her tender heart towards our kids, who always made them feel at home. We want to thank Sister Debbie Giddens for helping us in the area of her expertise. Thank you and God bless you all staff members of Liberty whom we haven't mentioned by name.
We would like to thank the leadership of the fellowship of Midwest Ethiopian Evangelical Churches for guiding us in pursuing scripturally sound method of conflict resolution during those trying moments whereby unwarranted pandemonium had overshadowed and almost derailed the divine purpose of our church.
We express our deep gratitude to Dr. Pastor Tesfa Workneh for his timely spiritual guidance and Dr. Pastor Bedilu Yirga who stood by us along with his guidance through a series of dynamic and foundational teachings from which our church has benefited tremendously. Last but not least, we want to thank Pastor Gizaw Dereseh of Ethiopian Evangelical Churches Fellowship. May God bless the aforementioned men and women of God and all those near and far, who shouldered us in prayer.
To God be the glory who envisaged this Church in his eternal plan and founded it in due time when he chose to plant it in the city of Tulsa.
