♰ A Christian group is spending $100 million on a new campaign to promote Jesus Christ and the values they believe he held.
The “He Gets Us” campaign has already started appearing online and will take over billboards and airwaves across the nation with the goal of presenting Jesus in a new light to Millennials and Gen Z, according to Christianity Today.
The group’s TV commercials — including a $20 Million Super Bowl ad, per The Washington Post — and content optimized for other high-profile platforms were created with assistance from Michigan-based marketing agency Haven.
🏈 Super Bowl viewers this Sunday may be surprised to see two ads that don’t seem to have anything to do with Christianity until the end when the words “Jesus” and “He Gets Us” flash across the screen.
The He Gets Us ads running during the Super Bowl, the most watched U.S. event of the year, were created by a nondenominational group to share the message of Christ’s love to whole new audiences.
💭 Here Are 3 Things To Know About The ‘He Gets Us’ Ad Campaign
👉 What is He Gets Us all about?
The two Super Bowl ads created by the campaign will focus on “the behavior Jesus modeled in relationship and conflict,” He Gets Us spokesman Jason Vanderground told CNA.
“Instead of responding to divisiveness in anger or avoiding conflict altogether, Jesus demonstrated how we can and should show confounding love and respect to one another,” said Vanderground.
More than just Super Bowl commercials, the He Gets Us campaign first surfaced in March 2022 and has been causing waves through TV spots, billboards, and digital ads.
Vanderground told CNA the campaign is “a movement to reintroduce people to the Jesus of the Bible and his confounding love and forgiveness. We believe his words and example offer hope and believe they still have relevance in our lives today.”
💭 The Damar Hamlin Monday Night Football Collapse Ritual | Cardiac Arrest
The campaign is not about politics, or even a specific church or denomination, say the organizers.
“We simply want everyone to understand the authentic Jesus as he’s depicted in the Bible — the Jesus of radical forgiveness, compassion, and love,” the He Gets Us website says.
According to an official He Gets Us partners website, the campaign has reached 431 million YouTube views, connected 113,923 people to churches, and has 19,501 churches involved.
Those numbers are before this Sunday’s Super Bowl ads aired which are expected to reach an audience of close to 100 million.
👉 Who created He Gets Us?
According to Vanderground, a group called HAVEN, a creative hub and marketing resource, is the lead agency behind He Gets Us.
“What began as a campaign to answer the question, ‘How did history’s greatest love story become known as a hate group?’ has quickly grown into a movement,” said Vanderground.
He Gets Us is also an initiative of the Servant Foundation, which is managed by the Kansas-based foundation and donor-advised fund The Signatry.
Founded in 2000 by Kansas philanthropic adviser Bill High, The Signatry has received over $4 billion in contributions and has helped make more than $3 billion in charitable grants, its website says.
According to its website, The Signatry funds “discipleship and outreach efforts, Bible translations, cultural care, church plants, anti-human-trafficking missions, student ministries, poverty alleviation, clean water initiatives, and so much more.”
👉 Who sponsors the He Gets Us Super Bowl commercial?
💭 Buffalo Bills Owner’s Wife Kim Pegula Suffered Cardiac Arrest & Collapsed Like Damar!!
The campaign is quiet about its specific donors, saying most of its sponsors “choose to remain anonymous.”
Hobby Lobby co-founder David Greene announced in November that he is one of the campaign’s major donors. Greene was confirmed to be one of the campaign’s major donors by Vanderground.
“We are wanting to say—we being a lot of people—that he gets us,” said Greene. “He understands us. He loves who we hate. I think we have to let the public know and create a movement.”
💭 “What has happened to our investment is odd for any listener,” Dinse wrote in English. “In a country with a strong system of the rule of law and hosting the Head Office of African Union, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa and many diplomatic communities, it is unbelievable that foreign investment can be taken forcefully without recourse Rule of Law.”
Ethiopia has illegally transferred a school run by German investors to Turkey’s state-run Maarif Foundation, according to the manager of the school.
Turkish authorities claim the school was affiliated with the Gülen movement, a faith-based group inspired by Turkish Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen.
