The Rev. Workineh Belesse

The Rev. Workineh (“Workman”) Belesse, 38, is the deacon at St. George Orthodox Church and assists the Rev. Nabil Hanna in the divine liturgy every Sunday. On weekdays, Workman rises at 3:00 a.m. to drive to the Indianapolis Airport, where he manages the Starbucks Café for Host Marriott Services. He has a wife, Mealat, and 4-year-old daughter, Tehetena. 
 

Workman left his native Ethiopia in 1989 at the age of 20. At that time a Communist-controlled government, which received aid from the Soviet Union, drafted all of its young men into the army. Refusing to serve because of his Christian convictions and passion for Jesus, he left the country along with thousands of other refugees and spent 20 days walking to Nairobi, Kenya. He left a brother, sister, mother and father, who was a parish priest in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.  He was ordained a deacon at the age of 14.

            Where did he sleep during this 20-day journey? “Under the trees with a blanket,”� he says.  After arriving in Nairobi, he spent the next four years working and living in a refugee camp where he met and married his wife, Mealat, in 1991 where she came to visit the camp. While she was working for the Ethiopian Embassy in Nairobi, he and his wife helped organize and teach Bible study and Sunday school classes in the refugee camp. “I was born and exist to love and serve the Lord and to lead others closer to Him,” he says. 
 

He came to the U.S. in March 1992, but without his wife because of many bureaucratic and red-tape delays with her immigration papers. Catholic Relief Services sponsored him as a refugee and helped him settle in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.

            “I came to the U.S. with $20 in my pocket and even that was sent from the U.S from one of the people I know. My first job was mopping floors and washing dishes at a restaurant,” he says.  He joined St. Mary Antiochian Orthodox Church and enrolled in classes at St. Tikhon Theological Seminary, an accredited seminary of the Orthodox Church in America. In January 1995, his wife joined him after that three-year separation. “That time was a struggle; I faced a big adjustment to the new language, weather and the culture and not having my wife here with me,” he says.
 

            He and Maleat came to Indianapolis in September 1996 seeking a better place to raise their family and a larger community of Ethiopians. He likes Indianapolis because of its “family environment.”  He says, “It’s a great city because there is a lot for all to enjoy. Whether you are a visitor or a local Hoosier, there is always something new to discover.”

David Sumner