Jimma is the largest city in south-western Oromia and is about 350 km from the national capital, Addis Ababa. The Hiwot Berhan Church is one of the numerically strongest Pentecostal churches in Ethiopia. It was pioneered by members of the Swedish Philadelphia Church Mission in the 1960s.
Around 1970, Mulugeta Sebsebe and Girma Tibebu organized a group of gifted singers in Jimma. As the group continued to grow, they transformed it into the formal choir of the Hiwot Berhan congregation. Mulugeta, Girma, and Tesfay Yohannes belonged to the primary songwriters of the gospel choir. Unlike many other ensembles in Ethiopia, the Jimma Choir had two clarinet players who accompanied the singing together with accordion and guitar players.
The choir had a significant impact, both in terms of evangelistic outreach and spiritual growth, far beyond Jimma. The singing tours took the singers through large parts of the country. They included even performances in two Ethiopian Orthodox churches in Addis Ababa—Holy Trinity near Arat Kilo and Raguel at Merkato.
Before the Ethiopian Revolution began in the summer of 1974, the Jimma Choir recorded its songs in Addis Ababa. They were never published as a cassette. However, the then biggest evangelical radio network in Africa, Radio Voice of the Gospel (Bisrate Wongel), often broadcast its much-loved songs until its confiscation in 1977.
One of the choir’s songs, Kiber yigebahal yenya Amlak (‘You are Worthy of Glory, Our God’) is still sung among many Evangelicals in Ethiopia and the diaspora. It found its way even in the Amharic liturgy of the Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus.
In 1978, the local government took the Swedish mission compound and pressured the congregation to stop public meetings. All church groups were forced to remain underground until the end of the Ethiopian Revolution.
Pastor Assefa Alemu (later Dr), who was a member of the Harar Mulu Wongel congregation, was one of the Christian leaders who had a strong impact on the spiritual life of Jimma HB choir in 1971/72 (cf. Haustein 2011, p. 97, fn. 36).
Albums
The cassette ministry of Radio Voice of the Gospel recorded the songs of the choir in 1974 and broadcast them. Unfortunately, no cassette with the songs seems to have been published.
Songs in hymn books
Mərt mäzmurat (1975ff)
» See profiles of choir members
Wädase Amlak, vol. 4 (1997/98)
- p. 111/12
Connect
» Follow Yared Kassa W/Mariam (former choir member) on Facebook
Audio (YouTube)
Collections
(re)published in May 2024 (32 min.):
publ. in August 2024 (59 min.):
Songs with lyrics
ክብር ይገባሃል የኛ አምላክ (clip publ. in 2020):
Video
Original song from 1972, presented in 2022:
Testimony on Pastor Assefa Alemu (2025):
Pictures
First row (from left): Tesfaye Yohannes · Solomon Gizaw (accordion) ·
Zinabu Gebremariam · N.N. · Mulugeta Sebsebe (guitar) · Abera Teferi ·
Gebre Tsadik · Girma Tibebu (saxophone) · Wondimu Habtewold
(adapted from a FB post by Yared Kassa W/Mariam in Nov. 2023)
Kebere Abera · Yared Kassa W/Mariam · Asfaw · N.N. · Tsehay Estifanos ·
Tesfaye Haile · Dan Seleshi · Tamrat Simegne · Girma Tibebu · Mamo Mulugeta
[adapted from a FB post by Yared Kassa W/Mariam in Oct. 2023]
Further reading
Haustein, Jörg. Writing Religious History: The Historiography of Ethiopian Pentecostalism. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2011.
[On the Hiwot Berhan Church, see p. 205‒09]