Maarif, which was established prior to a coup attempt on July 15, 2016 through legislation in the Turkish parliament, has targeted the closure of Gülen-linked educational institutions since the abortive putsch as part of the foreign policy of Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), which labels the movement as a terrorist organization and accuses it of orchestrating the failed coup. Gülen and the members of his group strongly deny any involvement in the abortive putsch or any terrorist activity.
The school was run by the STEM Education Private Limited Company, founded by German investors in Addis Ababa. It is the second such school the Maarif Foundation has taken over in Ethiopia, after assuming control of another school in Harar in July 2019.
A letter from by Dr. Norbert Helmut Dinse, the general manager of the company, addressed to the German Embassy in Ethiopia, the Ethiopian prime minister and other federal and local authorities, was shared on Twitter by journalist Oktay Yaman.
Etiyopya’da Maarif Vakfı’na devredilen okullar hakkında: Berlin’e ulaşan bilgiye göre, okulları Alman yatırımcılar işletiyormuş. Almanya Dışişleri Bakanlığı, Etiyopya’daki Alman Büyükelçiliği’yle irtibata geçti. Dr. Norbert Helmut Dinse’nin mektubu yetkilileri harekete geçirdi. pic.twitter.com/doVUeX99ER
“What has happened to our investment is odd for any listener,” Dinse wrote in English. “In a country with a strong system of the rule of law and hosting the Head Office of African Union, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa and many diplomatic communities, it is unbelievable that foreign investment can be taken forcefully without recourse Rule of Law.”
“Our Investment, STEM Education Plc. which operates in the trade name of ‘Intellectual Kindergarten, Primary and Secondary School’, is wholly foreign-owned in Ethiopia engaged in educational services,” Dinse wrote, “Initially, the company was established by Turkish Investors. Through time, the three German investors acquired the investment following all procedures required under the law. German investors stepped in and took over the parent company again in full compliance with the requirements of the laws of the land.”
Dinse claims that the problems surrounding the school had started in September 2019 when the local authorities decided to close it.
“We have made every effort to get administrative remedies from different offices,” Dinse said.
“Fortunate enough, the Federal Ministry of Education understood our side, proved the legality of our status, and gave us a school license at the beginning of this academic year (2020-21). But a month later, the school’s commencement, Oromia and Sebeta Education Bureau came to the school with gunned police and expelled all the staff and children from the school Friday, January 29, 2021, while the teaching is going on.”
Dinse went on to say that a committee comprising the offices of the Ethiopian Attorney General, Ethiopia Investment Agency, ministers of education and foreign affairs and Oromia Education Bureau was formed to tackle the issue.
“Unfortunately, on July 14, 2021, staff from the Sebeta Education bureau and the Turkish staff of Maarif Foundation trespassed our compound and took photos and left out. Our Security Company could not stop them from the entrance. Today, the same people came, broke keys of our buildings, destroyed the security system and took all illegal actions,” Dinse said.
Turkish authorities claim the school was taken over after a legal battle that spanned several years.
“Official handover of the school will soon follow after the conclusion of the asset transfer,” Levent Şahin, the Maarif’s Ethiopia representative, told the Anadolu news agency.
“We strongly believe that our investment is well protected by the Ethiopian Investment Laws, International Investment Treaties adopted by Ethiopia and the Bilateral Investment Treaty between Ethiopia and Germany,” Dinse wrote, requesting “all concerned stakeholders to stop the outrageous conduct of Oromia and Sebeta Education Bureau and Maarif Foundation from illegally seizing our investment.”
According to Birol Akgün, chairman of the Maarif Foundation, they have taken over 216 schools affiliated with the Gülen movement in 44 countries.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s AKP has jailed some 96,000 people while investigating a total of 622,646 and detaining 301,932 over alleged links to the movement as part of a massive purge launched under the pretext of an anti-coup fight, according to the latest official figures.
🔥 Prepare For a Massive Refugee Wave and a Return of The Horrors Of ISIS as Ethiopia and Eritrea Will Likely Descend into Chaos as a Bloodbath Ensues for US/NATO Control in Africa
👉 The chance of US intervention into the Horn of Africa region is very high
🔥 As predicted, things worsens and the country descends into a brutal civil war between the Tigray, Amhara, Oromo and Somali groups. This naturally is used to justify “humanitarian intervention”, so NATO and friends get involved and raze Ethiopia and Eritrea. Thousands die, the current food/famine situation goes from bad to nightmare mode, and fighting continues for power and Ethiopia becomes a war zone between what could be the Republics of Tigray, Amhara, Afan, Ogaden, and Gambela.
