My name is Caleb, I'm half Ethiopian, half British.
I grew up in Ethiopia until I was about eight-years-old and
We grew up there because my dad had moved out there as an engineer
He'd met this beautiful Ethiopian woman and got married and had
three wonderful children of which I was the oldest and I had two younger sisters
But when I was eight years old something happened to our family that would change everything forever
My dad had a conference in Kenya and on his way there the plane that he was on was hijacked
It crashed off the coast of Madagascar and
everything was captured on camera by some holidaymakers who were filming
This footage very quickly made its way onto the news and our family got a phone call
saying have you seen the news, have you seen the news
So we turned on the TV as a family to watch the plane that my dad was on come crashing to the ground
We didn't realize what the outcome would be or who the survivors were for a few weeks later
And so in that time awaiting, the pain, the confusion, the sense of grief was truly truly unfathomable
Even to this day I feel I'm still trying to work out some of this stuff
But even in the thick of it one of the things that,
that happened that I can't even explain now was this sense of peace
This peace that I can only explain as God just filled me and filled our family
We planned to go to the UK for education and so my mum took us to London and that's where
we grew up after then
The thing that really I noticed on heading to London was
It was very different to Ethiopia, people's faith, the faith that I'd grown
up with in Ethiopia was different. I could only explain it as apathy is what I experienced
But rather than living any different I found myself just conforming
Just becoming like everybody else. And it wasn't until I was 18 years old I was
forced to ask myself, do I actually believe this, is this real?
And one of the things I didn't share was, when that plane went down my dad had
stood up and shared his faith in those final moments
An air hostess had survived, and she lived to tell us that she'd come to faith because he'd led her to faith
in those final moments
And so for me growing up this was the legacy that was left
This was what my dad had lived for and died for and so for me in a way I
felt like I inherited something and so
as I began to question and search one of
the things I discovered was that I cannot inherit my parent's faith I had to make a
decision for myself, I had to come to a conclusion on my own, I had to decide
And so I had big questions, why do bad things happen? Why is there death? why did this
have to happen to our family? It wasn't fair, it isn't fair
Why are there so many religions? The questions went on and on and on. But the thing that just really
stood out and struck me to my core was these claims of Jesus Christ
That He came down, He walked this earth it said. He experienced all the the pain and the
grief and the confusions we experience. And then He goes on to die this gruesome
death on a cross, in it He was absorbing the pain, the wrath that was deserved to us
So that if we can put our faith in Him everything changes, but He didn't just
stay down, He rose again. And as I read this I was just like, "Is this true?
The claims that are in front of me. I have a choice to believe this or not"
And as I decided to believe this, as I decided to put my faith in this, once
again, that peace that I'd found early on in my life just returned
But it wasn't just this peace it was this sense of purpose, the sense of there's more to
life than this, the message of Jesus was: Give up everything, die to yourself like,
go all out, and this new sense of purpose and meaning just filled me. It was like I
couldn't just exist anymore, I wasn't made to just exist anymore, I was called,
I was created to thrive, I was created to dream, I was created to fail, I was
created to try again, and so that feeling and sense of being able to thrive
allowed me to dream, and even allowed me to return back to Ethiopia 20 years later
To work on business, to try new projects, to give new things a go.
And so my life has been changed by this person of Jesus. I hope one day I can, if ever
put in the situation, can display the courage that my father did.
I don't know 'til I'm put in that position, but one thing I do know is this sense of purpose
and sense of meaning has changed everything
Now my thing to you, as you sit here or listen, isn't to just accept what I'm saying, but it's to explore the claims
This prayer of "Jesus, are you there?" is a dangerous, dangerous prayer
And I just encourage you to pray it
Yeah