Melchizedekian

I have been re-reading one of the many missionary stories I love-about the early days of the gospel penetrating the Ethiopian Wallamo tribe...Presbyterian missionaries presented the gospel for a few years before they were forced to leave by the Italians as they conquered Ethiopia during the Second World War years. The missionaries left a church in its infancy...They eventually were able to return and found that, in the midst of much Catholic persecution, the church had permeated the tribe so thoroughly it was hard to find a non-Christian Wallamo ...Wondrous...They put much thought into the reasons the gospel spread so rapidly amongst this particular people...This is one of the interesting incidents they learned about...One that had occurred years earlier....

"Around the turn of the century, Wallamo province was filled with talk about a man named Asa. He was originally from Gamo, but his fame and his teachings spread throughout the whole area. He claimed to have a revelation from God - the God who created the heavens and the earth. Wallamo people should stop worshiping Satan, he said, and should worship only one God, the Creator. Asa also taught the people to pray, especially on one day of the week, Sunday. In praying, he would dip his fingers in honey and flick the honey toward heaven, symbolizing that his prayers were directed to God, not to Satan. The code of laws that Asa taught resembled the Ten Commandments.

As his message spread, Asa's following increased. The practice of witchcraft was forcible restrained. Many of the witch doctors, who were actually priests leading in the worship of Satan, were converted to Asa's teaching. Others who practiced witchcraft did it secretly.

Eventually the movement became absorbed in politics and Asa was imprisoned. He died a few years before the missionaries came to Soddo, and though the movement died with him, there were still traces of this movement all over Wallamo. None of the first converts had been personally influenced by Asa's teachings, but there was a widespread spirit of expectancy for a fuller revelation from the One True God. Asa had prophesied that the foreigner would come with God's book. He urged the people to follow the teachings of this book because it would tell them more about God's will for them...."

Wondrous. Amazing. Intriguing.