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Life and ministry
Excerpt from Haustein, Writing Religious History:
p. 104: The first point of contact between the Finnish mission and the Harar group was Getachew Mikre, who attended the Finnish Free Foreign Mission (FFFM) congregation at Merkato before continuing his education at the Harar Teachers Training Insitute. Here, he reportedly told Zeleke Alemu about the Spirit baptisms that he had witnessed at the Finnish mission, though he had not yet encountered this experience himself.
- Fn. 79: Interview no. 130. This exchange is also used by Nazaret revival narratives to situate both the Harar and the Nazaret revivals within the existing Pentecostal networks. […]
Two of the later Harar leaders report an initial influence by Getachew in their conversions, bringing them together, and relaying Pentecostal literature. After the revival had begun, the contact with the Addis Ababa Merkato Finnish mission was deepened in March 1965, when the Harar group sent Assefa Alemu to Addis Ababa to see the evangelist Brian Williams, who was ministering there, in the hopes of inviting him to Harar. […] Harar informants have mentioned these early contacts to the Addis Ababa Finnish mission in interviews, [but] they do not give much weight to them. Instead, Getachew’s [p. 105] input is given little weight in their historical narrative. There are no stories about his own conversion, his experiences at the Finnish mission, or his ministry at Harar. One informant even contended that he was the ‘last person’ in Harar to be baptized in the Spirit.
Getachew Mikre [alternative spelling: Mekere] was one of the founding members of the Addis Ababa University Students’ Christian Fellowship Choir in 1967.
He was also a founding member and early leader of the Mulu Wongel Church’s “A” Choir in 1969.
He emigrated to the USA and studied at the Mennonite-affiliated Goshen College (Indiana, class of 1976).
Getachew Mikre passed away in Los Angeles, CA, in June 2021.
Hymn books
Getachew Mikre was the key person in contacting and collecting songs from Berhane Wongel Choir, Bible Academy Choir, Mulu Wongel Choir and Light of Life Girls’ School Choir for the hymnal
- Kälǝb ǝnəzämǝr [Let Us Sing from the Heart]. Vol. 1, 1972.
Audio / Video
See profiles of choirs mentioned above.
Further reading
Sources
Kälǝb ǝnəzämǝr [ከልብ እንዘምር, Let Us Sing from the Heart]. Vol. 1. Edited by Ethiopian Berhane Wongel [Baptist] Church. Addis Ababa: Globe Publishing Department, 1972 (1965 A.M.).
? Getachew’s thesis at Goshen College?
Literature
Notification of the death of Getachew Mikre, in Bulletin: The Magazine of Goshen College, Fall/Winter 2021, p. 31. [View online]
Ashebir Ketema. “The History of Ethiopian Guenet Church: From 1974-1992.” BTh. thesis. Addis Ababa: Mekane Yesus Seminary, 1993.
Haustein, Jörg. Writing Religious History: The Historiography of Ethiopian Pentecostalism. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2011.