UMHB Student finds a calling in Ethiopia

Posted: 10/13/06

UMHB Student finds a calling in Ethiopia

By Jennifer Sicking

University of Mary Hardin-Baylor

BELTON—When the Baptist General Convention of Texas assigned Jeff Sutton to summer mission work in Ethiopia, he wasn’t where he wanted to go. But after two trips, he’s convinced he could spend a lifetime ministering there.

“Last year, I really got interested in unreached people groups,” said Sutton, a senior at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor, majoring in religious studies.

In 2005, Sutton had applied to go to Egypt for summer missions. Instead, he was assigned to Ethiopia. The country and teaching English-as-a-Second-Language were a location and an activity he had not considered.

“Through prayer, I realized God has a reason for this,” he said. “I went and fell in love with the place.”

The region is known for its continued famine and poverty, with an average family income equaling $150 for a year. Religiously, people usually follow either a folk-type of Islam or a cultural attraction to Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity—a faith considerably different than the evangelical gospel Sutton hoped to share.

“So much was added to it, they couldn’t understand what we meant by Christian,” he said. “I couldn’t say I was a Christian because that would say I was Orthodox. I would say I was a follower of Jesus Christ.”

During the three summer months of 2005, Sutton lived in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia. There he worked with missionaries mapping the city—plotting the churches and mosques, as well as residential areas. He spent hours playing soccer with boys.

“We started with four, and it grew to 40,” he said about the soccer program. “After playing for a few hours, we’d take a break and I’d tell a story from Luke.”

He worked with a native believer who spoke Amharic, the most common of the 80 languages spoken in Ethiopia.

“He and I would work together to answer those deep driving questions,” he said. “We would answer what we believe as Christians.”

Sutton also taught English.

This past summer, Sutton returned to Ethiopia with five other college students—three from Texas Tech and two from Dallas Baptist University. They taught conversational English to 30 women who were attending the university on scholarship. They used the English class to build relationships with the students to learn about their culture and to share the gospel with them.

It was a trip Sutton almost didn’t make.

First, the team’s passports, which had been sent to the Ethiopian embassy in Washington D.C. were lost in the mail. During that delay of a week, Sutton became sick and during a stay in the hospital, doctors diagnosed him with an infection in his colon.

“I was told I could not go overseas, which devastated me,” he said.

The day before the team was supposed to leave for Ethiopia, he visited a gastroenterologist, who prescribed heavy doses of medication. The doctor told him he could go for two weeks, but if he wasn’t feeling better at the end of that time he had to return to the United States.

“I felt better, then I got something there—a funky bacterial infection,” he said.

Forty pounds lighter and weeks later, Sutton said he is moving through the final stages of that infection.

Sutton, who has been involved in mission trips since he was 13 years old, plans to make missions his life work.

“It scares me to say I’m going back. If I go back, I’d probably stay,” said Sutton, who expects to graduate in May. “I plan on going overseas to work. If God leads me to Ethiopia, I would be more than happy.”

Sutton said college students are fortunate to have two to three months where they can make a difference in others lives.

“My biggest desire is for people to know what is happening in the world, to know the needs in the states, to know the needs of the world,” he said. “Missions is not only about going. It’s about giving, prayer, finances, everything.”