It’s common for Australians born overseas to visit home. But Setotaw Befekadu goes home to Ethiopia every year to spend time in jail—visiting prisoners. Each year Befekadu takes seven weeks to visit the prisons.

He is a 60-year-old maths teacher at a school in Sydney’s west—the sort of suburb the tabloid media has been known to write uncomplimentary stories about. But it is a safe haven compared to where he spends the long vacation.

Befekadu’s picked a circuit of ten prisons. He chose remote ones. This is no fly-in-fly-out trip he does each year—it’s a hard journey. Befekadu started visiting Ethiopian prisons 14 years ago, and has continued annually for the last ten years.

Construction of Biogas to fix the over flow of toilet

He visits the jails with soap and clothes. They are the simple things that make a prisoner’s life bearable. As you speak to Befekadu he makes his trip seem simple, matter of fact. Then he says something that makes you realise things are not ordinary. “I also give the prisoners spray,” he says. “For the bugs”.

Befekadu has no illusions about the people he visits. Some have committed serious crimes: murder, rape, to theft he says, describing the range of people he helps. Befekadu grew up as the son of a prison official, and visited his father at work.

When he first visits a prison Befekadu finds out the problems. “Their needs are material like clothing, or a sewing machine, or educational resources. After I have visited all ten prisons, then I go to Mercado – it’s a shopping centre. I buy all the needs and then I distribute it to the ten prisons.

“I do evangelism as well as bring humanitarian aid. When the Lord opens the door I have access to preach to all the prisoners there. We plant churches there. In each of the ten prisons we have got chaplains paid by the local churches who also do evangelism.”

After meeting basic needs Befekadu wants to give prisoners skills and training. “First we give them humanitarian help, things like clothing and soap. For development we purchase sewing machines for the ladies. They get training so they can make clothes to get money.”

“Some of the prison are located near a river so we get them pumps for irrigation. They grow vegetables like potatoes. We purchase tools to make furniture, and grinding machines to grind crops. We believe in sustainability, so that the prisoners have the skills to get jobs and be independent.

“A lot of them have received the gospel. Some of them have become elders and some of them became evangelists when they were released from prison.”

Befekadu is a self-financed missionary. The fares to Ethiopia are expensive, so while his wife has gone with him on some trips, he normally leaves her behind. A few Australian friends chip in to help him pay for the goods.

Befekadu, who became a Christian 42 years ago, is fulfilling an old dream. “There was a great revival in Ethiopia and that is when I became a Christian.”

“When I came to Australia my ambition was to do theological training – and I had a plan to go back to Ethiopia to minister there.But because of the political situation—Ethiopia was communist—I couldn’t go back.” He had left his homeland as a 22-year-old scholarship winner to go to the Illawarra Bible College, in Katoomba NSW.

“So I had to continue my study here in Australia – and when I finished my theological training I did applied mathematics. But I had an ambition just to serve the Lord back in Ethiopia.”

“When I started this ministry, it was not my vision. One day I went to Ethiopia just to visit. I met elders from different churches and backgrounds who told me about their burden – where the problems were.” It was based on their experience that he began the ministry.

“So I had a BIG burden when I came back from Ethiopia.” On a second visit a friend introduced him to prison chaplains and this one man mission began.

In the last ten years more than 4,000 people have become Christians in the ten prisons. Befekadu plans to keep on doing this work “until I go to glory, because I love it.”

Setotaw Befekadu asked Eternity to emphasise that any gifts will be dealt in a transparent way.

Every Home Global Concern, Ethiopian Prison Ministry, BSB 012402 Acc no 250082846