Page 123 - Then Came the Glory
P. 123
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
SODO
By Dawitt
Though the church began in Sodo town in 1970
through the witness of Samuel Jejerso and Bessa Wondebo,
persecution wiped it out two years later. By 1973 only two or three saints remained. My employment took me there in
1974.1 rented a house and ministered to a few townsfolk and some who came in from the countryside. In 1975 the church sent me back to pastor; the congregation had diminished from a hundred or so to five.
Ato Bebock Gejabbo opened his home for a place of
worship until 1978 when the government granted us a
compound. As we prepared to build, persecution escalated, and false reports by our enemies put four of the saints and
me in jail for over a month. Freed, we built our house and held church there until the completion of the new church in
1980, made possible by a gift from Bobbye Wendell.
People envious of our new building and the conversion of many souls stirred up a new persecution and
the government confiscated the new church a year later. Ill
