Bill is currently a special representative for SIM in North America God is using Bill's gifts and rich experience in Ethiopia as a conference speaker to challenge and reaffirm the priority of world missions.
His ministry focuses on mobilizing students, laymen, and churches to be part of God's heartbeat for the nations.
The ministry of Bill and Grace Harding began in Ethiopia in 1983. Because Ethiopia was a Soviet satellite under a communist dictatorship, Bill entered the country as a water engineer.
Through drilling wells and capping springs in drought stricken Ethiopia, Bill was not only able to give clean physical water, but introduce many to the "Spring of Life" the Lord Jesus Christ. For eight years Bill and Grace served the Gedeo people of southern Ethiopia through a ministry of evangelism, discipleship, and church planting.
Later, as Outreach Administrator for SIM-Ethiopia in the capital city of Addis Ababa, his main goal was to serve the Lord in facilitating the development and expansion of SIM's overall outreach in cooperation with the Kale Heywet Churches (the SIM related churches which now number over four thousand.)
Bill's responsibilities included developing strategy and mobilizing resources to reach the unreached people groups of Ethiopia. Bill was involved in an extensive conference ministry, speaking in Amharic. Grace served in a rewarding ministry of outreach to the Ethiopian community through Bible studies and her gifts of hospitality
BACK FROM AFRICA / SRING 2008
Thank you for praying for me the month that I was in Ethiopia and Kenya!
Psalm 117, the shortest chapter in the Bible says ...
“ Praise the Lord all nations everywhere. Laud Him all the peoples of the earth. For He loves us very dearly and His truth endures. Praise the Lord!
First, the thrill for me was to see how the gospel has begun to penetrate, with much sacrifice, some of the least reached people of Ethiopia. To see the remote Mursi, Banna and Hammer people of SW Ethiopia praising God in their own language and seeking to reach their own was amazing and so encouraging ! I traveled with veteran missionary, Dick McLellan and Ato Mahay who first began to open these regions with the Gospel. Also Joel Barker, a friend from North Carolina who flew famine relief missions by helicopter twenty-two years ago, joined me as we encouraged Ethiopian evangelists in their settings.
Secondly, to see how the gospel changes people who have a hunger for God’s Word was overwhelming! Joe Warring, the SIM Director of Church Partnership, and I arrived in Yirga Chaffe, where we, the Harding family, had served for years. Thousands of people sitting on the ground were waiting to hear the preaching of the Word. For four days they sat on the ground to worship, pray, give and listen. We were blown away, stunned and blessed!
Psalm 117 , my favorite chapter that I memorized as a child in Ethiopia because it was the shortest, has taken on greater meaning that ever!
Thank you for making this possible! Bill
