Ethiopian leaders pose with the commemorative stone : Tewodros Beyene, executive committee member; John Blosser Yoder, MCC/EMM Representative; Tsegaye Wodajo, executive committee member; Mulugeta Zewdie, general secretary; Tefera Bekere, evangelism department head; Kena Doula, deputy general secretary; Belayneh Gebre-Hana, finance department head; Zemedkun Baykeda, Relief and Development Association director. Photo: Holly Blosser Yoder.

A joint release with Mennonite Central Committee

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia - Meserete Kristos Church (MKC) leaders gathered April 28 to break ground for a new national church headquarters and office building. The new facility will be built on the property in downtown Addis Ababa where the existing offices are located. These offices are housed in the former mission/church guesthouse and in converted shipping containers that line the circumference of the property.

Former MKC chairman Million Belete presented the historical background and placed the commemorative stone launching the construction effort. He said the purpose of the building will be “to have an adequate office for the Secretariat of the Head Office, to reinstate the guesthouse and to have a rentable area to generate income for evangelism and general operation.”

The vision for a new church headquarters/office building emerged some seven years ago. Million Belete displayed an envelope full of pledges he had gathered years earlier from church members who supported the vision and encouraged others to add their contributions. The building is projected to cost $860,000.

The building plan was prompted by growth in the church’s national structure and ministries since the early 1990s, when new religious freedoms allowed the church to organize and minister openly after a period of severe oppression. The existing facilities house the offices of the Executive, Pastoral, Evangelism, AIDS Prevention and Care, Prison Ministry, Education, Personnel, and Finance departments and, until recently, the Relief and Development Association, numbering all together 71 employees and staff.

The MKC is the largest national conference associated with Mennonite World Conference. In 2006, the church recorded more than 144,600 baptized members in 398 congregations and 785 church planting centers located throughout the country.

The headquarters property had been expropriated by the Communist regime in 1982 when the church was closed, but was returned after the 1991 change in government. Million Belete said he hoped that, after the new office building is completed, the historic guesthouse would return to its former function.

-Holly Blosser Yoder

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