About the Gemechu family
Mother Bultu Doti, and father, Gemechu Danu, who have been now married for nearly 80 years, have raised their six children in Ethiopia. Gemechu Danu has been a Lutheran pastor for many years and has worked very closely with Norwegian, Swedish and German missionaries. He also was a president of the Western Synod of the Mekane Yesus Church in Ethiopia and worked after he retired in his local church and in Nairobi, Kenya in gospel broadcasting service.
Back row from left to right: Hanna, Aster, Gibrua, Ejigayhu, Selome, Amanuel
Front row from left to right: Bultu and Pastor Gemechu
Selome received her degree in management in Kenya at Daystar University. She previously helped establish the Christian organization "Life in Abundance" in Ethiopia as financial director and administrator and has left this organization to start and operate the Sendafa Children's Orphanage. While establishing the Orphanage she received her Master’s Degree in business and management in Addis Ababa.
Gibrua received her degree in Ethiopian language at the University of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. She was a teacher at the Christian Lalo Aira High School before she received her second degree in social work at Daystar University, Kenya. When returning back to Ethiopia she was working with NGO’s focusing on AIDS victims. In 2012 she graduated with her Master's Degree in social work at Ethiopian Graduate School of Theology and is now the Executive Director of GII.
Ejigayehu is a medical doctor in Germany in obstetrics, and provides financial support to the family in Ethiopia.
Aster received her diploma from an agriculture college, has worked in the ministry of agriculture and is retired.
Hanna worked as a secretary in the Central Ethiopian Synod of the Mekane Yesus Church in Addis Ababa and is retired.
Amanuel has worked with missionaries on different development projects in Ethiopia. He studied five years German and Sociology at the University of Leipzig in Germany. Amanuel married Benita and moved to the United States in 1999. Currently he works part-time at 3M and has an Associate’s Degree from Century College, MN.
Benita is married to Amanuel and was born and raised in Germany and received her Master's degree in teaching violin at the University of Music and Theater "Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdi" in Leipzig, Germany. She is currently teaching private violin and piano lessons at K & S Conservatory of Music in Woodbury, at New Life Academy in Woodbury, at Transfiguration Catholic School in Oakdale and out of her home in Oakdale. She also volunteered with the string program at Valley Crossing Community School in Woodbury and has led the Children's Choir at the My Savior Oromo Evangelical Lutheran Church in Minneapolis for six years.
Benita & Amanuel with their children and Gibrua on the left
The Gemechu family as a whole has and will always work close together with members of the church. The first children they helped have been active in the children’s choir of Sendafa Lutheran Church. Especially Selome and Gibrua are and have been members of many church committees, often serving as elders. Their wish to spread the hope they found in Christ is always present within their humanitarian work expressed in GII.