How a blind man gained clear vision:
a true story

by Dr Loren Bliese, Translation Consultant with
the Bible Society of Ethiopia

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — As a small boy Yimam endured many eye infections. By the age of 30 he had lost a significant amount of his vision and could only see poorly. His eyes were damaged and medical treatment did not help.

Yimam’s friend Aberra was about the same age. As a child he had been fortunate enough to learn to read and as an adult he decided to make part of his work teaching others to read and write.

Responded

When a local Protestant church started an outreach in their village, Aberra, his wife and their family – by then they had five children – responded to the evangelists and joined the church which they planted. Aberra became the leader of the congregation and shared his faith with others.

One of the people who accepted Aberra’s witness was his friend Yimam. A Muslim, Yimam listened to the teaching about the Christian faith and in due course, he, his wife and their daughter were baptised.

About a year later famine struck the area and Yimam and his family were very badly affected: Yimam’s situation was especially difficult because his partial blindness meant he was unable to work properly. He knew that many of his neighbours were leaving the village to live with relatives elsewhere and felt that he ought to take his family away, too. His relatives were Muslim, however, and unless he and his wife and daughter reverted to Islam they would not take them in. Yimam told Aberra of his plight.

Forced

Aberra had invited an evangelist to preach at the church that Sunday and afterwards he told the visitor that Yimam felt forced to turn to his Muslim relatives for help but that it meant that he and his family would have to renounce their faith.

Very upset

As the evangelist listened he became very upset and began to cry aloud. He reminded Yimam and his wife that God’s Word declares Jesus to be the only way to salvation. Until then Yimam, like many people in the village, had believed that either Christianity or Islam would get the believer to heaven. Now he saw the shock and concern the evangelist had for him and his family.

After the meeting with the evangelist, Yimam and his wife discussed what they should do. They decided that even if they died from the famine, that would be a more desirable fate than losing their salvation through Christ. So they stayed in the village. Faithful to his promises, God provided for them until the famine was over and the people in the village had grain to eat once more.

When their daughter was old enough, Yimam and his wife sent her to classes run by the church and she duly learned to read. The family got a Gospel Portion and read the story of Jesus together. It gave great comfort to them all to read Scripture in their own home. They have continued faithfully following God’s Word and God has continued his faithfulness to them through years which have included another famine and a war. Now Yimam can no longer read because of his poor eyesight, but his daughter reads the Bible to him regularly. They praise God as a family for keeping them safe through difficult times and they rejoice that together they can look forward to eternal life with Jesus who died on the cross to save them. (WR 363/23 - 10.01)