The Beginning
Around 2010, Pastor Ron Vietti felt that VBF should get involved in ministry in Africa. About the same time, Dr Nalos had just finished his ninth African hunting safari in Cameroon. It was a very difficult Safari and he was eaten by flies and bees the entire trip. At one point when he was medically examining the children, he found many to be severely malnourished with lack of protein in their diet. He was very moved by the children’s plight and suddenly felt God saying to him “If you want to see my face, you are seeing it in the face of African children.” That word from God would change his life. He preached his first African Sermon in French to the pygmies in the Cameroon forest. The Holy spirit really showed up there and at the end the pygmies sang about five beautiful songs of thanks for what Jesus had done on the cross. He gave up hunting completely and devoted it to ministry of pastors and children in Ethiopia.
In 2011, Ron Vietti led a team to train pastors in both Addis Ababa and Awassa, Ethiopia. On subsequent trips, Dr Nalos went into the Muslim rural areas with Tessema from Rift Valley vision and saw the immense need for schools for children. They were being taught under a tree in the heat with flies and no desks or pencils or books. He felt the call of God to help the Muslim children even though his Father’s family was Jewish. He started to preach wherever he went. His first sermon in Ethiopia was in a an abandoned trailer in a town called Bui, three hours south of Addis Ababa, where we built a school and a church. This was the start to rural school building in Muslim and tribal areas covering almost 40,000 square miles of area.
Peter is ready to continue the legacy of Dr. Livingston.
Those are bugs all over Peter! Yikes.
Return To Omo Valley 2016
We have completed our last trip to the Omo Valley of Ethiopia from December 26, 2015 to January 12, 2016. It was a very successful ministry time among the rural tribal peoples.
These are the highlights of the trip:
1. We have built 5 new schools (Ari, Wolto, Omerate, Malle and Demeke) and visited them all with the children in attendance. Local government officials were speakers at almost each opening ceremony there. School construction was excellent. The communities were all very happy.
2. We showed the “Jesus film” at a ten different sites to about 7,000 people from local churches and tribes. There were hundreds of salvations. Many people had never seen a movie before and came out from the forests to see them when we did open air projection outside.
3. They brought the mothers and children to visit the new home for 30 children in
Jinka prison. They have been forced to live with their criminal mothers in squalid conditions.
4. The Arba Minch prison contacted me after seeing what we did in Jinka and we will help their mothers and children as well in the future with a small school and dormitory. At both prisons we gave away 200 feminine products as ministry outreach, which was greatly appreciated.
5. We visited two schools that are in the final construction stage in Alduba and Kay Afar.
6. We did not go to the dangerous tribal area, since a young tribal boy was hit by a car and the road was closed. However, we will organize a new school for the Bodi, Mursi and Suri peoples with our Jinka church partner.
7. We baptized ten new Dassenech tribal converts in the Omo River.
8. We preached at churches, schools and outside almost every day of our trip.
9. There will be a total of ten sites for schools in the Omo Valley (27 in total) with funding only needed for the last two projects waiting to be started. Long term maintenance costs will be for the two teachers for each school at $70.00 per month.
10. We will phase in a new goat business with Rift Valley Vision for the long term sustainable support for the 125 children, we now maintain.
11. We gave support for a medical clinic in Demeke for the very poor people of the Hamar tribe.