🔥 Sudan and South Sudan, sensing the blood in the water and wanting to maintain water access on their ends due to Ethiopia’s position as the motherland of the Nile, get involved and start taking pieces for themselves.
🔥 Meanwhile, countless people have died of famine, the conditions are the worst in all of Africa, and people are begging to leave. The region, which is now a combination between rebel occupied or US/UN/NATO occupied, becomes the worst place on the planet, and then suddenly, people begin to migrate, encouraged by the US/UN/NATO.
🔥 The Ethiopian dam project is in the dustbin, parts of Ethiopia- possibly some of the above mentioned pseudorepublics -go to Sudan, South Sudan, and Somalia, meanwhile Ethiopia gets the “Gaddhafi treatment” given to Libya back in 2012 as “rebels” take control, and just like in the days of ISIS, the liquidations of common people in horrible ways are back on camera. The world watches in horror, except instead of Arabs and Semites, its Hamites and Afro-Semitic peoples who are suffering. The world watches in horror.
🔥 Referring to the Nile drying up, remember that wars often do not help human or natural circumstances. In fact, there is a strong chance that even if the US does blow up the Horn of Africa, it will not stop the environmental factors other than to worsen them. In other words, Egypt will still starve- it is just that they will be joined by the sub-Saharan African neighbors.
💭 Prepare For A Massive Refugee Wave And A Return Of The Horrors Of ISIS as Ethiopia And Eritrea Will Likely Descend Into Chaos As A Bloodbath Ensues For US/NATO Control In Africa
Back in 2015, Walid Shoebat wrote about a massive food crisis coming to the Middle East, where the Nile would dry up and millions would suffer.
You can read the full piece here. It is particularly interesting in light of developments taking place in Tigray that I have written about, where Tigrayans are crying ‘genocide’ as the fighting between Tigray against Ethiopia and Eritrea intensifies as the world watches with a sympathetic eye towards Tigray.
You have heard this from me over and over at Shoebat.com. I am going to say it again- watch for Ethiopia to start appearing in the news like a floodgate. Forget about the Chauvin trial and Black Lives Matter when it happens, because if this happens- and there is a strong chance it will -it is going to be world-shaking.
Ethiopia’s basically been in the middle of a long, historic, and like with many African conflicts, a brutal war between the formerly dominant Tigray ethnic group (where the WHO director Tedros is from) and the eastern region of the country. Ethiopia, as I have explained, straddles the US/NATO and Soviet blocs of influence, and now that things are losing control there again, they are ripe for exploitation. It is not a surprise that Biden’s foreign policy wing, from what it seems, is shifting a huge chunk of their attention there.
Basically, the rebellious group (Tigray People’s Liberation front, or TPLF) seems to have baited Ethiopia’s current and inexperienced leader into overplaying his hand by acting overly aggressive against them. This makes it so they can claim persecution as part of a an attempt to regain power in their region after having had been ousted decades ago. It seems they have succeeded, as Ethiopia started the war with the public relations “high ground” following TPLF attacks on an Ethiopian military base along with rocket incursions into Eritrea (and hence is why Eritrea became involved). However, because Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed took a very strong hand against the TPLF without properly managing the image of the situation, he and Eritrea both have lost control over the public relations side, not to mention some of their own soldier’s actions. In other words, the militaries have mostly won the conflict, but lost the image battle. This is particularly serious considering that the TPLF has been used historically by NATO, such as during the 1970s and 1980s as proxy fighters against the Soviet-supported Derg that overthrew Haile Selassie and set up a communist dictatorship.
Just look at the news. CNN recently had an exclusive interview with the leader of TPLF. The TPLF also had a particularly strong relationship with the Obama administration, and remember, Biden has naturally maintained strong ties with the previous administration he was Vice President for.
Will the US put troops on the ground? I have suspected as much, but it would most likely all be done in the context of NATO- think Bosnia 1994 but more serious. The UN may have her own peacekeepers there too, but no matter what happens, at this point, where the USA goes NATO as a whole also goes.
