Our Petros Network Missionary, Gire Daba, was martyred on Wednesday (3-9-2011) at his home. He had been commissioned and sent just this past November along with his family to a very remote and un-reached village in the West Shewa Zone of the Oromia Region in Ethiopia.

Gire presented the gospel message and many people received Christ.  In just three months, Gire’s church grew to over 40 people. He recently conducted an evangelistic outreach and some people from the Ethiopian Orthodox persuasion became very angry with him.  While Gire was praying with his hands outstretched in supplication for some people who had come to his home, a gunman burst in and shot him.

Gire has faced opposition since his arrival in the village.  Just since November, he has been jailed two times by the local leaders, simply for preaching the gospel.

Please pray for Gire’s wife and four children, as well as for the strengthening of these new converts in the midst of persecution.

It is believed that the killer was angry because his wife was one of Gire’s new converts. This husband had harassed Gire while he conducted the evangelism conference.  His wife accepted Christ and for that, he savagely beat her.  Pressuring her to recant, she refused, saying, “no, I love Jesus. I won’t deny him.”

The angry husband then banished her from his home, found Gire and shot him to death.  Our faithful witness, Gire Daba, has received the martyr’s crown!

Although we grieve for Gire’s family and church, we know that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. May the Church of God expand all the more in that village, in West Shewa, and may all of Ethiopia soon belong to Jesus Christ.

“ The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church. —TERTULLIAN