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IEEC - In The News
We have posted some items of Interest where International Ethiopian Evangelical Church and our Senior Pastor Hanfere Aligaz has been mentioned in the News Media.


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Charisma Magazine - Immigrant Voices
These immigrant church leaders are reshaping the way Americans do church. And you can learn from them.
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"Hanfere Aligaz was an airline pilot in communist Ethiopia when he met Christ through American missionaries, and he came to Washington, D.C., to start a church. “I had no money, no green card, no place to meet,” he says. But his Ethiopian Evangelical Church (eechurch.org) has grown from five people to nearly 3,000, making it the largest Ethiopian church outside Ethiopia, he says. All services are in Amharic, but the church is beginning to reach out deliberately to non-Ethiopians. “We believe that revival is the only way to get people saved,” Aligaz says. “People need to see the hand of God, the healing power of God. ... When they do, their hearts open to the gospel.” Aligaz’s church offers “holistic ministry” such as job training and help with immigration status. “We have to be a blessing to America because America has been a blessing to us,” Aligaz says."
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Church of the Week - Coming to America: The Ethiopian Evangelical Church of D.C.
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It’s the country’s largest Ethiopian church, located right in the nation’s capital… that is, the U.S. capital! Twenty-three years ago Pastor Hanfere Aligaz and his family felt called to leave the only land that they knew and plant an evangelical church in the United States.But the story of Ethiopian Evangelical Church has a humble beginning. Hanfere, as a young muslim, says that he heard the audible voice of the Lord." I head this voice asking me, 'What about Jesus?' Not once, it kept coming," he recalls. "I quit being muslim because of that voice." When a Christian friend told him the truth about Jesus Christ, Hanfere believed. " I knew that I knew that I knew that this was what I was looking for. Without any doubt, I knew in my heart. I asked a friend, 'What must I do now?' He said, 'Get a Bible and pray.'" Just two years later, Hanfere says he heard the audible voice of the Lord again -- this time telling him to start a church in Washington, D.C.


Charisma Magazine - Ethiopian Slips Communist Grip To Pastor U.S. Church - Hanfere Aligaz arrived nearly penniless in the U.S. but now heads a thriving church in the nation's capital.
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A Christian who fled communist Ethiopia in 1981 and arrived in the United States with his family of five and only $140 between them now pastors the largest U.S. congregation for Ethiopians, a flock of almost 2,000 of his former countrymen. Hanfere Aligaz founded the Evangelical Ethiopian Church of Washington, D.C., with 15 people one year after he and his wife and their four children defected from their communist-run homeland.


Charisma Magazine - Coming to America -
Some of the nation’s fastest-growing churches aren’t English-speaking. Immigrants are bringing their vibrant faith to the United States.
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... African immigrants exude a similar spiritual passion. The Washington, D.C., area is a hotbed of African congregations from Nigeria and Ethiopia. Hanfere Aligaz, pastor of the Ethiopian Evangelical Church of Washington, D.C., fled the communist government in Ethiopia in 1981and founded the church a year later. Today the congregation has 2,500 members—and they are aggressively seeking to reach the 85,000 Ethiopians living in the Washington area.


The Washington Times - Answer to Prayers
AIDS orphans are getting a new start at the Joshua Youth Academy in Debrezeit, Ethiopia, thanks to four years of saving by the International Ethiopian Evangelical Church in Northeast Washington. New facility in Ethiopia gives parentless a home. The Joshua Youth Academy will eventually have 2,520 beds, as well as classrooms, vocational training and medical care for the youngest and least fortunate members of this beautiful but impoverished country. 'Christianity is not only preaching, we have to demonstrate what we preach.' said Pastor Hanfere Aligaz. Mr Aligaz acompanied by a dozen church elders and parishoners, looked overjoyed on saturday as the orphans clad in dresses, shirts and trousers of traditional bleache muslin expressed their appreciation in song. Read the PDF Version


The Ethiopian Herald - Ethiopian President Urges public to Complement ongoing efforts to met Millineum Development Goals

President Girma Woldes-Giorgis urged the genral public to exert relentless efforts to accomplish the activities being implemented to meet the Millenium Dvelopment Goals (MDGs). While inaugerating yesterday, Joshua Youth Academy which Ethiopian Evangelical Chirch in Washington DC constructed in Bishoftu town with over 8.2 million birr...he said the fact that the church has contstructed a youth academy that comprises orphanage and school is a commendable job others should follow suit.
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