Either way, the situation is bad, and the chance for intervention is very high. For example, consider the following situation as a possible, but clearly not inevitable scenario-
Ethiopia puts down the TPLF rebellion and occupies Tigray. Separatist movements move into the underground, as they gain support from the US and NATO as the “international community” condemns Ahmed. Ethiopia, Eritrea, and puts sanctions on them. Ethiopia continues to have sporadic bouts of violence both with Sudan and within its own borders as conditions in the country continue to deteriorate. Some of this is happening/may happen in the near future, such as with the major refugee crisis that has developed already.
A Tigray insurgency akin to IRA begins, and at the same time, the various other inter-country and border ethnic groups, particularly the Oromos and Somalis, start their own rebellions. In response, Ahmed tries to keep control and he cracks down and starts arresting opposition and leadership. IN response, the US/NATO uses it to accuse him of further “human rights abuses: while the media promotes the political line. As predicted, things worsens and the country descends into a brutal civil war between the Tigray, Amhara, Oromo and Somali groups. This naturally is used to justify “humanitarian intervention”, so NATO and friends get involved and raze Ethiopia and Eritrea. Thousands die, the current food/famine situation goes from bad to nightmare mode, and fighting continues for power and Ethiopia becomes a war zone between what could be the Republics of Tigray, Amhara, Afan, Ogaden, and Gambela.
Sudan and South Sudan, sensing the blood in the water and wanting to maintain water access on their ends due to Ethiopia’s position as the motherland of the Nile, get involved and start taking pieces for themselves. Egypt was already involved in the military action because she is the second largest recipient of US aid after Israel (and honestly, an Ethiopian denial of Egyptian water demands would be an attack on the image of US power projection abroad, which the US will never allow to happen), and now the nation is just a shadow of its former self. The Ethiopian dam project is in the dustbin, parts of Ethiopia- possibly some of the above mentioned pseudorepublics -go to Sudan, South Sudan, and Somalia, meanwhile Ethiopia gets the “Gaddhafi treatment” given to Libya back in 2012 as “rebels” take control, and just like in the days of ISIS, the liquidations of common people in horrible ways are back on camera. The world watches in horror, except instead of Arabs and Semites, its Hamites and Afro-Semitic peoples who are suffering. The world watches in horror.
Meanwhile, countless people have died of famine, the conditions are the worst in all of Africa, and people are begging to leave. The region, which is now a combination between rebel occupied or US/UN/NATO occupied, becomes the worst place on the planet, and then suddenly, people begin to migrate, encouraged by the US/UN/NATO. Where do they go? Sure enough they are being invited by Germany, France, England, and all of the European Union plus the US to migrate. The US does her part too, of course, and the nationalist in Europe and the US begin to become angry again, nationalism rises as people flood in and crime increases…
..And sure enough, it’s 2015 and 2016 all over again, except much larger and more serious. Plus, it just happens to have the added effects of flooding the area with German/Italian/French/American industries involved in the rare earth metals business, as well as other goods needed for war. To that, Russian and Chinese investment in the region, both being well-known and acknowledged as geopolitical threats (especially the Russians, since they have been making inroads into Ethiopia for centuries as a part of their own plans and struggles with Germany) are kicked out again, and left with the options of basically trolling western powers instead of actually having real power to influence the destination of those parts of the world by their own national actions. Russia continues to move further into isolation as does China, except the Russians are more serious because they know what is at stake and continue to play their side carefully in preparations for a coming global war. Meanwhile, the US and NATO militarizes the whole region, continuing already existing trends such as the French re-militarization of their former colony in Djibouti.
This is just one scenario. But it is a very possible scenario. No matter what happens, however, the chance of US intervention into the Horn of Africa region is very high. Remember that back in 1993 the US was there for similar reasons (the Black Hawk Down incident), and in this sense, nothing had really changed, except the natural issues I mentioned before are closer to being realized than in the past.
Likewise, referring to the Nile drying up, remember that wars often do not help human or natural circumstances. In fact, there is a strong chance that even if the US does blow up the Horn of Africa, it will not stop the environmental factors other than to worsen them. In other words, Egypt will still starve- it is just that they will be joined by the sub-Saharan African neighbors.
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Addis Ethiopia Weblog 